Coolite 

ViewPort Preview

Thursday, April 10, 2008 posted by geoffrey.mcgill | 5 Comments

Hot on the heels of the BorderLayout Preview, is a preview for the new Coolite ViewPort ASP.NET web control.

When added to your Page, the ViewPort control will automatically size itself to the size of the browser window content area (viewport). The ViewPort control must contain a Layout control (typically BorderLayout). Within each Region of the BorderLayout, you can add other containers controls such as Panel, TabPanel, TreePanel or GridPanel.

ViewPort with BorderLayout


Child controls within a BorderLayout Region (North, South, East, West or Center) can themselves contain a Layout. By simply combining various Layout and Panel controls, a developer, within minutes can create elegant and functional application layouts which work consistently across all modern web browsers.

Code samples for both markup (<ext:ViewPort />) and C# code-behind are provided.

The sample also demonstrates the included "Gray" Theme, which can easily be set with one property at the Page, Session, Application or web.config levels.

The ViewPort control will be available with the version 0.5 release of the Coolite Toolkit.

Labels: code, news

BorderLayout (and more) Preview

Wednesday, April 9, 2008 posted by geoffrey.mcgill | 3 Comments

The Layout controls for the version 0.5 release are coming together nicely. It's been a challenge, but I think we've found the sweet spot between clean markup, object model, Visual Studio designer support, Intellisense support and being true to the ExtJS framework.

The following examples provide code samples (markup + C#) and demonstrate the Layout controls within a Window control. The main Layout is controlled by a BorderLayout.

NOTE This build is not currently available for download. Everything you see will be included with the version 0.5 release.

All Layout controls, except FormLayout/FormPanel, are now working in both markup and code-behind. Design-time support for the Layout controls is still under development, but progressing quickly.

More v0.5 Notes and a few Breaking Changes

1. The ViewPort control will be included with the v0.5 release.

2. The TagPrefix has changed from 'cool' to 'ext'.

Example

// Old
<cool:window runat="server" id="Window1" />

// New
<ext:window runat="server" id="Window1" />

3. The Namespace (.dll) has changed to Coolite.Ext.Web from Coolite.Web.UI.

Example

// Old
Window win = new Coolite.Web.UI.Window();

// New
Window win = new Coolite.Ext.Web.Window();

4. The Grid (GridPanel) control *might* not be included with the 0.5 release. Completion of the Layout controls is further ahead than the GridPanel, so we might make the decision to release v0.5 early without including the GridPanel.

Any feedback is very much appreciated.

Labels: code, news