Jack @ ASP.NET

It’s important to understand the difference between server-centric “AJAX” and client “pure” AJAX.

In server-centric AJAX applications, even though the application leverages asynchronous calls between client and server, the server is the one that is actually responsible for generating the necessary HTML content before providing it to the client. This leads to heavy bandwidth usage, and lack of responsiveness. In addition, the client application becomes far too reliant on the functionality of the server, and its ability to provide good markup, as opposed to simply requiring data and simple interaction.

In client AJAX applications, the communication with the server is purely for passing data back and forth. All of the rendering and state is maintained within the client environment, and the server is only brought into the picture as needed.

So, “The server should only be concerned with data, not presentation”.

In order to enable our ability to easily create dynamic UI and place the rendering process on the client, we need a way to define templates of markup that represent the UI we wish to create, and allow the runtime to instantiate them for us. This alleviates the need to write a bunch of DOM code or depend on server-rendering.

If you’ve used WebForms before, you’re already familiar with the approach many of its server controls take. You have access to a set of properties that allow you to define arbitrary templates of content, complete with HTML, server controls, and data binding expressions. This model makes it very easy to create dynamic UI that is rendered server-side [Advance Animation].

ASP.NET AJAX 4.0 introduces the ability to define templates as well, but purely client-side. Now you can create the HTML markup you want to use for representing your template, complete with HTML and data binding expressions. In this example, we’ve created an unordered list template whose content is a list item whose content is the value of the Name property of the JSON object that is bound to it. The data binding expression resembles that of WPF.

What is .htaccesss?

.htaccess is a configuration file for use on web servers running the Apache Web Server software. When a .htaccess file is placed in a directory which is in turn ‘loaded via the Apache Web Server’, then the .htaccess file is detected and executed by the Apache Web Server software. These .htaccess files can be used to alter the configuration of the Apache Web Server software to enable/disable additional functionality and features that the Apache Web Server software has to offer. These facilities include basic redirect functionality, for instance if a 404 file not found error occurs, or for more advanced functions such as content password protection or image hot link prevention.

How to use .htaccess

‘.htaccess’ is the filename in full, it is not a file extension. For instance, you would not create a file called, ‘file.htaccess’, it is simply called, ‘.htaccess’. This file will take effect when placed in any directory which is then in turn loaded via the Apache Web Server software. The file will take effect over the entire directory it is placed in and all files and subdirectories within the specified directory.

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