Using ASP.NET AJAX page methods to make things easier

Filed in archive AJAX on November 27, 2007

You all must be aware of the fact that using web services one can simply exchange data between ASP.NET AJAX pages and a server using lightweight JSON messages but in case you are looking forward to create separate ASMX Web service file and add ScriptService attribute to the service class this could simply mean asking too much in cases where a single page eats all the service methods therefore a better option would be to add functionality offered by web services directly into an ASP.NET code-beside page. Here one can opt for AJAX page methods rather than web services.




So what are page methods? These are static or shared methods which can be added onto ASP.NET page's code-beside file and communicate directly with an ASP.NET AJAX-enabled page and pass JSON request and response messages back and forth in a similar fashion as WebMethods. My friend Dan has tried to explain it through a very good example. Using page methods one can bring down the number of files which need to be used when an application moves to production and provides a simple technique for adding web service style functionality directly into an ASP.NET code-beside page.