The blog of dlaa.me

As you may already know, we released the "Atlas" Control Toolkit a few weeks ago to almost universally positive feedback.

But it's hard to please everyone, and we got some negative feedback on our relative lack of support for Apple's Safari web browser. (Opera was mentioned, too, but it's another story that I may blog about some other day.) Contrary to the article's suggestion, we actively developed and tested our code on both IE 6 and Firefox 1.5; all nine controls worked in both browsers with two very minor exceptions due to specific limitations. However, we didn't have the time or resources to test with Safari, so our results for that browser were not very good. Sorry about that!

This time around, Safari support was a BIG priority. In fact, we probably spent more time with Safari than with IE or Firefox! Safari brings with it a number of peculiarities and unfortunately has not yet been a specific focus of the Atlas team (like us, they hadn't gotten around to implementing complete Safari support). So we started out at somewhat of a disadvantage. But a whole bunch of dedicated effort - and a variety of elegant (and some less-than-ideally-elegant) workarounds - have gotten us to the point where all but two of our controls work great on Safari! That's a pretty significant improvement for only three week's time during which we also fixed bugs, added new features, helped users on the "Atlas" Control Toolkit Forums, incorporated a bunch of their feedback, and added new documentation.

Oh, yeah, we also added *four* new controls to the Toolkit!! (Which all work flawlessly under Safari, by the way.) I'm happy to introduce the...

• AlwaysVisibleControl: Docks any panel to the browser edge so it remains visible all the time!
• DropShadow: Adds attractive drop shadows to any control on the page!
• ModalPopup: Shows styled modal UI without using HTML dialogs!
• RoundedCorners: Rounds the corners of any control for a clean, professional look!

The release notes for the latest version outline a bunch of other improvements we made in the past three weeks. Please take a minute or two to read about all the new stuff. And while you're at it, sample the new (and existing) controls on the web right now (no install required). Then go ahead and download the new Toolkit so you can start creating your own controls!

As always, if you have any feedback, please share it with us on the forum (or email me)!!

Next up: Enabling community submissions to the Toolkit... (Yum, it's going to be good!)

I've been watching the web for coverage of the Agility Team's recent "Atlas" Control Toolkit release. Here are some of the links I've found so far:

• eWEEK: New MS Atlas CTP, Tool Kit Aid Web Developers
• ars technica: The Atlas Control Toolkit: it's worth downloading
• InfoWorld: Microsoft releases Atlas toolkit
• ajaxian: A Few Atlas Announcements
• AJAX impact: Microsoft releases new Atlas Control Toolkit for Ajax web developers
• Hauser and Wenz: Atlas Control Toolkit Released
• CRN: Microsoft Updates Atlas With New CTP
• The Register: Microsoft flips Atlas a second time
• ScottGu: Atlas Control Toolkit (And Why It is Really Cool)
• Shawn Burke: "Atlas" Control Toolkit available for download
• Delay: ASP.NET and "Atlas" make AJAX easy [The Agility Team's "Atlas" Control Toolkit is available for download!]
• Brian Goldfarb: "Atlas" Control Toolkit released!
• Bertrand Le Roy: Check out the new "Atlas" Control Toolkit
• Brad Abrams: "Atlas" Control Toolkit now available
• Rob Chartier: Atlas Control Toolkit is Live

I know I'm biased [ :) ], but the majority of the coverage so far seems to be positive! That's fantastic, but we know there are some rough edges, too. Fortunately, our friends on the "Atlas" Control Toolkit Forums are helping us identify and remedy any problems they find. If you tried the Toolkit out and had *any* difficulties, we'd love to hear about them on the Forum! (After all, we can't fix what we don't know about.)

Meanwhile, if you know of other links to coverage of the "Atlas" Control Toolkit, please share them with me!

Update: Added AJAX impact link passed on to me by reader Blake Handler.

Update: Added CRN and Register links.

The Agility Team is proud to announce the release of the "Atlas" Control Toolkit! Check out the "Atlas" Control Toolkit page for an overview of the project, a link to the demo web site where you can try out the samples, and a download so you can play around with everything yourself!

Particularly cool stuff that's worth calling out:

• There are nine different sample controls that you can try right now from the comfort of your own browser!
• It's really simple to add cool AJAX functionality to existing web sites by adding one of the Toolkit's controls to an existing page and hooking it up to existing page elements! No typing required!!
• But don't take my word for it - check out the "Using a sample extender" walkthrough to see just how easy it is! (In fact, it's less work to add a control than it is to create the page in the first place!)
• Creating your own custom controls is also easy, and the included AtlasControlExtender takes care of a bunch of the bookkeeping for you so that you're free to concentrate on the important stuff: adding neat functionality to your site!
• Again, see how easy it is by reading the "Creating a new extender" walkthrough!
• The source code to all the controls is part of the download and is being released under the Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) which "... allows you to view, modify, and redistribute the source code for either commercial or non-commercial purposes."! You can do pretty much whatever you want with it!
• Even better, we'll soon be opening the project up to the community so that *anyone* can add new controls and new features and everyone else can use them to make even better web pages! (More details coming soon...)

Still have questions? Find a problem? Have a cool suggestion? Great!! Go to the "Atlas" Control Toolkit Forum and let us know! We'll be hanging out there doing our best to answer any questions people have. This is an early preview release, so we expect to get lots of good questions and hear lots of fantastic suggestions. Don't be shy - we're looking forward to hearing from you!

ASP.NET is powerful. AJAX is hot. Atlas makes it easy. The AtlasControlToolkit makes it fun!!