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I think that Microsoft dropped client templates from the AJAX Toolkit in favor of jQuery Templates plug-in. I'm trying to find full documentation on this and except for some "will do" blog posts such as this one I am unable to find anything except @#$%-loads of bogus, obsolete documentation and magazine articles from the Preview / Beta days of ASP.NET AJAX 4.0.

Can anyone please confirm that the ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 Client Templates feature is, in fact, jQuery Templates, officially, and that there is absolutely no Sys.* equivalent in the current Microsoft libraries for client templates?

Josh Darnell
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Jon Davis
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2 Answers2

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I'm a principal development lead at Microsoft on the ASP.NET team and I'm involved in the jQuery plugin development as well.

I'd like to make some clarifications to Dave Ward's statements as well as some clarifications and corrections to some of stimpy77's comments to Dave's answer.

Microsoft's investments in AJAX have been wide and varied over the last several years and I'd like to speak to each of those investments:

  1. The core ASP.NET AJAX library, which ships with ASP.NET and the .NET Framework. This includes the server and client functionality needed for features such as the ScriptManager and UpdatePanel as well as several other features. This is 100% supported by Microsoft.

  2. The Ajax Control Toolkit library, which builds on top of the ASP.NET AJAX library. This is a free add-on library to ASP.NET that includes over 30 rich controls. The development of this library is owned by the Outercurve Foundation and it has not been abandonded - although progress has been slow recently. Contributions to the project are maintained by Microsoft but anyone in the community is welcome to submit patches and new features.

  3. The extra Sys.* libraries that included previews of a client script templating library and additional features. The previews of that feature have stood for what they are - previews and prototypes of investments that Microsoft believed (and still believes) will be significant in the direction of AJAX development. There are no plans to continue the development of those previews because of item #4, as follows:

  4. The jQuery plugins, including (but not limited to) jQuery Templating, jQuery Data Linking, and jQuery Globalization. These have a lot of the same functionality as the scripts listed in item #3, though they are not an exact one-to-one mapping. Our work on these plugins (with Boris Moore as their main developer) is supported and involved with the jQuery Core and jQuery UI teams. These plugins are all under active development.

I hope that I was able to clarify where Microsoft stands on the development and investment of AJAX functionality.

Thanks,

Eilon

Eilon
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Yes, the entire ASP.NET Ajax Library, not to be confused with ASP.NET AJAX or the AJAX Control Toolkit, was abandoned before an official 1.0 release and should not be used going forward. It won't receive any further development.

Instead of the DataView, use jQuery Templates and the Data Link plugin. Instead of the Sys.require script loader, look into JSDefer. Those plugins are being developed by the ASP.NET team and are the next evolution of what they were working on in the ASP.NET Ajax Library.

Again, this abandonment does not apply to the traditional ASP.NET AJAX stuff that includes the ScriptManager, page methods, UpdatePanel, ASMX ScriptServices, etc. Those things aren't in any imminent danger of going away. The similar naming of those projects is very confusing.

Dave Ward
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  • Thank you Dave. But your answer applies more to body of my other attempt to ask a similar question, posted here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5388672/does-asp-net-ajax-4-0-tout-client-side-templating-with-the-jquery-templates-plug/5389301#5389301 .. if you would please post this answer over there I'll mark it as answered. Here I'm strictly wondering about Client Templates, and no other features. On the other hand, your answer does seem to answer this question here too. So thanks. – Jon Davis Mar 22 '11 at 21:52
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    I posted a more focused answer on the other question. Hope that helps. I think you can also expect to see an official announcement about this situation from the ASP.NET team in the near future. – Dave Ward Mar 22 '11 at 22:55
  • OK. And just to clarify, "use jQuery Templates and the Data Link plugin," and "instead of the Sys.require script loader, look into JSDefer", **all of these** are official positions of Microsoft and not your own conclusions, correct? I assume as much (I posed the same question in the OP) but just making sure your answer isn't tainted with bias. :) – Jon Davis Mar 22 '11 at 23:31
  • I guess you answer the follow-up question with the statement I seemed to have ignored, "Those plugins are being developed by the ASP.NET team and are the next evolution of what they were working on in the ASP.NET Ajax Library." – Jon Davis Mar 22 '11 at 23:37
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    Correct. Boris (from the ASP.NET team) has been working on these jQuery plugins as part of Microsoft's official client-side strategy and no further development has occurred on the old DataView/Ajax Library in a year, so it's safe to read between the lines there. – Dave Ward Mar 23 '11 at 00:59
  • @stimpy Please see my new response that has a bit more info. – Eilon Mar 24 '11 at 18:46
  • @stimpy77: I talked to some of the people directly involved and they told me that (as of today) jQuery Templates isn't slated for any major reimplementation or redesign for its upcoming role(s) in jQuery UI. If you talked to someone not directly involved, maybe they mistook jQuery Templates' increasing usage under the hood in jQuery UI for the jQuery UI team starting over on a templating solution that's part of jQuery UI? – Dave Ward Mar 25 '11 at 02:29
  • The comment I had posted here earlier (which I deleted after Dave's reply) regarding jQuery team's changing stance on these as "official plug-ins" and as the official jQuery templating strategy was related to this announcement: http://blog.jquery.com/2011/04/16/official-plugins-a-change-in-the-roadmap/ The announcement was still pending when I posted the comment. I deleted my earlier comment because I knew it was pointless to reply again until the jQuery team posted, that essentially jQuery UI team needs a templating engine now and they are opting out of jquery-tmpl as their strategy. – Jon Davis May 05 '11 at 17:02
  • The ASP.NET team's companion post (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/scothu/archive/2011/04/15/update-on-the-microsoft-jquery-plugins.aspx) seems to indicate that jQuery Templates moving into jQuery UI isn't equivalent to jQuery Templates dying off or anything like that. Specifically: "Moving forward, we'll continue to be involved in the design and development of jQuery Templates. This includes our contributions to the grid project, since the jQuery UI Grid is using the jQuery Templates plugin." – Dave Ward May 05 '11 at 17:26