Web 2.0 Portal using Asp.Net MVC, Microsoft Ajax Client Templates and jQuery with drag and drop widget personalization

A few years back when I saw web 2.0 Ajax start pages like netvibes I was fascinated by the Ajax capabilities and coolness in dynamic web portals. As an enthusiastic Asp.Net developer I always wanted to develop my own Ajax Portal. While searching on web I came across several implementations and samples. Two of those samples are worth mentioning here. First one is from DHTML Goodies and other is from Omar Al Zabir. First one is mostly developed using plain old javascript, thus making it fairly complex to code and maintain. Though it lacks database implementation it can be added easily and server side php code can be replaced by Asp.Net webservices or page-methods. Later one is developed using cutting edge Asp.Net technologies, Omar did an excellent job implementing an Ajax web 2.0 portal using Asp.Net, you can read about it on Omar’s blog. As this implementation uses Asp.Net update panels it can not be treated as pure Ajax solution.

Here I will walk you through my lightweight and robust implementation of Web 2.0 Portal using Asp.Net MVC, Microsoft Ajax Client Templates and jQuery with drag and drop widget personalization. jQuery and Microsoft Ajax Client Templates makes client side programming extremely easy.

In coming weeks I will be blogging on how to develop this portal. Below is an image of the portal end state. You can access this portal at http://aspspider.info/lakkakula/local.aspx (note that the portal is partially implemented, I will continue to work on it as I blog in coming weeks).

In this series:
1. Introduction
2. Part 1 – Portal Core Functionality
3. Part 2 – Drag and Drop Widget Personalization
4. Part 3 – Building Widget Gallery
5. Part 4 – Introduce Tabs and Users
6. Part 5 – Enhancements and Conclusion

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