A closer look at the new RadNotification control in RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX

Have you ever searched for a quick and simple way to notify your users that something new is going on? Or just to show them some status message upon specific condition or time interval? This is now pretty easy to achieve with the new RadNotification control which joins RadControls for ASP NET AJAX suite in the Q2 2011 release!

Until now, you could achieve the same effect by using some popup in multiple approaches but you will always need to add a timer, load on demand code, server script or something else, depending on the exact requirements and that is why we designed RadNotification to provide all this out of the box and make your development easier!

Here are the main features of RadNotification:

• Load on demand functionality
  RadNotification provides ability to use LoD out of the box in two manners – via callback or a WebService.
• Show and/or update at specified time interval
  You can configure RadNotification to automatically show and/or update at a given time interval by simply setting a few server properties.
• Built-in, fully customizable context menu
  RadNotification provides a built-in context menu, similar to the one found in some desktop notifications. The menu can optionally show with a target icon in the titlebar and you can specify any other targets as well.

• Lightweight semantic HTML output
  The HTML markup of the RadNotification incorporates our know-how accumulated from developing the RadWindow and RadToolTip. It has semantic DIV rendering and does not include any layout TABLE elements.

• CSS3
  With Internet Explorer 9 and above, all major browsers now support the new styling features of CSS3. In order to keep the HTML footprint lighter and faster we have created rounded corners and shadows using CSS3 only. That will allow for custom skin developers to add just a few extra CSS lines to change the border radius, shadow color and blur distance. The CSS3 properties will not be applied to older browsers such as Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, but that will not affect the functionality of the control.

• WAI-ARIA support, RTL support, KeepOnMouseOver, AutoCloseDelay, animations, automatic positioning no matter the screen resolution and many more features
  You can see what else is available in our online demos below:
  http://demos.telerik.com/aspnet-ajax/notification/examples/overview/defaultcs.aspx