Bulletproof Ajax

by Jeremy Keith

Overview

Step-by-step guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax

• A step-by-step guide to enhancing Web sites with Ajax.
• Uses progressive enhancement techniques to ensure graceful degradation (which makes sites usable in all browsers).
• Shows readers how to write their own Ajax scripts instead of relying on third-party libraries.

Web site designers love the idea of Ajax--of creating Web pages in which information can be updated without refreshing the entire page. But for those who aren't hard-core programmers, enhancing pages using Ajax can be a challenge. Even more of a challenge is making sure those pages work for all users. In Bulletproof Ajax, author Jeremy Keith demonstrates how developers comfortable with CSS and (X)HTML can build Ajax functionality without frameworks, using the ideas of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement to ensure that the pages work for all users. Throughout this step-by-step guide, his emphasis is on best practices with an approach to building Ajax pages called Hijax, which improves flexibility and avoids worst-case scenarios.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780132704762
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	02/27/2003
Series:	Voices That Matter
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	99998
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Working with the Web consultancy firm, Clearleft, Jeremy Keith creates elegant, usable Web sites using the troika of Web standards: CSS, (X)HTML, and the Document Object Model. He is a member of the Web Standards Project and joint lead of the DOM Scripting Task Force. He teaches hands-on Ajax and DOM Scripting in full-day workshops and is the author of DOM Scripting: JavaScript Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model.

Table of Contents

Introduction     vi
Acknowledgments     viii
What Is Ajax?     1
Defining Ajax     5
The Ajax Toolkit     8
Summary     12
JavaScript and the Document Object Model     13
JavaScript     15
The Document Object Model     34
Summary     44
XMLHttpRequest     45
Origins     47
Create an Instance     48
Send a Request     51
Receive a Response     56
Putting It All Together     60
Summary     65
Data Formats     67
XML     69
JSON     77
HTML     87
Summary     92
Hijax     93
Progressive Enhancement     95
Unobtrusive JavaScript     96
Progressive Enhancement and Ajax     99
Hijax in Action     103
The Deceptively Rich Client     115
Summary     117
Ajax Challenges     119
Backward Compatibility     121
Web Services     125
Feedback     126
Browser Behavior     134
Wireframing     137
Summary     138
Ajax and Accessibility     139
Understanding Screen Readers     141
Screen Readers and Ajax     142
State of the Art     146
The Future     150
Summary     151
Putting It All Together     153
Planning     155
Applying Ajax     166
Bulletproofing     182
Summary     186
The Future of Ajax     187
Libraries, Frameworks, and Toolkits, Oh My!     190
Choosing a Library     193
Whither Ajax?     194
Index     197

Editorial Reviews

The Barnes & Noble Review
So you know HTML and CSS; you can make your way around JavaScript and DOM. How hard could Ajax be? Too hard, if your book assumes you're coming from Java and server-side programming. Try this instead: Bulletproof Ajax.

Jeremy Keith's title borrows from Dan Cederholm's superb Bulletproof Web Design. But this book really is about building Ajax into your applications flexibly and incrementally, and making sure that if it does fail, it degrades gracefully.

In Keith's approach -- named "Hijax" -- you first create pages with traditional non-Ajax refreshes. You plan for Ajax from the get-go. But you wait until late to add your Ajax JavaScript code, which then "hijacks" your links and forms. Your application works smoothly in Ajax and Ajax-free environments, with no duplicate logic, bloated client-side code, or hassle. Hijax is earning lots of buzz: This is its creator's definitive guide to using it. Bill Camarda, from the March 2007 Read Only