The Microsoft ASP.NET Ajax page dealing with installation is here:
http://ajax.asp.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=47
This page contains two downloads. Firstly, there is an installer subtitled ‘ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions 1.0’, which provides the core Ajax libraries. Secondly, there is an installer subtitled ‘ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit’, which contains components built on the core Ajax functionality, and the means to make more such components. At present most of the bundled components are fairly simple web controls with added javascript, and don’t engage in any Ajax-type behaviour. Their basic nature is explained by the fact that they are the fruit of an ‘open-source’ project encouraged by Microsoft on CodePlex ().
When you run the installers, you also get an updated project for Visual Studio 2005, assuming that you have that. In terms of DLLs, what you get are these:
System.Web.Extensions.dll (installed to the GAC). This contains the core server controls, HttpHandlers, etc.
System.Web.Extensions.Design.dll. Studio designers for the core server controls.
AjaxExtensionsToolbox.dll. An extension for the toolbox in Studio 2005, so that the Ajax extension controls get their own container.
AjaxControlToolkit.dll. The control toolkit library, as discussed above.
After installing all this stuff, I was left with a bunch of files in the directory
C:\Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\ASP.NET 2.0 AJAX Extensions
This has the following structure:
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Running through these (not quite in order):
AjaxControlExtender: contains a 2005 Visual Studio Installer which installs an ‘Ajax Control Extender’ project template.
AjaxControlToolkit: contains the source code for all of the open-source components.
SampleWebSite: a sample website containing examples of the components
TemplateVSI: a project to build the AjaxControlExtender installers for the various different IDEs that can support it.
Binaries: Contains BuildVsi.dll, which I can only assume aids in the building of the VSIs.
ToolkitTests: Contains the toolkit test framework, plus unit tests for the individual components.
V1.0.61025: In the root of this directory there are the various DLLs described above. In the subdirectories there are the various javascript files that make up the ASP.NET Ajax client-side libraries. In standard use these libraries are embedded in the DLLs as resources, and output to the client via a HttpHandler, but they are included as standard javascript files in case developers want to use them in isolation from the server controls.
For details on how to set up the web environment for ASP.NET Ajax see:
http://ajax.asp.net/docs/ConfiguringASPNETAJAX.aspx
If you have Visual Studio 2005, and are running an ‘ASP.NET AJAX Enabled Web Application’ project, then everything will be set up appropriately. If, however, you are Ajax-enabling a current web project then you will need to reference the appropriate DLL (System.Web.Extensions) and add a good number of entries to the Web.config file (details given on the page cited).