AJAX-Tips
You might have seen the latest version of Yahoo Mail and thought that their idea of building a web navigation tool for e-mail looks pretty neat. So neat that the idea could be applied in your website. The navigation tool will be on the left side and everything will be loaded on the other side of the panel. For this, you need ASP.Net for Ajax to build this type of web application. The UpdatePanel function ASP.Net for Ajax provides the robust support for easy web navigation tool.
However, beware in using this. You will be placing the entire content of your application in an UpdatePanel. Ajax is a great thing when it comes to interaction and user experience but you will be overdoing your website when you place everything in the UpdatePanel. The end result could be disastrous that your users might not even have the chance to look at the content of your website.
The reason why your website might not perform well is simple: it is too complicated. Placing the web content in the UpdatePanel will mean every time information is requested, the UpdatePanel will get in touch with the XMLHttpRequest which in turns builds an HTTP Post. After that the ASP.Net builds the page class using the ViewState that we created in the HTTP POST. After ViewState a parser is made for the specific part of the webpage which will also run through the lifecycle. After it parses, the DOM is eventually updated displaying the webpage.
That is a lot of stages for a single webpage to be posted. That derails the performance of your website since everything has to be in place before it could be executed. In contrast, a page that did not go through the UpdatePanel only has to use GET, create an instance from ASP.Net and the lifecycle takes over to render the HTML code. It is simple and the webpage will flow faster.
Another problem in placing your webpage in the UpdatePanel is the removal of the browser functions. This is really significant not only for the user but also for the developer. A browser that has activated their back button and other functions comes with a progress indicator so that it could easily reload the information. When you remove that function, you have to create your own progress indicator. That means additional work for the developer.
Lastly, using the UpdatePanel for your entire webpage correlates each webpage that everything will be affecting each other. That means whenever an update on a single part of the webpage is needed, everything has to be changed. Maintenance for this type of website is time consuming and if you can find someone who will virtually recreate the website every time something new comes up, congratulations. UpdatePanel will change everything that the in charge will be very familiar with the coding inside and out.
UpdatePanel is a great tool for an Ajax based development but it does not mean you have to use it whenever you have the chance. A simple HTML or the simplified version of Ajax will prove useful while maintaining simplicity and efficiency.
