[CLOSED] Coolite Deployment

[r_honey]

I recently downloaded Coolite toolkit. Tha major component is the .dll file. However, the download also contains a folder with the name:
Coolite - Drag into your Project [not required]

That folder containd coolite and extjs scripts together with some icons. Is this folder really NOT required for deployment (as its name says)??
If not, then where would coolite fetch all its js from, which should be required for the AJAX functionality??

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Hi r_honey,

By default the Controls will dynamically pull the required resource files (.js, .css, images) from the .dll. The files are actually stored inside the .dll as "Embedded Resources".


The "Coolite - Drag into your Project" folder can be added to your project if you wish to use files from the local files system instead of embedded resources.*


You can switch between file system and embedded by setting the RenderScript="File" and RenderStyles="File" on the <ext:ScriptManager>.


You do not need to change those properties, but the option is there. Again, by default the Controls will retrieve the resource files dynamically in real time from .dll and the only thing you need to ensure is uploaded to your web server are the .dll contents of your Projects /bin/ folder.*


Hope this helps. Please let me know if you require any further clarification and I'll be more than happy to help out.*

[r_honey]

I have not added any handler in web.config for Coolite as I am NOT using the AjaxMethods facility.
So, does the Coolite.dll would be still able to extract the resources from the binary without the handler??

Also, which one is the more efficient method?? Uploading the files to the server should not be a problem in case that provides any sort of performance advantage.

Lastly (rather it should have been firstly), you people have produced really good reusable toolkit. I have checked out ExtJs also. Although the major functionality has been derived from there, still the productivity of ASP.NET web controls coupled with some cool innvovations (Ajax methods &amp; all) really make this a wonderful resource to use.

[geoffrey.mcgill]

Hi r_honey,

Thanks for the feedback!!

If you use the Controls in Visual Studio or Visual Web Developer Express, the control should automatically register a new httpHandler to your web.config.

If you open your Projects web.config, you should find the following "coolite.axd" node.

Example

<httpHandlers>
  <add path="*/coolite.axd" verb="*" type="Coolite.Ext.Web.ResourceManager" validate="false" />
</httpHandlers>

The above handler registration is not required, but if included, the controls will automatically clean the resource url (make it look pretty) and Gzip compress the response.

View the html source rendered to the browser with/without the above coolite.axd handler. Pay particular attention to the url's, but the difference should be obvious.

By default the coolite.axd handler also compresses the resource files using gzip. This compression reduces the "over-the-wire" size of the files by approx 70%, which produces a significant performance improvement.

Also,
which one is the more efficient method?? Uploading the files to the
server should not be a problem in case that provides any sort of
performance advantage.

Setting RenderScripts="File" and RenderStyles="File" on the ScriptManager *must* create a performance advantage because the requests would no longer be being handled/parsed our of the Assembly/.dll by the asp.net runtime. BUT...

1. From my experience the performance difference is negligible. You may find otherwise.
2. The resource files are no longer automatically compressed by the Toolkit using Gzip. That will result in a significant performance decrease. This is easy to work-around by manually handling the gzipping of files, but obviously then you have to manually handle this outside of the scope of the Toolkit controls.

It just comes down to control and convenience. You decide how much you want the Toolkit/ScriptManager to handle for you automagically. Or, you start "turning off" features and deal with the plumbing manually. The more experience you build with the Coolite Toolkit/ExtJS, the more you may decide to handle manually... and that's the beauty of the framework(s)... we give *you* that option.

Hope this helps.

[r_honey]

Thanx, that cleaned up almost everything. The issue is resolved (I could not find a 'Mark as Answer' button though).