Color Picker ASP.NET AJAX Extender Control

I was looking for a client-side color picker control and found it extremely difficult to find something that would satisfy to my requirements. I have found plenty of pure JavaScript controls written on very different levels of proficiency and there was even one ASP.NET color-picker control that I almost liked but still my major requirement was not satisfied: I was looking for AJAX .NET Extender control - easy to use and based on a solid and proven platform.

So I have researched what other color picker controls do and decided to write the one myself that I would base on Microsoft AJAX .NET platform. After some considerations I've decided to go even further and build an AJAX Control Toolkit Extender control.

As an example I took an AJAX Control Toolkit Calendar extender and in my Color Picker extender control I also internally used another AJAX Control Toolkit control: Popup extender.

So what are the advantages of implementing a client control as an ASP.NET AJAX extender?

1. You use ASP.NET page mark-up to render the control content to the browser.
2. No need to manually inject JavaScript, HTML and other resources.
3. You develop JavaScript code in a standalone file leveraging ASP.NET AJAX framework and Visual Studio intellisense abilities.
4. JavaScript per se is very well structured, easy to read and debug.
5. Many of the hassles of JavaScript client coding such as cross-browser compatibility, event handling, asynchronous calls are taken care of by ASP.NET AJAX framework.

So I have spent a few days coding the control and finally it's out there. I have created a Codeplex project for it so if you are interested just go there and download the control and a Demo Web site.

Now just a few more words about the extender. First, this is how it looks:

Second, it's extremely easy to use. The extender attaches to an ASP.NET TextBox server control and to an optional button that can open a popup window and an element that samples a selected color in the background. User selects a color by clicking on a colored area. Below is a code example of using an extender on an ASP.NET page.

    <asp:TextBox ID="TextBox1" runat="server" Columns="7" MaxLength="7">asp:TextBox>
 <asp:ImageButton ID="ImageButton1" runat="server" ImageUrl="~/Images/icon_colorpicker.gif" />
 <cdt:ColorPickerExtender ID="cpe" runat="server"
     TargetControlID="TextBox1"
     SampleControlID="ImageButton1"
     PopupButtonID="ImageButton1"
  />

Feel free to download the extender from the Codeplex, try it and post any comments or suggestions on the Codeplex project page.