[Solved] Q3 Prometheus, RadAjaxManager Considerably slower...

[Fooberichu]

I started working some AJAX into an application using Telerik RadAJAXManager last week (Q2) as a replacement for the standard MSAJAX UpdatePanel and liked the results... however, I upgraded everything to Q3 Prometheus today and noted that the RadAjaxManager ajaxified controls were considerably slower than previous.

To test my results, I placed them on the same page and made the only difference between the two was using the RadAjaxManager vs an UpdatePanel.  Each contains a dropdown menu with autopostback which, when selectedindexchanged is fired, updates two separate RadDatePicker (prometheus controls) values. 

The RadAjaxManager section is considerably slower than the UpdatePanel section... but with Q2 the RadAjaxManager section was either "as fast" or "faster" than the UpdatePanel section.  Why is that?

[Konstantin Petkov]

Hello Fooberichu,

Thank you for contacting us in regards to this interesting issue.

There is a small difference indeed. However, I don't think we have introduced that in the latest version. I just tested it with the Q2 2007 latest Prometheus RadControls release (November 07) and there is no difference with it too.

This should be because RadAjaxManager updates the control's css (UpdatePanel doesn't) and a complex control like RadDatePicker includes a lot of css. Hence the issue is not with a slower ajaxified DropDownList but a slower RadAjax update comparing to UpdatePanel. However, updating the css is necessary I believe, especially for most controls within the RadControls suite (or any advanced control).

I would suggest to use a SharedCalendar for your pickers (look at the code below), which will render less html output so that the updated area will get smaller. You can also set RadAjaxManager's EnablePageHeadUpdate to false (it is true by default) if you don't need to update the page header.

            <asp:ScriptManager ID="ScriptManager1" runat="server">
            </asp:ScriptManager>
            <telerik:RadAjaxManager ID="RadAjaxManager1" runat="server" EnablePageHeadUpdate="false">
                <AjaxSettings>
                    <telerik:AjaxSetting AjaxControlID="DropDownList1">
                        <UpdatedControls>
                            <telerik:AjaxUpdatedControl ControlID="RadDatePicker1" />
                            <telerik:AjaxUpdatedControl ControlID="RadDatePicker3" />
                        </UpdatedControls>
                    </telerik:AjaxSetting>
                </AjaxSettings>
            </telerik:RadAjaxManager>
            <asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server" AutoPostBack="true" OnSelectedIndexChanged="DropDownList1_SelectedIndexChanged">
                <asp:ListItem>1</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>2</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>3</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>4</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>5</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>6</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>7</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>8</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>9</asp:ListItem>
                <asp:ListItem>10</asp:ListItem>
            </asp:DropDownList>
            <telerik:RadDatePicker ID="RadDatePicker1" runat="server" SelectedDate="2007-12-21" SharedCalendarID="RadCalendar1">
            </telerik:RadDatePicker>
            <telerik:RadDatePicker ID="RadDatePicker3" runat="server" SelectedDate="2007-12-21" SharedCalendarID="RadCalendar1">
            </telerik:RadDatePicker>
            <telerik:RadCalendar ID="RadCalendar1" runat="server"></telerik:RadCalendar>

Best wishes,
Konstantin Petkov
the Telerik team

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