What’s in the Futures Release?
ASP.NET Futures includes a number of new, innovative solutions that help developers become more
productive and enables them to create better user experiences for their customers. Features
include:
ASP.NET AJAX Futures
The new release includes support for managing browser history (Back button support), selecting
elements by CSS selectors or classes, and information on accessing “Astoria” Web
data services. The Futures (July 2007) release adds:
- History support for the Safari browser, inclusion of “titles”, encoding
and encrypting of server-side history state and the ability to handle history in the
client without a server requirement.
- CSS Selectors APIs have been modified to be applicable to W3C recommendations.
- A script resource extraction tool that allows you to create script files on disk that
originate from embedded resources in assemblies.
Important: this version of the browser history feature is now outdated and should not be used. Instead, please download the ASP.NET in .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta, which contains the new version.
Silverlight Controls for ASP.NET
You can integrate the rich behavior of Microsoft®
Silverlight™ into your Web application
by using two new ASP.NET server controls: a Media server control that enables you to easily
integrate media sources such as audio (WMA) and video (WMV) into your Web application,
and a XAML server control that enables you to reference your own XAML and associated JavaScript
files.The Futures (July 2007) release adds:
- Buffering and downloading support, download progress and live streaming support
has been added to the MediaSkins of the Media control.
- Client-side playlist (.ASX) support.
Dynamic Data Controls for ASP.NET
Dynamic data controls are a set of ASP.NET server controls that obtain database schema information
at run time, provide default display formats according to common user expectations, and enable
you to easily customize those formats. Watch a video showing how to build a task list application
using the Dynamic Data Controls from the ASP.NET Futures Release.
Important: this version of the browser history feature is now outdated and should not be used. Instead, please download the ASP.NET in .NET 3.5 Service Pack 1 Beta, which contains the new version.
ASP.NET Application Services
New services for ASP.NET enable you to add search to your ASP.NET Web applications, using a commercial
search engine’s API (such as Windows Live Search) and custom search providers. You can also
publish custom and dynamic sitemaps that are configured to assist search engine crawlers. A new
service lets you capture JavaScript errors and report them to server-based ASP.NET code.
Dynamic Languages Support in ASP.NET
In ths release, support for dynamic languages in ASP.NET expands on the earlier support for IronPython
for ASP.NET. Support for dynamic languages in ASP.NET is built on the Dynamic Language Runtime (DLR),
a new platform currently under development at Microsoft. The DLR simplifies hosting dynamic languages
on the Common Language Runtime.
Two dynamic languages are now hosted on the DLR: IronPython and Managed JScript.