The Wonders of AJAX

I finally have the privilege to develop a webiste using the AJAX toolkit designed for asp.net. I was so excited! I added references to the System.Web.Extension and System.Web.Extensions.Design binaries, went to the AJAX website and downloaded the Non-Source Version of the AJAX toolkit since I don’t plan to change the functionality of the toolkit itself. I then ran the vsi file and “intalled” AJAX.

Nothing. Ok, so I added the AjaxToolkitControl.dll to my bin folder.

Still nothing. Sometimes Web Developer is kinda finicky so I added all the toolkit controls to my Toolbox, dragged and dropped one of them onto my aspx page. No errors, no warnings.

Build it. STILL nothing.

If you’re like me, you may have spent an hour just trying to figure out what’s wrong. Well, I’ll tell you right here. For an AJAX enabled website, you need several new propertie put into your web.config. (Too many to list here). Unfortunately, they’re not essential to the build process of the site so if you don’t have them, your site may still build fine with AJAX control either not rendering or, when rendered, asking you to locate the source of the control.

Here’s the solution. Ready?

Copy every file except the web.config file. Blow away your entire project and create a new one. Now, magically, there should be an option to create a new AJAX Enabled Website. Choose that and add all your files back in. Voila! It works!

I can’t believe that took me 2.5 hours!