The future of AJAX

As a webmaster, have you been implementing AJAX into your websites?

That seems to be the future of the Web, what do you think about what it brings to the web pages?

 

AJAX?

The AJAX I know is a Dutch soccer team.

 

AJAX: Asynchronous Javascript and XML. What Gmail and every other Google product uses.

It's been around for a LONG time already, almost 5 years. It was created by Microsoft back in the day, but Google brought it alive and hyped it up.

 

where we can see it ?

 

Google Maps aka Google Local is a great example. Notice how you can drag the map around. The reason is it's making server calls without refreshing the page.

Ajaxian is a good resource for all things Ajax.

 

I've been noticing Ajax here and there around the web, so I think a lot of webmasters are jumping on board. It shouldn't be used excessively though. Sometimes a form submit is good enough, and Ajax is only being added so they can be part of the club.

 

I think AJAX has its place, just like tables do. It should be used with purpose, just not for the heck of it.

 

You can see it in one of my websites which is not over yet (implementation phase)

www.fight-plagiarism.org

Only the "Report plagiarism" is active.

 

Can you describe the Ajax functionality at your site? It's not so obvious.

 

As i said, the website is currently being developed.

The ajax functionality so far is : not being forced to load a new page.

Extremly FAST loading times.

 

If the thing you're loading via Ajax is the entirety your main content, then you really need to reconsider your design. How is someone supposed to link to a specific page?

 

I don't seem to see the extreem fast loading time part. Maybe because your page is not heavy and my connection is 20Mbit.

I will look AJAX up.

Thank you

 

AJAX is not bound to XMLHttpRequest, as many believe it is (judging by some posts above). You can do pretty much the same with a hidden frame and some JS. It's the concept that is gaining the popularity. That is, more and more webmasters make requests to a web server without forcing the browser to change the current page. A good example of this is how an address form can be filled out. If the user enters the country name, AJAX-capable application will place a request to the web server and pull a list of states/provinces/prefectures that applies to this country and use JS to populate a combo box in the form.

One thing web masters should be aware is that AJAX-powered pages are hidden from the browser's link-clicking logic and if a user clicks on a link or a button and the page changes without actually submitting the usual HTTP request (heck, it is even possible to serve the entire website under a single URL!), the back button will no longer work, the history is going to be screwed up, etc.

J.D.

 

True, but any developer worth his/her salt that's doing Ajax will be using XMLHttpRequest.

 

Is AJAX something that needs installed on a server, or can I just start doing stuff?

 

Let's say you want to use XMLHttpRequest. Here's what you need:

• A browser that supports Ajax
• A script server-side that will return a result
• javascript client-side that will do something with that result

The browser item is easy. Go to the wikipedia link I provided above and you'll notice most modern browsers handle it fine. (There are also a ton of links in there for tutorials)

The server side script could be as simple as a PHP page that returns one word. A respectable Ajax app will return XML though, so you'll want to go through a tutorial to learn how to do that.

The client side script is something else that just requires learning. Nothing to install.

There are Ajax frameworks cropping up, which are supposed to make implementing Ajax easier. You make the case that you're installing something on the server, but it's not necessary.

 

Sweet, I know Perl, PHP, and JavaScript. I am going to start doing something....I don't know what, but it's going to be great.

 

no back button

 

I tried Ajax for a chat on a client website and it's quite good, no need to reload the whole page every sec and no need activeX or java...

But I have seen more that can be done with Ajax, I should find back the website ; on this site we could move ay boxes (CSS) by drag and drop, I liked it but I'm not quite sure this is very useful for websites...

 

If you personalize your homepage on google you can drag and drop the news feeds, I assume this is with AJAX and it is very impressive.