Ajax: The Definitive Guide: Interactive Applications for the Web

by Anthony Holdener

Overview

Is Ajax a new technology, or the same old stuff web developers have been using for years? Both, actually. This book demonstrates not only how tried-and-true web standards make Ajax possible, but how these older technologies allow you to give sites a decidedly modern Web 2.0 feel.

Ajax: The Definitive Guide explains how to use standards like JavaScript, XML, CSS, and XHTML, along with the XMLHttpRequest object, to build browser-based web applications that function like desktop programs. You get a complete background on what goes into today's web sites and applications, and learn to leverage these tools along with Ajax for advanced browser searching, web services, mashups, and more. You discover how to turn a web browser and web site into a true application, and why developing with Ajax is faster, easier and cheaper.

The book also explains:

• How to connect server-side backend components to user interfaces in the browser
• Loading and manipulating XML documents, and how to replace XML with JSON
• Manipulating the Document Object Model (DOM)
• Designing Ajax interfaces for usability, functionality, visualization, and accessibility
• Site navigation layout, including issues with Ajax and the browser's back button
• Adding life to tables & lists, navigation boxes and windows
• Animation creation, interactive forms, and data validation
• Search, web services and mash-ups
• Applying Ajax to business communications, and creating Internet games without plug-ins
• The advantages of modular coding, ways to optimize Ajax applications, and more

This book also provides references to XML and XSLT, popular JavaScript Frameworks, Libraries, and Toolkits, and various Web Service APIs. By offering web developers a much broader set of tools and options, Ajax gives developers a new way to create content on the Web, while throwing off the constraints of the past. Ajax: The Definitive Guide describes the contents of this unique toolbox in exhaustive detail, and explains how to get the most out of it.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780596528386
Publisher:	O'Reilly Media, Incorporated
Publication date:	01/01/2008
Pages:	980
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.19(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

Anthony T. Holdener III currently builds GIS web applications utilizing Esri ArcGIS JavaScript API, Google Maps JavaScript API, and/or Bing Maps API. He has worked with the web in one form or another since 1997 when he helped open an Internet cafe in Fairview Heights, Illinois. A graduate of St. Louis Universitywith a degree in Computer Science, Anthony has worked as a web architect, developer, manager, or adjunct teacher for almost fifteen years in the St. Louis area. He is also the author of “Ajax: The Definitive Guide” (O’Reilly). He resides in the village of Shiloh, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife and twins.

Table of Contents

Dedication; Preface; Who Should Read This Book; How This Book Is Organized; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; How to Contact Us; Safari® Books Online; Acknowledgments; Ajax Fundamentals; Chapter 1: Reinventing the Web; 1.1 Web Page Components; 1.2 Modern Web Standards; 1.3 Browsers; 1.4 Standards Compliance; 1.5 Welcome to Web 2.0; Chapter 2: From Web Sites to Web Applications; 2.1 The Transition; 2.2 Basic Web and Ajax Design Patterns; 2.3 Application Environments; 2.4 The Developer; 2.5 What Ajax Is Not; Chapter 3: Servers, Databases, and the Web; 3.1 The Web Server; 3.2 Server-Side Scripting; 3.3 Databases; 3.4 Getting Data Into and Out of Relational Databases; 3.5 Interfacing the Interface; 3.6 Frameworks and Languages; 3.7 What Good Are Frameworks?; Chapter 4: Foundations: Scripting XML and JSON; 4.1 XML; 4.2 JSON; 4.3 Choosing a Data Exchange Format; 4.4 A Quick Introduction to Client Frameworks; 4.5 Simplifying Development; Chapter 5: Manipulating the DOM; 5.1 Understanding the DOM; 5.2 We've Already Met; 5.3 Manipulating DOM Elements, Attributes, and Objects; 5.4 Change That Style; 5.5 Events in the DOM; 5.6 DOM Stuff for Tables; 5.7 Is innerHTML Evil?; Chapter 6: Designing Ajax Interfaces; 6.1 Usability; 6.2 Functionality; 6.3 Visualization; 6.4 Accessibility; 6.5 The Ajax Interface; Ajax Foundations; Chapter 7: Laying Out Site Navigation; 7.1 Menus; 7.2 Tabs; 7.3 Navigation Aids; 7.4 Problems with Ajax Navigation; 7.5 General Layout; Chapter 8: Fun with Tables and Lists; 8.1 Layout Without Tables; 8.2 Accessible Tables; 8.3 Sorting Tables; 8.4 Tables with Style; 8.5 Table Pagination; 8.6 Lists 2.0; 8.7 Lists for All Seasons; Chapter 9: Page Layout with Frames That Aren't; 9.1 Using Frames; 9.2 XHTML and Frames; 9.3 The Magic of Ajax and a DIV; 9.4 Page Layout; Chapter 10: Navigation Boxes and Windows; 10.1 The Alert Box; 10.2 Integrating the Window; 10.3 Navigation Windows; 10.4 Tool Tips; 10.5 The Necessary Pop Up; Chapter 11: Customizing the Client; 11.1 Browser Customizations; 11.2 Stylesheet Switching; 11.3 Switching Different Customizations; 11.4 Easy Font-Size Switching; 11.5 Creating Color Themes; 11.6 Throwing Ajax into the Mix; 11.7 Changing Site Language with Ajax; 11.8 Repositioning Objects and Keeping Those Positions; 11.9 Storing It All in the Database; Chapter 12: Errors: To Be (in Style) or Not to Be; 12.1 Error Handling on the Web; 12.2 Should I React to That Error?; 12.3 Handling an Error with Care; 12.4 Integrating the User Error; Chapter 13: This Ain't Your Father's Animation; 13.1 Animation on the Web; 13.2 What Is Wrong with GIF?; 13.3 Building Animation with the PNG Format; 13.4 Ajax Animations; Chapter 14: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Form; 14.1 XHTML Forms; 14.2 Using JavaScript; 14.3 Fancier Forms; 14.4 The Basics of Ajax and Forms; 14.5 Accepting Ajax-Delivered Data; 14.6 Server Responses; Chapter 15: Data Validation: Client, Server, or Both; 15.1 Data Validation Is Important; 15.2 Validation with JavaScript; 15.3 CSS Notification of Errors; 15.4 Validation on the Server; 15.5 Ajax Client/Server Validation; Ajax in Applications; Chapter 16: Search: The New Frontier; 16.1 Types of Site Searches; 16.2 Dynamic Searching with Ajax; 16.3 Googling a Site; Chapter 17: Introducing Web Services; 17.1 What Is a Web Service?; 17.2 Web Service Architectures; 17.3 Ajax and Web Services; 17.4 Web Feeds; 17.5 Web Service APIs; Chapter 18: Web Services: The APIs; 18.1 Publicly Available Web Services; 18.2 Ajax and the API; 18.3 The Next Step with Services; Chapter 19: Mashups; 19.1 Mashups in Web 2.0 Applications; 19.2 What Are Mashups?; 19.3 Mashups As Applications; 19.4 Data Sources; 19.5 Application Portlets; 19.6 Building a Mashup; 19.7 Mashups and Business; Chapter 20: For Your Business Communication Needs; 20.1 Businesses and Ajax; 20.2 Real-Time Communication; 20.3 File Sharing; 20.4 Whiteboards; 20.5 Combining Applications; Chapter 21: Internet Games Without Plug-ins; 21.1 Gaming on the Web; 21.2 Internet Requirements; 21.3 Animating a Character; 21.4 Basic Collisions; 21.5 User Input; 21.6 The Basics of Event Handling; 21.7 Putting It All Together; Wrapping Up; Chapter 22: Modular Coding; 22.1 What Is Modular Coding?; 22.2 The Client Side; 22.3 The Server Side; Chapter 23: Optimizing Ajax Applications; 23.1 Site Optimization Factors; 23.2 HTTP; 23.3 Packets; 23.4 Client-Side Optimizations; 23.5 Server-Side Optimizations; 23.6 Ajax Optimization; References; The XML and XSLT You Need to Know; What Is XML?; Anatomy of an XML Document; Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformation; JavaScript Framework, Toolkit, and Library References; Prototype Framework Reference; script.aculo.us Library Reference; Rico Library Reference; MooTools Library Reference; Dojo Toolkit Reference; Sarissa Library Reference; MochiKit Library Reference; jQuery Library Reference; Web Service API Catalog; Ajax Risk References; Requirements; Bookmarking Issues; Back and Forward Button Problems; Security Risks; Search Engines; Accessibility; Content Changes; Colophon;