Unfortunately I had some decently nasty bugs crop up that couldn’t wait for v2.1 of my control set to come out. Because of that, I had to release v2.0.1 that contains the following fixes:

• Fixed issue where AppendDataBoundItems had no effect when binding against the Multi-Text controls.
• Fixed issue where posting back a page with the ListTransfer controls are present but not visible throws a NULL reference exception.
• Fixed issue where determining the scrollLeft and scrollTop in IE was causing improper behavior when the page scrolled. This breaks the scrolling div fix for IE.
• Fixed issue where disabling the CalendarPopup and TimePicker controls upon a postback with the Image displayed, didn't actually disable the image.
• Fixed issue where it's possible to receive a NULL reference exception in the CalendarPopup or TimePicker when calling the Clear or Reset methods.

While I don’t normally do quick releases like this, I’d rather have a more solid product in the end. Unfortunately these items were not identified sooner and had to wait until the public took a crack at the RTM bits, but I digress. Official build number for this is 2.0.1.2222.

The updated version can be downloaded by visiting http://www.eworldui.net/Download.aspx

The day has finally come! After many hours migrating (and well, re-writing) my website, I’m happy to announce the official RTM release of Excentrics World Server Controls v2.0! There are still a few known issues logged on my forums that didn’t make the cut, however this official release marks an important part since 2004.

With this release comes a few changes…

• Some controls have been dropped due to ASP.NET 2.0 native support.
• There are some breaking changes, which are all noted within the readme file.
• The 1.9 version is still freely available for ASP.NET 1.0 and 1.1.
• Source code licensing price has increased to $100. However, this price increase does not affect current source code license owners.

At this time, my forums are currently down due to the upgrade and I’m working with my hosting company to resolve the issue. However, the site has been fully ported & working great under ASP.NET 2.0!

Enjoy the new release community! Download it Now!

Update 1: Forums are up, and now located at http://forums.eworldui.net however I’m now having issues with my main site. Bear with me!

Update 2: Site is finally back up, but currently sending emails are disabled – so don’t try and contact me as I may not respond… stupid ThreadPool…

Update 3: Site should have email capability now, while slow (I hope just slow). Check out Smart Thread Pool if you need a thread pool that will work in hosted environments.

I’m happy to announce the public release of Excentrics World Server Controls v2.0, RC2! While there haven’t been many changes since the RC1 release, there was a notable change that I believe a lot of users would benefit from if the control set was released. If you’re new to the next version or Release Candidates, please read my RC1 release post.

If you’re interested in test-driving, I’m waiting for you! Help continue flushing out bugs in Server Controls v2.0 prior to it going RTM.

• For public help, please utilize the Server Controls v2.0, Release Candidate Bug Reporting forum.
• For private help, please contact [email protected]
• To download the beta, visit the download page which always has the latest download available.

Enjoy this new Release Candidate community!

I’m proud to announce the public release of Excentrics World Server Controls v2.0, RC1! With a complete rewrite from .NET 1.1 to .NET 2.0, over 120 bug fixes or new additions, 2 alpha releases, 2 beta releases, and full reimplemented design-time support, it’s been a long time in the waiting for all! Today marks the day that Excentrics World moves into vNext.

So, if you’re interested in test-driving, great! Excentrics World is looking for the public to help flush out any of the final kink’s prior to Server Controls v2.0 goes RTM.

• For public help, please utilize the Server Controls v2.0, Release Candidate Bug Reporting forum.
• For private help, please contact [email protected]
• To download the beta, visit the download page which always has the latest download available.

Thanks again to all of my beta testers! Enjoy the release candidate community!

Ahh, another week another beta. I just dropped my Beta 1 Preview, Refresh 1 to my beta testers, and boy does it feel great. This beta drop included support for 2 more controls from my collection, as well as some breaking of backwards compatability. In summary, I’ve removed AccordianPanel and OrderedListBox. However, I implemented the

• “Grouping” feature of the AccordianPanel into the CollapsablePanel control
• Added support for “sliding” for FireFox
• Fixed the ever-so-painful Nested Sliding Panel’s issue.

As far as the OrderedListBox, well that’s a whole different story. I’ve disbanded from the Composite Control nature that it was previously in hopes that a ListTransfer control (that implements this same functionality for individually moving up, down, to another ListBox, or deleting an item) will allow developers more freedom over layout.

So, hoping that these teasers keep the community actively involved, there will definately be more of them. If you have any features you’re wishing were implemented, make sure you drop me a line and let me know. Now’s the time, since I’m re-writing the controls. Also, if you’re just dying to get your hands on the beta’s, make sure you contact me as well and I’ll add you to the contact list. Enjoy!

So I may be a little late to the game on this, however, its the first time I’ve seen the list which makes me think there are many others that haven’t seen the list of breaking changes from .NET 1.1 to 2.0. A few notables include:

• “Conditional Grammar ambiguity” – Because of the new nullable syntax, there are certain scenarios where the compiler cannot tell the difference between a conditional operator and the nullable ? syntax. (bool A; for (A ? F() : G(); ; ))
• “Ambiguity between comparison and generic definition” – The addition of generics has led to an ambiguity between a generic method and function parameters. (int a, b, c; F(a < b, c > (7));)
• “Ignore ‘remove’ and ‘clear’ directives” – This change only affects web.config and application.config files that remove a section handler declared in a parent configuration file.
• “FormsAuth should not leave tickets around for 50 years”
• “<location> path attribute cannot end with any of '.', '/', or '\'.” – In V1.1, a user can put <location path="app/"> in the config file. The config system won't complain about the trailing forward slash, but the problem is that the config settings inside this location tag actually won't get applied in a request to that path.
• “The title element on aspx pages with a runat server tag was instantiated as a HtmlGenericControl in v1.1, in v2.0 it has its own type HtmlTitle but this doesn't derive from HtmlGenericControl and thus the compat break.”
• “HttpContext is a sealed class. If users created their own wrapper to expose this and returned their wrapped instance as the Context property for pages / usercontrols, their apps would fail unless they implemented the new properties on HttpContext. “

So the last couple weeks, I’ve gotten the chance to play around with the Atlas bits and during that time, I’ve come across a few“gotchas” that aren’t documented anywhere that I’m sure people would love to know about…

• You can attach into Page Methods just like Web Service Methods in the declarative syntax by using pageMethod instead of serviceMethod. When doing this, there is no need for defining the URL.
• When binding properties from pageMethod’s or serviceMethod’s in the declarative syntax, you should set the dataPath to “response.object”. I’ve been told that this will be changed in the future, to make it easier to get the data.
• If you’re using Page Methods, you should be aware that the current state of the form (including ViewState) is posted to the server. Not only that, but the entire life cycle, minus Render, is taken place (Page.IsPostback == true). While it makes it easy to get form data, it can be inefficient if your form has a lot of data. To circumvent this, you can register page as being a Web Service which will, in turn, have no context
  
  Page_Load:
  Microsoft.Web.Services.WebServiceManager.RegisterWebService(GetType(), this);
  
  Javascript:
  Namespace.PageName.MethodName(OnWebRequestComplete);
• If you want to do anything relating with page or service methods, you currently have to write the declarative XML-Script yourself. There’s currently not an Atlas control that interacts with page or service methods.

With that in mind, here’s some resources that I’ve found invaluable while working with Atlas…

• Nikhil Kothari - Blog | PDC Slides and Demos | Architecture Overview
• Wilco Bauwer – Atlas Class Browser | Bindings | Page Loading
• Atlas Quickstart Tutorials

So, make sure you download the latest bits (uninstalling any older versions first – which actually means just deleting the ZIP files contained in “~\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Templates\ProjectTemplates\Visual Web Developer\[CSharp,VisualBasic]”) and giving the latest CTP a whirl. Here’s some notes on the latest drop if you’re interested in the change list.

So, you’ve just installed VS2005 and have been trying to figure out how to deploy your ASP.NET project, and its nothing like VS2003. Yup, your experience is expected, and the ASP.NET team (or just a few of them) have been working on a VS2005 plugin project that brings VS2005 web deployments back to the VS2003 roots. Check out Scott’s lengthy post on this new plugin project which will be available later this week.

<obligatory marketing ploy>Lastly - you can still use Unleash It with VS2005 & the new project.</obligatory marketing ploy>