JoeAudette.com

A while back I posted about cleaner ASP.NET server control rendering coming soon via CSS Cntrol Adapters.

Microsoft just released some nice sample CSS adapaters under their new Permissive License.
You can get the source here and read the white paper about CSS Control Adapters here

This is awesome! No more nasty nested tables for the ASP.NET Menu and TreeView controls with these new samples and it should be possible to make additional adpaters to take control of the rendering of any other server controls where we don't like the default markup output.

I'll blog more about this after I have a chance to check it out. I've noticed that web part zones also use table layouts, hopefully I will be able to change that using this technique as well.

Update:10:48 am

My previous excitement is almost completely diminished because I just noticed a new clause in the MS Permissive license that states the license only applies to apps developed for the windows platform. This clause was not in the previous version of this license that I read in relation to their sample provider model implementations that MS made available earlier this month. This does not lead me to believe that I can use these examples in my work with mojoPortal since it targets both the .NET runtime and Mono. How lame, just when I thought MS was starting to learn how to play nice in open source. Now I don't even want to look at their code as I will need to do a clean room implementation just based on studying the Control Adapter architecture. Yuck! How dissapointing! They have taken down the links I posted above since this morning and say it will be back online next tuesday but that doesn't help me at all unless they remove that clause.

Update 4/29/2006 9:16 pm

Its looking hopeful that the license discrepancy was a mistake and the CSS Control Adapter samples will be available for use in true open source form. I'm thinking there was just a mistake in the web  page linked above for the Permissive License, it is not the same as the Permissive License here so I'm thinking they just put the wrong text (the text for the Limited Permissive License) in the body of the page and it will all be better on tuesday when they re-do the official release. Thanks to those who have posted comments and those who have emailed with me. We'll find out for sure on Tuesday but for now I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Update 4/30/2006 4:14 PM CST

I just heard back from Scott Guthrie and they are going to correct the license issue. So my excitement for these samples has returned fully. Can't wait to use them!

Update 5/2/2006 7:12PM CST

The download for the CSS Control Adpater samples is back online and as promised the license is corrected to the MS Permissive License with no clause about platform! Kudos and Thanks to Microsoft and Scott Guthrie.
This means I will be able to use the ASP.NET Menu sample in mojoPortal which will get rid of a whole mess of tables and render the menu as ul and li elements which is much more appropriate. Sweet!

Update 5/10/2006 8:00pm CST

This site is now using the sample Menu Adapter with a few modifications. If you view the source of this page you will see the menu no longer is rendered as nasty nested tables but as nice ul and li elements.
Very nice!