What's inside

ActiveWidgets 2.0 is a UI component library which is implemented in javascript and runs inside the web browser. ActiveWidgets controls generate html on the client-side and can communicate with the server asynchronously using XMLHTTPRequest object (AJAX-style).

ActiveWidgets library is based around powerful datagrid control but also includes a set of standard form elements, data formatting and validation classes and XMLHTTPRequest wrapper.

What's new

ActiveWidgets 2.0.1 includes -

• support for quirks- and standards-compliant doctypes
• support for IE7 beta2
• performance improvements
• bug fixes

Here are simple demo pages showing ActiveWidgets controls:

• XP look: quirks, strict
• Aqua: quirks, strict
• Classic: quirks, strict
• Mono: quirks, strict

• Typical dialog box example

However the main part of ActiveWidgets 2.0 is still grid control. With so many enhancements that we decided to split it in two :-) The library now includes two classes: AW.UI.Grid (simple grid) and AW.Grid.Extended (full set of features).

The new grid supports 'virtual' rendering mode. In this mode only the visible part of the grid is populated with data which brings very significant increase in performance for large datasets. In fact with the new grid you can easily display datasets of 1000-10000 rows and the rendering speed does not depend on the size of the dataset.

• Virtual mode demo (1000 rows)

The new grid also allows multiple fixed columns, headers, footers, editable cells and has a lot of API enhancements. Look at the source code of examples in quickref directory and try un-comment some lines to check the new features.

• Grid - quick reference (see source code)

The event subsystem was significantly enhanced in the new grid and the whole grid operation is now based on the events which you can use to customize grid behavior if necessary.

Where to start

Have a look inside /examples/quickref/ folder. Hopefully this will give you an idea what the new API is. We believe that the new one is much more simple and consistent and could justify the migration headache. In the /examples/old/ folder you will find several files from 1.0 release converted to the new API so you can compare the new and old code.

The reference documentation and tutorial/examples are available at the ActiveWidgets website.

Installation

Just copy /runtime folder to your webserver.

Debugging and Source Code

ActiveWidgets library is provided both in compressed format (/runtime folder) and in full source code form (/source folder).

Community Support

The best place to find more information about the grid library is ActiveWidgets support forum. You may find that someone already had a similar problem and found a solution and we would be very grateful if you share your own experience with us and other developers.

Thank you very much for trying our product!

ActiveWidgets developers.