You’re correct to question using the CDN on an intranet. I wouldn’t use it internally either.

What you can do is save the CDN’s files locally and host them on your intranet server. To use the DataView, I believe just these scripts are needed:

http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/start.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxCore.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxComponentModel.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxSerialization.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js

Save those all in the same directory, and then reference that local copy of start.js in your page. Sys.require() will load your local copies instead of the ones on the CDN then. Insert a .debug before the .js to retrieve the uncompressed version of any file (e.g. http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/start.debug.js).

For expanded functionality, like auto-fetching data from web services, the DataContext, oData, etc, get these as well:

http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxNetwork.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxWebServices.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxDataContext.js
http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/MicrosoftAjaxOpenData.js

In retrospect, I should have personally questioned earlier the difficulty in finding the MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js library.

Is it just me or is the AJAX client library stuff hard to keep a handle on from a version and best practice in usage perspective? Is there actually a “final” released version of this?

This may be going off topic slightly, but:

I appreciate that things are “simplified” by using the CDN but I’m not clear on best practice within an intranet environment (we have a number of web apps deployed within our organisation). Surely it is quicker to get the scripts from an internal web server rather than to go out to the internet to CDN?

Best wishes.

Robin

However, watch out because this version of MicrosoftTemplates.js doesn’t add dataView to sys.create. So, typical code that worked with the September beta won’t work now without a little modification.

You can either use $create:

<script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/start.debug.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  Sys.require([Sys.components.dataView, Sys.components.openDataContext], function () {
    var ds = Sys.create.openDataContext({ serviceUri: "WcfDataService1.svc" });
 
    $create(Sys.UI.DataView, {
          dataProvider: ds,
          fetchOperation: "Routes",
          fetchParameters: { $expand: 'Airport,Airport1' },
          autoFetch: true
        },
        null,
        null,
        document.getElementById('airportsView')
     );
  });
</script>

Or, use the nice jQuery plugin syntax they added at the last minute:

<script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/act/40412/start.debug.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  Sys.require([Sys.scripts.jQuery, Sys.components.dataView, Sys.components.openDataContext], function () {
    var ds = Sys.create.openDataContext({ serviceUri: "WcfDataService1.svc" });
 
    $('#airportsView').dataView({
      dataProvider: ds,
      fetchOperation: "Routes",
      fetchParameters: { $expand: 'Airport,Airport1' },
      autoFetch: true
    });
  });
</script>

Ultimately though, I wouldn’t suggest writing new code against the DataView. Everyone’s efforts are going into jQuery.tmpl now, and it will be the preferred method going forward.

Finally managed to track down the MicrosoftAjaxTemplates.js being as an embedded resource in 4.1.40412.0 version of AjaxControlToolkit.dll.

Although this is not referenced from the ToolScriptManager necessitating an extract of the js file using Reflector.

Is it really this hard?

I think that while the example you provided doesn’t quite fit what I want to do, in that I have table headings that I also don’t want to be visible unless some results are returned, it certainly is useful to know about using the itemPlaceHolder property of the DataView.

I guess what I’ll need to do is to make the whole table not visble prior to binding and then once the DataBinding has occurred look to see if data was retrieved and then just make the table vsisible or not.

Thanks again.

So you will need to build a table that contains a placeholder describing where the template instances should go, and seperately define a template table. Something like this:

<table id="results">
  <tbody>
     <tr id="ph">
        <td>Now Loading...</td>
     </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>
 
 
<table style="display:hidden">
  <tbody id="searchResultItems" class="sys-template">
      <tr><td>...</td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Then do what you are doing except also set dataView.set_itemPlaceholder to the ph element. When the DataView renders, the placeholder element (the TR containing the TD “now loading”) is completely removed, and the instances of the template are inserted into the tbody at the point where it was. So that also means, by the way, you can define header/footer rows, like so:

<table id="results">
  <tbody>
     <tr><td>header</td></tr>
     <tr id="ph">
        <td>Now Loading...</td>
     </tr>
     <tr><td>footer</td></tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

Hope that helps.

I am having trouble binding a DataView where the template is inside a table. What I want to be able to do is have the template for the DataView be a tbody that will repeat for the number of search results returned by the DataSource assigned to my DataView. I therefore don’t want any of the table visible should zero results be returned.

In Dave’s comment he mentions that I should attach the DataView to the table but point the template at the tbody.
I have tried a number of different things here but may just be doing something obviously wrong.

What I have so far is:
searchResultsListView = $create(Sys.UI.DataView, { dataSource: searchResultsDataSource }, { itemCreated: onSearchResultItemCreated }, {}, $get(‘results’));
searchResultsListView.set_itemTemplate(‘searchResultItems’);

Where ‘results’ is the whole table and is ‘searchResultItems’ what should be the repeating tbody.

The error that I get is being thrown from Sys$UI$DataView$_getTemplate() where it does this:

if ((e !== template) && this._elementContains(e, template, true)) {
throw Error.invalidOperation(Sys.TemplateRes.misplacedTemplate);
}

And the error is: ‘DataView item template must not be a child element of the DataView.’

The template is searchResultsItem and e (element) is the results (the table that will contain the repeated items).

[WebMethod]
public static IEnumerable GetFeedburnerItems()
{
XDocument feedXML =
XDocument.Load(“http://feeds.encosia.com/Encosia”);

var feeds =
from feed in feedXML.Descendants(“item”)
select new
{
Date = DateTime.Parse(feed.Element(“pubDate”).Value)
.ToShortDateString(),
Title = feed.Element(“title”).Value,
Link = feed.Element(“link”).Value,
Description = feed.Element(“description”).Value
};

return feeds;
}

PS: I got error message when VB web service returns IENumerable datatype: Can’t serialize IENumerable.

This is a nice article.Helped very much with ajax preview 2 experimenting.

Thanks,
Thani