Building IDE in ASP.Net

[vimalkanth]

Hi,

We trying to build IDE like application in ASP.Net by using ASP.Net
AJAX control toolkit. And the IDE should support resizing, drag and
drop controls. When we place a control (like textbox/ button/
combobox etc) placed in the form, it requires ResizableControlExtender
and DragPanelExtender controls to resize and drag and drop controls.

Let us say, for 50 controls is placed in a form, then there will be
100 extenders.Does it affect the performance of the application.Is
there any other way to implement.

We also tried using Web parts. We are able to drag , but not able to
resize web parts.

Is there any other way we can design web forms at run time , store
them as XML , retreive back and dispaly again as web forms.

Please let us know if there is any other alternative ways available to
do the same.

Thanks in advance,
Vimal

 

[bruce barker]

yes.

unfortunately MS implementation of extenders is pretty heavy. if you used
50-100 extenders, you will probably notice a couple seconds added to page
load time. also if the layout is done this way, most likely the page will
render, then re-render after layout phase.

i'd look at the google toolkit (maybe port it to asp.net) as a better
example of what you are trying to do. the google toolkit is designed to be
used from client script (for ajax based applications), rather than the
control extender model, which adds client features to server controls. see
their panel controls.

microsoft is still server concentric, ala the mvc toolkit which is an
attempt to duplicate ruby on rails with .net

resizing will be an issue in any case. you will notice MS gave up on this in
their ide for good reason. in a browser objects are sized and postitioned in
pixels, not relative units, so its hard to have a general solution.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)