Ajax Features

Web forms and controls can be Ajax enabled by assigning Ajax features to them. All CodeCharge Studio forms and components include a property called "Features", which opens up a pop-up dialog where you can assign Ajax features.
An Ajax feature often acts as a client to the Ajax service and obtains data from it, then updates the form or control with the received data. For example the "Autocomplete" feature will obtain the data from an Ajax service and prefill the textbox with the data matching user input, all in real-time as user is typing an entry.

The support for the following Ajax features is included in CodeCharge Studio:

• Autocomplete (PTAutocomplete, YahooAutocomplete)
• Autofill (PTAutofill)
• Condition (special feature)
• Dependent Listbox (PTDependentListbox)
• Hide/Show
• Show Modal
• Tabbed Tab (YahooTabbedTab)
• Tabbed View (YahooTabbedView)
• UpdateDB
• Update Panel

Additional Ajax Features based on Yahoo! UI Library (YUI)

The following YUI features are also supported and documented on YUI Website:

• Animation (YahooAnim): http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/animation/
• Color Animation (YahooColorAnimation): http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/animation/
• Motion (YahooMotion): http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/animation/#motion
• Scroll (YahooScroll): http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/animation/#scroll

Note: when working with  .NET applications based on the InMotion Framework, the following features are converted to ASP.NET Ajax (Atlas).

• PTAutocomplete
• PTAutoFill
• PTDependentListBox
• YahooAutocomplete
• YahooTabbedTab
• YahooTabbedView

Implementation

To assign Ajax features to a component you can either open the "Features" property of the component you want to Ajax enable, or use the Ajax Feature Builder.
When opening the "Features" property you will see "features" dialog listing Ajax features assigned to the current component. Here is a sample screenshot of features assigned to a textbox component:

The above examples of features include:

• Prototype Autocomplete - retrieves from an Ajax service a list of matching records (while user types an entry).
• Prototype Autofill - prefills contents of another component with information obtained from an Ajax service.
• HideShow -  hides or shows another component depending on specified conditions. For example an "Update" button is shown only when data was successfully retrieved from an Ajax service.
• Condition - a logical condition that actives other Ajax features. For example a condition may be true if a control's value is not empty, then this condition can be used to activate the Autofill feature.

The Ajax features can also be accessed from the Project Explorer, which shows the list of features assigned to each component.