Foundation of Ajax

Cover......Page 1
Contents at a Glance......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
About the Authors......Page 14
Acknowledgments......Page 18
An Overview of This Book......Page 20
Contacting Us......Page 22
A Short Historyof Web Applications......Page 24
Browser History......Page 25
CGI......Page 26
Applets......Page 27
Servlets and ASPs and PHP . . . Oh My!......Page 29
Flash......Page 32
The XML Derivatives......Page 33
The Fundamental Problem......Page 35
Ajax......Page 36
The Usability Question......Page 39
TheSkill Set......Page 40
Usage......Page 42
Summary......Page 43
Overview of the XMLHttpRequest Object......Page 46
Methods and Properties......Page 47
An Example Interaction......Page 49
GET vs.POST......Page 51
ARemote Scripting Example......Page 52
How to Send a Simple Request......Page 54
ASimple Request Example......Page 55
AWordAbout Security......Page 57
DOM Level 3 Load and Save......Page 58
The DOM......Page 59
Summary......Page 60
Using the innerHTML Property to Create Dynamic Content......Page 62
Parsing the Response As XML......Page 65
Dynamically Editing Page Content with the W3C DOM......Page 71
Sending Request Parameters......Page 78
Sending Request Parameters As XML......Page 85
Sending Data to the Server Using JSON......Page 90
Summary......Page 96
Performing Validation......Page 98
Reading Response Headers......Page 102
Dynamically Loading List Boxes......Page 106
Creating an Autorefreshing Page......Page 113
Displaying a Progress Bar......Page 118
Creating Tooltips......Page 124
Dynamically Updating a Web Page......Page 129
Accessing Web Services......Page 138
Providing Autocomplete......Page 145
Summary......Page 151
Documenting JavaScript Code with JSDoc......Page 154
Usage......Page 155
Validating HTML Content with Firefox Extensions......Page 158
HTML Validator......Page 159
Checky......Page 161
Searching for Nodes Using DOM Inspector......Page 163
Performing JavaScript Syntax Checking with JSLint......Page 166
Performing JavaScript Compression and Obfuscation......Page 168
Using the Web Developer Extension for Firefox......Page 170
Object-Oriented JavaScript via the prototype Property......Page 171
Private Properties and Information Hiding with JavaScript......Page 176
Classical Inheritance in JavaScript......Page 177
Putting It All Together......Page 178
Summary......Page 181
Introducing the Test-First Approach......Page 184
Introducing JUnit......Page 186
Writing Tests......Page 187
Running Tests......Page 202
Using Standard and Custom Query Strings......Page 207
Working with JsUnit Server......Page 212
Getting Help......Page 214
Summary......Page 215
Debugging Ajax Requests with Greasemonkey......Page 216
Inspecting Ajax Requests and Responses with the XMLHttpRequest Debugging User Script......Page 217
Debugging JavaScript......Page 219
Using Firefox JavaScript Console......Page 220
Using Microsoft Script Debugger......Page 221
Using Venkman......Page 224
Summary......Page 240
Implementing the Fade Anything Technique (FAT)......Page 242
Implementing a Partial Page Paint......Page 243
Implementing a Draggable DOM......Page 244
Avoiding Common Gotchas......Page 245
Learning Where to Go for More......Page 247
Introducing Taconite......Page 249
The Solution......Page 250
What Does Taconite Do with the Content?......Page 251
Introducing Dashboard Applications......Page 252
Introducing the General Features......Page 253
Introducing the Design Features......Page 255
Analyzing the Code......Page 256
Analyzing the Weather Forecast Component......Page 258
Analyzing the Headline News Component......Page 265
How Does the Automatic Refreshing Work?......Page 268
Building a Better Autocomplete......Page 270
Summary......Page 272
Appending Rows to a Table......Page 274
Setting an Element’s Style via JavaScript......Page 275
Creating Input Elements......Page 276
Adding Event Handlers to Input Elements......Page 277
Creating Radio Buttons......Page 278
Summary......Page 279
Dojo......Page 280
TIBET......Page 281
RSLite......Page 282
XHConn......Page 283
Direct Web Remoting......Page 284
Microsoft’s Project Atlas......Page 285
Ruby on Rails......Page 286
Index......Page 288