One of the problems that web pages have, is that they are pages. Think of them as pages in a book. When you finish reading one page you need to turn the next page. This transition is also true of clicking on a link on a web page. You get a slight loss of service while the new page is loading. Whilst developers can minimize that flicker it can be sometime distracting especially on slow bandwidth Internet connections.

ASP.net does not fix this problem either. Clicking a button or other website control would typically cause a postback where the page is sent to the web server, perhaps to a database server and then back to the web browser. The net effect is that web applications look clunky and the standard HTML and ASP controls do not allow for inspired web interfaces.

ASP.net AJAX was invented to alleviate many of these problems. Ajax is a group of interrelated web development techniques used to create interactive web applications or rich Internet applications. AJAX allows the developer to target specific parts of the web page that needs to be updated and only sends that portion to the web server for processing. This means that the page flicker is avoided and a streamlined look and feel of a website can finally be achieved.

Additional controls designed to emulate standard Windows and Mac operating system features such as combo boxes, calendar controls and slide controls are also available. You can now build web sites that can mimic the look and feel of Windows or Mac applications such as MS Outlook, Word and Excel.

All of the pages on this website are designed with ASP.net and many of them utilise AJAX controls. The Member Tasks web page is all AJAX.

Take a test drive and see for yourself.