Writing AJAX web page using Anthem

When I first started on trying to find a way to do AJAX in asp.net, I searched through the internet to find the various framework. One interesting site that provided me a comparison is here. At that time, Atlas was still in beta. I then started comparing what it would take to implement it. Most of the framework requires many steps.

Finally, I found the easiest one - Anthem. Why I like it? Well, to use it just download the source code, compile it and then use the assembly generated - it comes with VS2003 version and VS2005 version.

When in VS2003, just create a new tab in the Toolbox and then click Add Items.



Once you browse and select the anthem.dll, you will get to choose which control to add to the Toolbox:



The control list is as follows (see it looks identical to the default controls that comes with the Framework):



After you have set up the Toolbox, you can drag and drop in to your Webform as you would with a normal webcontrol. All the attributes found in the Webcontrol is also available in the Anthem control. There are some additional attributes such as

• AutoUpdateAfterCallBack
• AutoCallBack
• EnableCallBack
• EnabledDuringCallBack
• PostCallBackFunction

The above are AJAX related options. The critical one that needs to be enabled (set True) is AutoUpdateAfterCallBack. If not set the state will not be updated.

Next look at the control comparison:

Anthem Label
<anthem:Label id="antLabel" runat="server" AutoUpdateAfterCallBack="True"></anthem:Label>

Webcontrol Label:
<asp:Label id="lblMsg" runat="server"></asp:Label>

Anthem TextBox:
<anthem:TextBox id="TextBox2" runat="server" AutoUpdateAfterCallBack="True"></anthem:TextBox>



Webcontrol
<asp:TextBox id="TextBox1" runat="server"></asp:TextBox>



As you can see, everything is identical except for the additional AJAX properties. Coding wise, all methods are identical between the two.