What exactly is the point of the ScriptManager's EnablePartialRendering Attribute

Question

Why would one want the EnablePartialRendering attribute to ever be "false" if building AJAX functionality into pages? Seems counter-productive. I've read here and there some things one may want to do with the attribute being false. But what I've read makes no sense.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I've used that attribute in testing before, to force a full "yellow screen" for server-side errors. Much easier to debug a quick server-side issue that way, than to inspect the error in the Event Log or the XmlHttpRequest's error response.

Also, one thing that it's not good for is preventing MicrosoftAjax.js from being injected. I've tried that in the past, hoping I could use the ScriptManager's script combining stand-alone. Unfortunately, no, it still injects MicrosoftAjax.js.

Answer 2

Eilon Lipton made a note of this issue (and the SupportsPartialRendering property)in his blog. Of interest to note:

EnablePartialRendering is intended for the page developer. That is, the person who is building the ASP.NET page and placing the ScriptManager on it. They get to decide whether they're interested at all in using the partial rendering feature. For example, for optimization purposes they might disable the partial rendering feature entirely to prevent any extra script from being downloaded. Or perhaps to debug an issue they want to temporarily disable UpdatePanels from doing async postbacks.