ASP.NET 2.0 server controls for AJAX

In this series, we have looked at creating
AJAX pages using Atlas-a package of
technologies for ASP.NET 2.0 that allows Web developers to create extremely
dynamic pages very easily. In this part, we'll take a look at easing development
even further by utilizing a number of Atlas server controls available for
ASP.NET 2.0.

Last month we created an autocomplete search box similar to
Google Suggest, with the help of some XML tags on the page so that the textbox
works with a server based Web service that returns a word-list matching the
characters you've typed in. The only code was the declarative XML syntax used
for getting the functionality.

Let's extend this capability with Atlas Web Server controls
for ASP.NET 2.0 and use the final version of VS.NET 2005 to create a much more
functional application with AJAX
features. To begin, install VS2005 and the Atlas template (.VSI) for
RC/ RTM from the Atlas site.