Question

Has anyone had any experience writing a web control (in either ASP.net, or javascript/HTML/CSS), that could be used to display log information which is pinged from a server every now and then via an AJAX query?

I’m thinking a grid control from someone like Telerik, or maybe a javascript jQuery-type library would at least have the plumbing I need to get going. Each row would likely contain some HTML which I could format as needed for the event, and that’s about it really.

It would also be nice to be able to programmatically scroll to show added rows, preferably smoothly.

Here is a programmer-art mockup of what I mean:

Regards,
Shane

Answer 1

I would recommend using JQuery to perform the ping to fetch data periodically. The data provider has to provide a data format like json of something easy for you to decipher on the receiving end.

Use JQuery again to construct the new log item to be displayed and append it to the log display container. Use ScrollTo plugin or just javascript to scroll new item into view

Resources:

• Fetching Data: http://docs.jquery.com/Ajax/load
• Append Item: http://docs.jquery.com/Manipulation/append
• Scrolling: http://plugins.jquery.com/project/ScrollTo