Retrieving Data with AJAX

No ASP.NET 2.0 application should be written without at least a little bit of AJAX (and a lot is great). The e-commerce application includes an AjaxRotator control that displays a random content item retrieved from the web server. The AjaxRotator updates its contents on the browser automatically every 15 seconds.

The AjaxRotator is included in the Store.master Master Page, so it is included on every public page in the website (see Figure 34.8). In the case of the ASP.NET Beer Store, the AjaxRotator is used to randomly display different beer facts (of questionable veracity).

Figure 34.8. The AjaxRotator control displays beer facts.

The AjaxRotator retrieves its content items from an XML file named AjaxRotatorContent.config. This XML file contains a list of <item> elements, each of which represents a content item. The <item> elements can contain HTML content just as long as the content is XHTML-compliant.

Note

AJAX is covered in Chapter 7, "Creating Custom Controls with User Controls," and Chapter 32, "Integrating JavaScript in Custom Controls."