NetAdvantage for ASP.NET 2008 Volume 1 Released

2008 Volume 1 introduces full support for .NET 3.5 and Visual Studio 2008.

• .NET 2.0 based controls work seamlessly in projects targeting either .NET 2.0 or .NET 3.5
• New natively compiled .NET 3.5 assemblies are available
• Support for both Visual Studio Web Site and Web Application project types
• Support for binding to LINQ queries and the LinqDataSource control
• Integration of the controls in the Visual Studio 2008 Toolbox

New Controls

2008 Volume 1 includes the first release of Aikido-based controls WebDialogWindow, WebSplitter and WebImageViewer are now included in the standard NetAdvantage for ASP.NET toolset. 

• The WebDialogWindow is an ASP.NET based dialog window control. Designed to replicate the functionality of a traditional standard Windows Forms dialog window, the control allows developers to circumvent “popup blockers” features in many modern browsers and easily include both modal and non-modal dialog window functionality in their web applications.
• The WebSplitter control is an ASP.NET based control that allows developers to easily subdivide sections of their web page, which end-users can then resize or even collapse. The control simulates the familiar splitter user interface found in many modern Rich Client applications and allows an end user to control the layout of their workspace, optimizing it for their tastes and performance. The control also allows developers to avoid the use of HTML frames to present pods of information, which simplifies the development of integrated application parts.
• The WebImageViewer control is a simple ASP.NET based control which allows developers to easily add image display capabilities to their web applications. Images are displayed in an image strip fashion, horizontally or vertically, and can be scrolled or dragged by the end user using a smooth animation to transition the image strip. Images can be selected by the end user and applications can react to that selection.

The Aikido -based controls are a new class of Infragistics ASP.NET control, built on top of the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions and designed to take advantage of all of the capabilities of the MSFT AJAX framework.  Additionally Aikido controls are lighter and make heavy use of CSS for styling giving you more power to create the amazing Web 2.0 applications you want to.

If you downloaded and tried out the October CTP release of the Aikido controls, you will see that we made a number of changes to the controls, many of which are based on your feedback. 

• Namespace organization has been greatly improved
• JavaScript size has been dramatically reduced and the number of script files has been reduced
• Each controls object model has been tightened up and simplified

ITypedList Support

Finally, a smaller but no less important feature is new support for binding to objects that implement the ITypedList interface.  The WebGrid now understands how to bind to this type of object and generate the appropriate Columns based on the descriptions returned by the interface.

We are really looking forward to seeing what you can create with this release, and of course to your feedback on the controls in the Forums.