Learning AJAX
Category: Web Development
Learning about AJAX is one of things that’s been on my to do list for awhile. So thought now was as good as time as any to jump on the bandwagon! I’ve put together a couple of example pages and I’m beginning to get a basic understanding of how it all works.
Adobe’s Example Called Spry
With the release of the new Dreamweaver CS3 comes their “AJAX” framework called Spry. What I have learned since is that Spry is NOT technically AJAX and even Adobe admit as much on their site. It’s more of standard mix between Javascript and DHTML?
Anyway, I can say this Spry is incredibly easy to use. Drag and drop buttons allowed me to create the following example page:
http://www.cherrystreet.co.uk/ajax
W3 School Example
On the W3 site you can read free AJAX tutorials, which is great. Finished the tutorial and it certainly answered my basic questions.
Took one of their examples and created the following “Suggestion” page. The idea here is that it will suggest a name as you type. So if you start typing the letter “L”, the AJAX will go off and bring back immediate suggestions of “Linda” and “Lisa”. And as you continue typing, L-I-N, it will keep checking the suggestions and now remove Lisa as one of the possibilities.
http://www.cherrystreet.co.uk/ajax/ajaxsuggest.htm
Lots More to Learn
Have a way to go before I know my way around AJAX (or JavaScript for that matter!) but it’s cool stuff to play around with. I’ll never be a hardcore developer, but every designer should understand the web technologies available to them. And hey, everyone’s doing it! : )