Download Microsoft AJAX Library Cheat Sheets!
Posted in Development
As promised, I’ve compiled “cheat sheets” for JavaScript base type extensions: Array, Boolean, Date, Error, Number, Object, and String.
It took longer than I anticipated. Documentation is pretty darn good, but I had to work through some inconsistencies, ambiguous wording and incorrect samples. For example, the Date Type Extensions one took the longest. Documentation points to the Standard DateTime Format Strings on MSDN, but the AJAX Library does not support them all. I had to look at the source code and figure out which formats were supported. Same goes for the Number Type Extensions. I’ve made an attempt to write a clear and concise sample where one was missing.
Feedback
I’ve proofread the cheat sheets numerous times, and, for the sake of brevity, took something out with each iteration. I’d love to hear your feedback, and, as announcements in public transportation in NY go, “If you see something, say something.”
Download here or click the image.
PDF Readers
Jason and James pointed out that the PDFs looked odd in Foxit Reader. Indeed, they do. I bitched about Word as a publishing tool before, but I don’t own a full version of Acrobat, so I used Word 2007 to publish PDFs.
I downloaded Acrobat Reader 8, and I have to say Adobe seems to have gotten their act together. The reader loads fast and without annoying splash screens. Still, I’ll see if I can figure this out.
Moving on
The Type Class is next, and I will probably do one on tracing and debugging. What else in the MS AJAX Library would you like to see dissected into a one-pager?
Update: Users of Foxit Reader, see this follow-up.
42 comments
Matt Roberts
on January 10, 2007
Hi,
Great work. I just thought I'd let you know that for some reason, these pdf's dont seem to work with foxit reader - they have blacked out areas all over the place.
Matt.
Greg Neilson
on January 10, 2007
These are great. Many thanks for putting these together, it's very very useful and will help a great deal!
activescott
on January 10, 2007
they don't work in foxit reader :(
Mohammed E. Credli
on January 10, 2007
Thanks for your efforts guys, the sheets are very interesting and handy. Could also be interesting to attaching sample projects as well.
Rachit
on January 10, 2007
How about adding some useful MS AJAX specific funtions as well. e.g instead of using document.getElementById("something"), we can now use $get("something").
A list of these kind of methods/fuctions/properties would be useful as well, no?
mini32
on January 10, 2007
not readable in foxit reader :(
Eduardo scoz
on January 10, 2007
Hey, great work!!!
I agree with #7, though! Please use AJAX functions instead of the regular javascript ones.
If there's one thing I don't like is that many microsoft tutorials also use the javascript functions, as if the groups that develop the tutorials and the actual framework were not in sync. I know that that's not true, because Scott creates many of those tutorials (and you can't get any closer to the framework than Scott, right?), but it is really strange.
Keep the Cheat sheets coming! :)
Milan Negovan
on January 10, 2007
@ScottGu: Thanks, Scott! I use Word 2007 since it has a free PDF exporter. It seems, though, fonts are embedded in some funky way that Foxit Reader doesn't display them correctly.
@Rachit and Eduardo: Yep, I'll hunt down and list some useful shortcuts and classes (Sys.UI.DomEvent, Sys.UI.DomElement, for example)
timheuer
on January 10, 2007
milan: try using PrimoPDF print driver and see if that does a better job embedding the fonts, etc.
Ryan
on January 10, 2007
These are great, Thanks!
I noticed a slight misspelling in the footer, "Based om Microsoft..."
Mike Weerainghe
on January 10, 2007
These are an excellent resource. If you are using Word to create these, have you tried using XPS format. That would be another option instead of using PDF.
George
on January 10, 2007
I use the free Cute PDF to make PDFs from anything that will print, it might be an alternative to Office.
www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
Milan Negovan
on January 10, 2007
@Tim: great idea! I installed PrimoPDF, and it does produce something Foxit can view and print. I still don't understand why it rotates a document on its side, which will be annoying for viewing it on the screen. I'll play with it some more.
@Ryan: thanks for pointing it out.
@Mike: I didn't think of it, but it's a great idea, too. Now that XPS is well supported in XP and Vista, it would be interesting to try both XPS and PDF.
Dan
on January 10, 2007
Superb Guys! BTW, the AJAX Class Browser @ http://weblogs.asp.net/leftslipper/archive/2006/11/21/ASP.NET-AJAX-JavaScript-Class-Browser.aspx is probably not news to you; however, may be unknown to others. I thought this would be a good place to repost, because I'm sure this post will experience some significant traffic.
Thanks again,
-Dan
Calvin
on January 10, 2007
Hi,
Thanks! this will come very handy.
Keep the cheat sheets coming!...
Mike Kidder
on January 10, 2007
Milan... If you are still looking into creating PDF's, try giving PDFCreator a try:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
I use from Excel and Document Imaging software. Thanks for working on creating these AJAX sheets
Sergey P.
on January 11, 2007
Thank you Milan Negovan and thank you ScottGu that you pointed this resource to me.
MrSmersh
on January 11, 2007
Thanks! Extremely helpful!
I also spread the word about your work on the local .Net users group (http://ronua.ro/CS/forums/12570/ShowThread.aspx#12570 is in romanian).
Keep on the good work!
LeastSquares
on January 11, 2007
Try using the free OpenOffice.org writer instead of Word. It reads most Word documents perfectly, and has an "Export PDF" choice under the file menu.
Great cheat sheets btw! Thanks!
Guru
on January 11, 2007
Milan, Great Job! it helps a lot as quick and easy reference. Thank You So Much
Dado
on January 12, 2007
Eh, pa Milane.. Car si!
Rick Strahl
on January 12, 2007
Great idea, Milan!!! Thanks for taking the time to put this up. This will be very 'handy'...
Jeroen
on January 12, 2007
They're up on the wall ;)
Brian
on January 12, 2007
String.trimEnd() and String.trimStart() use value.trim() instead of the respective method. It would seem to me like it should be:
var myString = " A string ";
myString = myString.trimEnd();
// myString = " A string"
var myString = " A string ";
myString = myString.trimStart();
// myString = "A string "
marathons
on January 18, 2007
Hey, great job!
Thanks a lot.
Matthew
on January 29, 2007
Great sheets!
Thanks
AJAX Developer
on June 12, 2007
Nice info. I noticed the Date type format strings on the AJAX documentation site listed with the Sys.CultureInfo.dateTimeFormat Field. I guess you would really have to search extensively to find everything. And there's a numberFormat too.
kevin
on July 17, 2007
Great job !! thanks
Dalibor
on August 4, 2007
Milane, thanks for great work.
Neil Kilbride
on November 16, 2007
Just what the doctor ordered, I've added a link on my blog to here, I'm sure you don't mind :) @ http://neilkilbride.blogspot.com/2007/11/ms-aspnet-ajax-cheat-sheets.html
Milan Negovan
on November 16, 2007
Neil, no, I don't mind. :)
Vish
on December 27, 2007
Hi Milan,
I know I am late for the party !!!
But, a very good work :)
Please keep it up.
wish you Merry X-Mas and Very Happy New Year ahead....
jiafu
on March 3, 2008
Thank you!:)
Praveen
on August 4, 2008
thanks for this
skirek
on February 16, 2009
Thanks for what you've done. Great job.
nasih
on July 23, 2009
thanx alot.. .. ..
Scottgu
on January 10, 2007
Very cool! Thanks a bunch for putting these together (what are you using to create them BTW?).
I just pointed people at them here: http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/archive/2007/01/10/download-asp-net-ajax-pdf-cheat-sheets.aspx
Thanks,
Scott