Stephen Walther (@swalther) and Craig Shoemaker discuss the latest announcements surrounding the ASP.NET Ajax Library during PDC09.

A New Name a New Home

• Now named ASP.NET AJAX Library (old name was proprietary)
• First contribution to the CodePlex Foundation

What's New for the Beta?

• OSS and inclusion in the CodePlex Foundation
• Microsoft is providing product support even as the library remains OSS
• Merging Ajax Control Toolkit (ACT) into the Ajax library

Unique Features

• Client Script Loader - loads script dependencies in parallel
• No installation necessary - use the CDN
• Most ACT controls and functionality supported in client only scenario
• ACT HTML editor not in beta, but look for it in RTM
• Minifier functionality – includes command line tool and MS Build task
• Preprocessor
• Wiki for OSS documentation

Is jQuery Used Inside Ajax Controls?

• No dependency on jQuery yet... leaving that up to developer needs