I didn't really actually want to write another ad rotator, but I did think it would be a good example control to implement. It has the scope to cover some aspects of writing web controls I wanted to learn more about and discuss. I decided to build an ASP.Net web control that cycles through a list of images on the client side. There are a few areas I want to discuss.
I wanted the control completely encapsulated within an assembly. So all you'd need to use the control would be a copy of the assembly. To do this I embedded some resources in the assembly and read them out at runtime. I discuss this in the article.
I wanted the control to be able to be created completely declaratively, and I thought providing the sort of intellisense you get when using standard ASP.Net controls would be nice.
I wanted the server-side control to inject Javascript into the output. I wanted the control to be smart enough to only output the Javascript prototype, or class definition once, even if there were multiple controls on the page. I wanted the client side code to be as object orientated as possible.
You can download the source code which includes an example website in the solution.
I would like to add a post about supporting difference storage mechanisms and using the control, but I have other projects demanding my attention. Hopefully I'll get back to it sometime.
I Hope you've found some of these articles useful or interesting. I'll keep and eye on the comments, contribute to further discussion, and update the posts where errors or omissions are noted.
Cheers