14 DAY TRIAL // ASP.NET building AJAX applications can now access new resources made available by Microsoft on October 15th. The Redmond company kicked up a notch the Microsoft Ajax Library Preview 6 and introduced the Microsoft Ajax Minifier. Scott Guthrie, corporate vice president of Microsoft's .NET Developer Platform, referred to Preview 6 of the Microsoft Ajax Library as a significant update, and according to the software giant, devs will be able to leverage various enhancements, including a new client script loader, but also imperative syntax, and jQuery support.
The “release includes the following feature improvements: Better Imperative Syntax: A new, simplified, code syntax for creating client controls. Client Script Loader: A new client-side script loader that can dynamically load all of the JavaScript files required by a client control or library automatically, and executes the scripts in the right order. Better jQuery Integration: All Microsoft Ajax controls are now automatically exposed as jQuery plug-ins,” Guthrie noted.
Essentially, Microsoft has been hard at work improving as well as introducing new capabilities to the company’s client-side AJAX library. Developers already familiar with the AJAX Library Preview already know that traditionally the software giant allows them to integrate it with any version of ASP.NET. This means that the Ajax Library Preview 6 can be used with ASP.NET 2.0, 3.5 and even 4.0.
In addition, Microsoft has worked on a new tool, set up to permit developers to boost the performance of their websites. The concept behind the Microsoft Ajax Minifier is simple, the smaller the JavaScript files the faster the website leveraging them. ‘This tool allows you to substantially improve the performance of your websites by reducing the size of your JavaScript files. It can be run both as a command-line tool, and also ships as a Visual Studio MSBuild task that you can integrate into your VS projects to automatically minify your JavaScript files whenever you do a build,” Guthrie explained.
Both the Microsoft Ajax Library Preview 6 and Microsoft Ajax Minifier are now available for download via Codeplex.