Create "printable" versions of the pages using ASP.NET MasterPages

Printing a page online usually means printing more than what you actually want. WebPages are quite fancy nowadays, with ad banners on top, navigational links on the left, and so on. By I wanted the printed pages to not include the menu bar and sidebars, only the content.

If you use master pages in the project, then one solution would be changing the current master page to another, which can be friendlier for printing. This can be done as follows.

Microsoft Chart Controls for ASP.NET

Recently Microsoft has released .NET 3.5 Chart Control. The control is very rich in features supports a rich assortment of chart options - including pie, area, range, point, circular, accumulation, data distribution, Ajax interactive, doughnut, and more. They have the ability data bind to any object that implements IEnumerable (arrays, hashes, data tables, etc.).

I find the Chart control to be a great companion into my solutions where it requires some data presentation in terms of charts.

To use the Library (Note: Requires .NET 3.5 framework):
• Download and install Microsoft Chart Controls for Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5;
• Download Microsoft Chart Controls Add-on for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008;
• If you want to extend/use MS Chart Control grab the document and samples.

Here is an example:

Chart contains information about certain types of contracts and terms of validity of these contracts. Information is structured in years. Red line is today date. Also is added the ability to click on the number of contract and redirect to contract details page.

JQuery slide toggle menu with Cookies, remembering the last state on reload or page navigation

Excited by powerful of JQuery and the numerous numbers of plugins, when I had to do a simple menu, I decided to find a JQuery plugin, I found some on ajaxline.com and on designm.ag, but no one correspond to what I need. A very simple menu, like this:

I tried to make one using just JQuery and Cookie Plugin for JQuery, for remember the last state on reload or page navigation. I found some examples how to use Cookie plugin or how to make a slide toggle with cookies, but no one give me possibility to have more than one slider on a page.

Display Loading message without using Update Progress Control in ASP.Net AJAX

As we all know, Update Progress control in ASP.Net AJAX can be used to let the users know that the server side process is still progressing with a loading message or through a graphic. The same effect is possible to make without using Update Progress control.