Build Your Own Ajax Web Applications PDF
Preview Build Your Own Ajax Web Applications
Summary of Contents Preface ........................................................................................................ xi 1. AJAX: the Overview ................................................................................. 1 2. Basic XMLHttpRequest .......................................................................... 13 3. The “A” in AJAX ..................................................................................... 41 4. AJAX and POST Requests ...................................................................... 85 5. Broader AJAX with Edit-in-place ........................................................... 129 6. Web Services and Slide-and-hide .......................................................... 167 7. More Web Services and a Back Button ................................................. 199 8. Drag and Drop with AJAX Chess .......................................................... 243 A. AJAX Toolkits ...................................................................................... 283 Index ....................................................................................................... 287 Licensed to [email protected] Licensed to [email protected] Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications by Matthew Eernisse Licensed to [email protected] Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications by Matthew Eernisse Copyright © 2006 SitePoint Pty. Ltd. Expert Reviewer: Stuart Langridge Editor: Georgina Laidlaw Managing Editor: Simon Mackie Index Editor: Bill Johncocks Technical Editor: Craig Anderson Cover Design: Jess Bentley Technical Director: Kevin Yank Cover Layout: Alex Walker Printing History: Latest Update: October 2006 First Edition: June 2006 Notice of Rights All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Notice of Liability The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information herein. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the authors and SitePoint Pty. Ltd., nor its dealers or distributors will be held liable for any damages to be caused either directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book, or by the software or hardware products described herein. Trademark Notice Rather than indicating every occurrence of a trademarked name as such, this book uses the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner with no intention of infringe- ment of the trademark. Published by SitePoint Pty. Ltd. 424 Smith Street Collingwood VIC Australia 3066. Web: www.sitepoint.com Email: [email protected] ISBN 0–9758419–4–7 Printed and bound in the United States of America Licensed to [email protected] About the Author Matthew lives in Houston, Texas, USA, and works for the Open Source Applications Foundation building the web UIs for Scooby, a next-generation web-based calendar client, and Cosmo, a calendar server. In his abundant free time, he writes about AJAX, JavaScript, Ruby, and PHP at Fleegix.org, and operates EpiphanyRadio, a webcast radio station. Matthew plays drums and speaks fluent Japanese. About the Expert Reviewer Stuart Langridge has been playing with the Web since 1994, and is quite possibly the only person in the world to have a BSc in Computer Science and Philosophy. He invented the term “unobtrusive DHTML” and has been a leader in the quest to popularize this new approach to scripting. When not working on the Web, he’s a keen Linux user and part of the team at open-source radio show LUGRadio, and likes drinking decent beers, studying stone circles and other ancient phenomena, and trying to learn the piano. About the Technical Director As Technical Director for SitePoint, Kevin Yank oversees all of its technical publica- tions—books, articles, newsletters, and blogs. He has written over 50 articles for SitePoint, but is best known for his book, Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL. Kevin lives in Melbourne, Australia, and enjoys performing improvised comedy theatre and flying light aircraft. About SitePoint SitePoint specializes in publishing fun, practical, and easy-to-understand content for web professionals. Visit http://www.sitepoint.com/ to access our books, newsletters, articles, and community forums. Licensed to [email protected] Licensed to [email protected] To my wife, Masako, and my three little boys—Hiromasa, Akira, and Yoshiki—for all their love, patience, and support. Licensed to [email protected] Licensed to [email protected] Table of Contents Preface ..................................................................................................... xi 1. AJAX: the Overview ............................................................................... 1 AJAX Web Applications ....................................................................... 2 The Bad Old Days ....................................................................... 3 Prehistoric AJAX .......................................................................... 3 What Makes AJAX Cool....................................................................... 4 AJAX Technologies ............................................................................... 8 Data Exchange and Markup: XML ............................................... 8 W3C Document Object Model .................................................. 10 Presentation: CSS ...................................................................... 11 Communication: XMLHttpRequest .............................................. 11 Putting it All Together: JavaScript ............................................... 12 Summary ........................................................................................... 12 2. Basic XMLHttpRequest ........................................................................ 13 A Simple AJAX Library ...................................................................... 14 Starting our Ajax Class .............................................................. 14 Creating an XMLHttpRequest Object ........................................... 16 Sending a Request ...................................................................... 18 Processing the Response ............................................................. 23 Aborting the Request ................................................................. 28 Wrapping it Up .......................................................................... 29 Example: a Simple Test Page ....................................................... 29 Example: a Simple AJAX App ............................................................. 33 Laying the Foundations .............................................................. 33 Handling the Result with showPoll ............................................ 34 Starting the Process Over Again .................................................. 36 Full Example Code ..................................................................... 36 Running the App ........................................................................ 38 Further Reading ................................................................................. 38 JavaScript’s Object Model .......................................................... 38 XMLHttpRequest ...................................................................... 39 Summary ........................................................................................... 39 3. The “A” in AJAX .................................................................................. 41 Planned Application Enhancements .................................................... 42 Organizing the Code .......................................................................... 43 Loss of Scope with setTimeout .................................................. 44 Creating the Monitor Object ...................................................... 47 Licensed to [email protected]
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