Microsoft today announced the official Beta release of its ASP.NET AJAX v1.0 development framework. Integrated with ASP.NET 2.0, the final version of AJAX is set to be released later this year. The platform promises programmers to enable more interactive web applications that allow a higher grade of user personalization. It features asynchronous client-to-server networking, timer control, and criptManager/ScriptManagerProxy controls on the server side, and JavaScript authentication, selector control, and Trace class on the client side, to name some of the features.
There are three different downloads available for the new AJAX platform. The Core Beta download is the one fully supported by Microsoft and has complete integration with ASP.NET, as well as support for networking stack, component model, and extender base classes.
The second download is called the Value-Add CTP Beta download, which has higher-level features but won't necessarily be supported mainstream at first, but, according to Microsoft. will eventually be integrated into the core redistribution. The third download is the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, a collection of 28 free tools and controls that enhance the features built-in to ASP.NET/AJAX.
All three are available on Microsoft's AJAX site.
