Ajax content template question

vbboyd · March 23rd, 2012, 03:40 PM

Considering the following snippet of markup code:

Code:

  <asp:UpdatePanel runat="server" ID="DeparmentsUpdatePanel">
    <ContentTemplate>
       <asp:GridView id="departmentsGrid" runat="server" AllowPaging="True" PageSize="4" 
        onpageindexchanging="departmentsGrid_PageIndexChanging1" 
        onsorting="departmentsGrid_Sorting1">
  </asp:GridView>

 </ContentTemplate>

Why is it necessary to wrap the gridview in a ContentTemplate tag in order for the Upadate Panel to render the gridview data/content? Is contentTemplate part of the UpdatePanel functionality? I thought Update Panel was a stand alone widget or device. Because when I try to take the ContentTemplate tag out the above listed code, the compiler for Visual studio goes crazy throws a bunch of warning and errors and tells me that I can't do that. Boy howdy does the Visual Studio compiler complain about it when I do that let me tell you. Also on similar note, I noticed that after loading up my Visual Studio with the AJAX control toolkit from what I had on Visual Studio from over a year ago after the hard drive on my other computer crashed that the AJAX control toolkit has added a whole new slew of AJAX widgets in the AJAX control toolkit that I didn't see a year ago or at least it seems that way to me. So it might just seem that despite the oncoming rush for JQuery that AJAX doesn't seem to want to be going anywhere or away fast when it comes to .NET web development. Am I wrong about this?
Also while I have you here. I know that you have touched on this issue before, but I still have some confusion in my mind about the difference between heavily typed datasets and LINQ and ET. What is the difference between the two and what are the similarities? Does this mean that heavily typed datasets are rapidly becoming a thing of the past?

Thanks once again!

Imar · March 24th, 2012, 05:01 AM

Quote:

I thought Update Panel was a stand alone widget or device.

It is. But it uses a nested ContentTemplate control to define its contents. Since the UpdatePanel can also contain triggers (in the <Triggers /> element), the UpdatePanel uses the ContentTemplate to distinguish between content and triggers. Many other controls use child controls as well.

No-one said AJAX is going away. What is going away and is getting replaced with jQuery is the Microsoft client side AJAX library. The toolkit is still going string despite the many alternatives.

Quote:

I still have some confusion in my mind about the difference between heavily typed datasets and LINQ and ET

.I assume you mean strongly typed data sets.

DataSet have a very strong relationship with the database and carry a lot of overhead. You can find the differences between typed and untyped datasets here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4...typed-datasets
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclien...=1050&bih=1318

For the differences between typed datasets and your own POCO objects for EF / LINQ to SQL

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1...tasets-ado-net
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4...atasets-in-net
https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclien...=1050&bih=1318

Quote:

Does this mean that heavily typed datasets are rapidly becoming a thing of the past?

IMO, they already are. I don't think I've used or create one in the past four years or so.....

Cheers,

Imar