When Sys.Application.initialize Causes Operation Aborted in IE

As you might already know, I’m a power user of ASP.NET AJAX. I’ve been using it in large commercial projects for over three years and I’ve come to love JavaScript and be somewhat of an ASP.NET AJAX expert. In fact, I even co-authored a book on ASP.NET AJAX Server Control development with my bud Adam Calderon if that helps lend me some credence.

ASP.NET AJAX Localization Slides and Code

A while back I promised a three-part series on ASP.NET AJAX Localization. I wrote Part 1, but wasn’t entirely happy with the way it turned out; primarily because I was still learning Localization. I’ve been chugging along with writing my ASP.NET AJAX Control Book since then with a couple of posts on a JavaScript Stack Trace and a JavaScript Error Publishing Control since that first post, and haven’t really gotten back to finish the promised Part 2 and Part 3.

Well, I’m not really sure when I’m going to get back to writing the full posts, but I recently put together a slide deck and some code examples on ASP.NET AJAX Localization for a presentation at work. I’m pretty happy with the way they turned out so I thought I’d post them and let anybody take a look at it.

• MSDN Code Site
• Slide Deck (Office 2007)
• Slide Deck (Office 2003)
• Source Code (VS 2008)

A JavaScript Stack Trace in ASP.NET AJAX

Update: Source Code Located Here

Something came up in that work recently that I’ve found to be quite useful in my day to day coding sessions and that’s how to create a stack trace in ASP.NET AJAX.

For starters, JavaScript doesn’t provide an easy way of pulling the stack trace of the call so we’re going to have to roll our own.

I’ve seen a couple of different methods of creating the stack trace and the one I’m going to use comes from Helephant.com. I really like this implementation and I’m glad that I was able to poach somebody else’s code to create the stack trace (thx Helen!) rather than have to create mine from scratch.

Using Localization in ASP.NET AJAX (Part 1) : Using Localization in ASP.NET

I’ve been learning about Localization in ASP.NET AJAX and I’m not a big fan of the resources that are currently available so I thought I would write down my thoughts in the hopes that other people might find them useful. It looks like this will be a three part series on Localization in ASP.NET Ajax and this first entry will be about localization in ASP.NET without the Ajax portion.

Part 1: How to localize an application in ASP.NET

Edit: After writing this post, I found an excellent resource on the basics of localization in ASP.NET. Rick Strahl, a resource for many in the .NET Community and co-publisher of CoDe magazine, wrote an excellent article a while back on Localization: Introduction to Localization in ASP.NET 2.0. While I’m glad that I went through the process of writing this article and I believe that some of my insights come from a different angle than Rick’s, if you’re just starting out with Localization, his article is a must read.

Another decent resource is ASP.NET 2.0 Localization Features: A Fresh Approach to Localizing Web Applications

Part 2: How to localize JavaScript using static JavaScript files

Part 3: How to localize ASP.NET AJAX using embedded resources

I’m Writing a Book!

So for the past year or so, I’ve been working on an ASP.NET AJAX Extensions book for Addison & Wesley’s Development Series with the all around good guy and genius Adam Calderon.

We’re far enough into the project with enough chapters completed (at least 1st drafts) that we’re going to start talking about the book with the feeling that A&W won’t pull the plug 🙂

So this is the first post announcing to the world that we’re working on a book that will probably (fingers crossed) come out at Tech-Ed 2008 in Orlando, FL.

A&W will be posting a rough cuts of the book in the very, very near future and I’ll add a link to it when I get the URL. You’ll be able to provide comments on the chapters as well as email us directly!

Just to give you a small taste of the topics in this book let me just say that the UpdatePanel is only getting one chapter… We’re going to dive deep into the JavaScript that makes it all work.

Some of the chapter highlights

1. Detailed Object Oriented concepts in JS with and without the Framework (makes you apprecite the Framework that much more!)
2. Deep dive into components, controls, and behaviors. How they’re created, the inner workings of the $create method including how to get the properties parameter to do nutty things.
3. Deep dive into Sys.Application and how it runs the show
4. How to create server handlers that work like the profile and authentication service so you can create and roll out 3rd party components that do NOT need a web service or WCF service to be installed on the server for client-server communication (amazing insights!)
5. Tons more!

Keep up with this blog and Adam‘s for more information regarding the book in the coming weeks!

Edit: I can’t believe it’s already on Amazon

Taking Longer than Expected …

I was installing the ASP.NET 3.5 Extensions CTP Preview this evening and got this awesome message as it was installing.

It did eventually install correctly, but I thought it was funny.