Preface

The jQuery library has become increasingly popular with web application developers because of its simplicity and ease of use. The library is supported by an active community of developers and has grown significantly over the years after its inception in 2006 by John Resig. Using this library eases complicated tasks and adds to the interactive experience of the end user. Its extensible plugin architecture enables developers to build additional functionalities on top of the core library.

With Microsoft's contribution of Templates, DataLink, and Globalization plugins to the jQuery library and the distribution of jQuery with Visual Studio 2010 onwards, the library has gained popularity with ASP.NET developers. jQuery can be very easily interfaced with ASP.NET controls as well as custom user controls. It can be used to validate controls using client side scripts, thus giving us an alternative for server side Validation Controls. It can be used to incorporate cool animation effects as well as to create graphic-rich pages. It can be used to post AJAX requests to web services, page methods, and HTTP handlers. The possibilities with jQuery are endless.

This cookbook aims to cover some of the day-to-day tasks faced by ASP.NET developers and how jQuery can be applied to work out the same. We will be focusing on interfacing jQuery with ASP.NET applications and some of the amazing tasks that can be accomplished using this powerful library. The recipes described in this book give fast and easy solutions to some of the common encountered problems in web applications.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Working with ASP.NET Controls, describes the interfacing of standard ASP.NET controls with the jQuery library. Controls such as TextBox, CheckBoxList, DropDownList, and Hyperlink are covered in this chapter.

Chapter 2, Validation of ASP.NET Controls, explains different client side validation techniques that can be used with jQuery for validation of ASP.NET controls. These validation techniques provide a substitute for server side Validation Controls.

Chapter 3, Working with GridView Control, explores different manipulations that can be applied to the ASP.NET GridView control. You will learn to highlight rows/cells, remove rows/cells, use plugins, and apply animation effects using scripts.

Chapter 4, Working with Image Control, describes interesting applications of jQuery with the ASP.NET Image control. The recipes covered demonstrate handy utilities such as zooming, cropping, swapping, and changing the opacity of images. You will also learn to build a photo gallery using jQuery.

Chapter 5, Animations in ASP.NET, looks into various interesting animation effects that can be achieved using jQuery. You will learn to apply different types of animation effects to ASP.NET Label, Image, and Panel controls. Various effects such as fading, sliding, enlarging, and so on are covered in this chapter. The chapter also demonstrates animation chaining and prevention of animation queue buildup.

Chapter 6, AJAX and ASP.NET (Part 1), demonstrates the making of AJAX calls using jQuery. The chapter describes three basic techniques of sending AJAX request to the server: via page methods, web services, and HTTP handlers. The chapter also demonstrates the use of the Firebug add-on in Mozilla Firefox browser to investigate the AJAX request/response.

Chapter 7, AJAX and ASP.NET (Part 2), explores more advanced applications of jQuery AJAX. The recipes in this chapter show how to work with HTML, XML, script, JSON, JSONP, and complex data types such as objects using AJAX. You will also learn to build a search engine using Yahoo! Search API.

Chapter 8, Client Templating in ASP.NET, explains the use of Microsoft's jQuery Templates plugin in ASP.NET websites. The chapter covers both inline as well as external templates.

What you need for this book

You will need to use the jQuery library and Visual Studio (2005 and above) to work out the examples described in this book. Some of the recipes also require the download of jQuery plugins. The source code included with the book is based in C#.

Who this book is for

This book is for ASP.NET developers wanting to learn the nitty-gritty of interfacing jQuery with ASP.NET applications. The expertise level ranges from basic to advanced.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "Create a new ASP.NET website Chapter1 in Visual Studio 2010."

A block of code is set as follows:

<body>
<form id="form1" runat="server">
<! -INCLUDE ASPX MARKUP HERE-- >
</form>
</body>

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

.defaultText
{
font-style:italic;
color:#CCCCCC;
}

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Add a TextBox field with a Search button to the form".

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