Enhancing PHP Programming with the ASP.NET AJAX Framework
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In this article, I will teach you how to introduce the Microsoft ASP.NET AJAX client-side framework into PHP programming by digging into its inner workings. I will also provide a typical sample application.
As most people know, the ASP.NET AJAX framework is composed of three components: ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions, ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, and ASP.NET Futures CTP. The first two components rely heavily on the ASP.NET 2.0 server-side controls. In essence, the two parts are mainly designed to extend the Ajax characteristics of ASP.NET 2.0 (as well as later versions).
In contrast, ASP.NET Futures CTP (formerly called 'ASP.NET AJAX Futures CTP') is rather loosely coupled with the ASP.NET server side controls, while still mainly used for the ASP.NET-based web applications. The main business logic is shifted to the client side in order to drastically improve the overall performance of the system.
On the other hand, there is plenty of JavaScript source code accompanying the above three components, most of which is provided by the ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions and ASP.NET Futures CTP. The most important thing is that a good portion of the JavaScript code can be taken out and put into use in other kinds of server side web development platforms.
Take MicrosoftAjax.js, MicrosoftAjaxTimer.js, and MicrosoftAjaxWebForms.js; you will easily see that they are made up of independent JavaScript code, with merely a copy of the code embedded inside the assembly System.Web.Extensions.dll. In other words, these scripts are independent of ASP.NET server side. Therefore, it's probable that we can leverage these scripts under other server-side web development environments, such as JSP, PHP, and Perl. Moreover, while programming these server-side techniques, we can make much use of the features that come with the ASP.NET AJAX framework, such as the ASP.NET AJAX script features and more advanced client-side characteristics.
To be honest, to achieve the functionalities of ASP.NET AJAX and even the functionality of the ASP.NET AJAX server control ScriptManager, we have to use other non-ASP.NET techniques to make further and even arduous simulating development.
In this article, we are going to explore how to utilize the web service functionality provided by the ASP.NET AJAX client-side framework under PHP environments by dint of the open source project "PHP for Microsoft AJAX Library." At present, however, the project PHP for Microsoft AJAX Library is still in its infancy and it seems a bit early to leverage it in practical scenarios. We can therefore appreciate how to combine PHP with the Microsoft AJAX Library beforehand in order to use its Ajax feature.
Next: Introducing PHP for Microsoft AJAX Library >>
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