Atlas demo with Europe map

Ajax is the new black. Everybody wants it, everybody talks about it, and Microsoft, never one to arrive at a party without bringing its own enormous toolbox, has recently released the April CTP of Atlas, their upcoming framework for building Ajax applications.

Naturally, I had to play with it. I put together a small experiment using ASP.NET 2.0 and Microsoft Virtual Earth. This is an interactive map showing some of the largest cities in Europe. You click and drag your way across the continent, zoom with the mouse wheel, and hover over cities to see population figures and their ranking on the list. The maps are provided by Microsoft Virtual Earth and the photos are taken by me.

Atlas demo screenshot.

Update: The live demo eventually disappeared after a server change. Such is the natural order of the web. Frameworks die, servers vanish, links rot, and somewhere an old screenshot survives to prove that any of it ever happened.