MSDN Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 11)

ScOtt MitchELL Toolbox Online Scheduling, Jeff Smith’s SQL Blog, Easy Regular Expressions, And More Create an Online Calendar and Scheduling Interface Many business applications require users to be able to easily assign assets to resources for a particular date and time. For example, the software that powers a doctor’s office needs to schedule assets such as doctors, patients, and equipment to resources such as offices and rooms. And a time sheet application associates employees’ time and activities with projects and meetings. Although ASP.NET includes a Calendar Web control, it lacks the features and functionality needed for a robust scheduling user interface. The good news is that implementing a professional-looking and feature-rich scheduling experience is a walk in the park with DayPilot 4.8 by Dan Letecky. DayPilot is a collection of Web controls that display AJAX-enabled calendar and scheduling user interfaces. Out of the box, DayPilot lets you view the schedule for a particular asset using month, week, or day views. These user interfaces mirror those found in desktop-based scheduling applications, such as the calendar in Microsoft Outlook. There is also a scheduler view, which lists resources along the left column and dates and times across the top. This view makes it easy to see how the resources are allocated and to spot conflicts and available resources. The information displayed in the DayPilot controls can be specified in a number of ways. You can programmatically supply this information as an array; if the data resides in an XML file or database, you can use a data source control or programmatically bind the data. Once the data is displayed, you can customize the appearance using a variety of properties. What’s more, there are many DayPilot Makes Implementing a Feature-Rich Scheduling Experience Simple events and extension points, making it easy to customize the display and behavior of these controls. For example, it takes just a few lines of code to instruct DayPilot to use different background colors for an event based on the asset or resource. The most exciting aspect of DayPilot is its integrated AJAX support. The DayPilot user interfaces let the end user drag and drop scheduled events and to modify event durations and information by clicking, dragging, and double-clicking. There is also an integrated context menu, which is displayed when the user right-clicks on an existing scheduled event. The context menu can be used to modify the selected event, delete it, or perform some custom action. At the time of this writing, DayPilot has been thoroughly tested with Internet Explorer 6.0 and up and Firefox 2.0 and up. The development roadmap includes upcoming support for both the Safari and Opera browsers. DayPilot is available in two editions: an open-source version, which is free, and a Pro version. In a nutshell, the open-source version provides read-only day and week views. To enjoy the month and scheduler views and to allow your users to move and edit events from the DayPilot user interfaces, you will need to use the Pro version. Price: Free open-source version; $549 for the Pro version. daypilot.org/daypilot-pro-4-8.htm Send your questions and comments for Scott to toolsmm@microsoft.com. All prices were confirmed September 18, 2008, and are subject to change. The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions at Microsoft. November 2008 11 http://daypilot.org/daypilot-pro-4-8.htm

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of MSDN Magazine - November 2008

Contents MSDN Magazine - November 2008 Toolbox CLR Inside Out Data Points Cutting Edge Security Briefs Test Your Security IQ Agile SDL Access Control Utility Spotlight RIA Test Run Wicked Code Foundations Team System End Bracket

MSDN Magazine - November 2008

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