I have several MVC pages that render a grid-like control. I now need to create a single page to incorporate all 8 pages. I was thinking that a traditional ASP.NET page and 8 AJAX windows - but is that the most sensible way? Also, I want to send "commands" from the main page to each MVC page.

All ideas appreciated.

Thanks.

ajax m 

I created a dynamic javascript grid that just connects to a json source and dynamically creates the table based upon the source using jquery.  I keep meaning to post it somewhere, but I haven't had time to clean it up with work/other projects.  My suggestion is to do something similar.  Most asp.net controls end up just being javascript + serverside anyway, it's just more abstracted.

I'm taking a phased approach to developing dashboard style pages with multiple grids or widgets:

1. to quickly develop start off using <%= Html.RenderComponent<GridController>(c => c.List("query 1") %><br/><%= Html.RenderComponent<GridController>(c => c.List("query 2") %> etc., all postbacks/actions would cause a full postback
2. use jQuery to render partials on the page <div id="grid1"></div><script>$("grid1").load("/Grid/List?q=query%201")</script>
3. use jQuery to request JSON <div id="grid1"></div><script>$.getJSON("/Grid/List?q=query%201&format=json", function(data) { // iterate and render in #grid1 })</script>

Then jQuery - or other javascript library - can be used to override the action of any <a> tags to perform an AJAX post using the existing Href attribute and re-update the container #grid1 etc. as required. New command buttons rendered as partials on the page can be coupled up as AJAX ones using something like http://plugins.jquery.com/project/Listen to listen for new buttons based on selectors eg. a.editButton.