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New Atlas Control Toolkit Released

by Marcie Jones on Aug 08, 2006 |

Microsoft has released a new version of the Atlas Control Toolkit. This version contains a total of 21 controls, including 5 new ones:

DynamicPopulate: (Re-)populates any element with HTML content downloaded from the server.
FilteredTextBox: Prevents unwanted characters from being typed into a text box.
PagingBulletedList: Adds flexible paging and sorting to any bulleted list.
PasswordStrength: Provides interactive feedback about the strength of a password being created.
Rating: Displays a "4 out of 5 stars" interface for ranking.

This is first toolkit release to contain contributions from non-MS members of the Atlas community, including Paul Glavich and Christian Wenz. General Manager Scott Guthrie notes that the Atlas Control Toolkit team is now comprised by a majority of non-MS employees, quite an usual tack for a Microsoft developer product.

Also notable with this release is the Javascript testing framework included in the download. By loading the ToolkitTests web project, developers can register Javascript unit tests that include handling for the asynchronous nature of the Atlas controls:

// Test the initial values                                         
             var test = testHarness.addTest('Initial Values');
                                   
             // Wait until the drop downs are loaded         
             test.addStep(function() {},         
                                checkLoaded(drop1, drop4, drop5, drop6));         
             test.addStep(testInitialState);