At the time of this review, the latest version of Dart’s PowerWEB LiveControls for ASP.NET suite is 1.1.3. You can download the latest version from http://dart.com/powerweb/livecontrols.asp. Pricing starts at $499 for a single server. A developer license is free – nothing needs to be purchased until the application is deployed to production.
Upon downloading the suite, installation entails running a single .msi file, which walks the user through a typical setup routine. For me, the whole product installed without incident in just a couple of minutes. Once set up, a new PowerWEB entry under the Start menu's Programs folder will lead you to documentation and samples. The installer will also place the controls in your VS.NET toolbox, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Dart PowerWEB LiveControls in VS.NET Toolbox
After installation, you’ll probably want to run the LiveTutorial sample application first. You’ll find this sample application by clicking on the Start menu and navigating to the Programs, PowerWEB, LiveControls for ASP.NET, Sample Code folder. You can see it live online at http://dotnet.dart.com/livetutorial/default.aspx. Notice how most activities do not cause the page to postback, resulting in a much smoother experience for the user. This is the most compelling feature of these controls, and is something I expect users will demand more and more as applications that utilize this functionality become more commonplace.
