Hi Dave,

Unfortunately we do not have a "light" version of our controls. The easiest thing you can do is to enable physical script files and real image files. Here are the instructions on how to enable physical script file (scroll to the bottom):

http://www.essentialobjects.com/ViewDoc.aspx?t=InstallationAndDeployment%2fdeploy.html

For image files, you would simply unzip Images.zip found in our installation folder, find the image that you were using and copy them to your server, then change corresponding control properties to use them instead of the built-in image ID.

Most of the eo_web.ashx request you see are for rendering JavaScript file and built-in images. So once you convert them to real JavaScript files/image files, you will see less eo_web.ashx. This will improve performance because once you change them to real files, the request is served directly by IIS instead of ASP.NET. In another word, those request no longer go through ASP.NET pipeline. It also indirectly reduces page size because the eo_web.ashx with a GUID is generally longer than the real image file name (it won't save much on the JavaScript file name).

JavaScript and image files are automatically cached by the client side. Caching the page itself is also possible but is very easy to cause more problems than it solve due to the interactive nature of most ASP.NET application. Regardless it's always good to keep in mind that comparing with traditional ASP.NET controls, our controls are quit heavy. So it's always a good idea to keep the number of instance within the same page minimum. For example, if you want to use a DataGrid control with a DateTime column, you definitely want to avoid initiating one DatePicker control per row.

Thanks

I too have some questions on performance. I have recently purchased the control and find it very powerful in terms of functionality. However I (and my clients) are noticing a first time performance hit on some of the websites where I have used the menu control. I am placing in the control in a master page for a .NET 2.0 app. After first load subsequent calls to other pages go very quickly. My apps are precompiled so this is not related to a first time .NET compilation.

I have read the performance tips and have created a physical folder to hold the js files and modified the web.config. I see the files created there after I run the app. However you mention in the help that "you must have already property configured eo_web.ashx handler" What exactly do you mean by this? Is there another step to take?

Also for the images tip mentioned above I checked the images folder on my installed copy in EO.Web Controls 2007.1 folder and the zipped images file was empty. Where can I get the images to carry out your recommendation for adding the physical images also.
thank you