[...]... browser-based applications that behave much more dynamically than old-school web apps This new crop of AJAX web applications make more extensive use of interaction techniques like edit-in-place text, dragand-drop, and CSS animations or transitions to effect changes within the user interface This book will explain those techniques, and show you how to develop AJAX web applications of your own AJAX Web Applications. .. horrible, stodgy, old-school web app is a horrible, poorly executed AJAX web app When you apply it to the right parts of your web application, in the right ways, AJAX can enhance users’ experience of your application significantly AJAX can improve the interactivity and speed of your app, ultimately making that application easier, more fun, and more intuitive to use Often, AJAX applications are described... Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications 6 Web Services and Slide-and-hide 167 Slide-and-hide Window 168 Web Services: an Overview 168 APIs and Protocols 169 REST 169 XML-RPC 170 SOAP 171 Network-centric vs Application-centric 171 Amazon Web Services Client 172 Amazon Web Services Accounts 173... accurate description AJAX web apps are significantly more responsive than traditional, old-fashioned web applications, and they can provide levels of interactivity similar to those of desktop applications But an AJAX web app is still a remote application, and behaves differently from a desktop application that has access to local storage Part of your job as an AJAX developer is to craft applications that... confidently diagnose and debug issues with XMLHttpRequest in your web application Chapter 3: The “A” in AJAX A is for “asynchronous.” Asynchronicity is what makes AJAX so cool: XMLHttpRequest gives you the power to pull content from the server any time you want, without reloading the entire web page In this chapter, you’ll build your first real AJAX app—a web app monitor that uses XMLHttpRequest to poll a server... wait for an entire new web page to come across the wire, and be rendered by their browsers, before they can view the results 7 Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz Chapter 1: AJAX: the Overview AJAX Technologies The technologies that are used to build AJAX web applications encompass a number of different programming domains, so AJAX development is neither as straightforward as regular applications development,... development that uses web technologies like XML, DOM, CSS, and JavaScript to create uberinteractive web documents that behave like full-blown applications None of these AJAX technologies are actually all that new (even the AJAX “secret sauce,” XMLHttpRequest, has been around for years), but not a lot of people really knew how to use them to the fullest Now, with the proliferation of Web 2.0” applications that... you can use AJAX techniques to add real power and responsiveness to your web applications while supporting accessibility and backward compatibility The beauty of AJAX is that it lets you do all this using straightforward, standards-based code, so you won’t be seeing weird hacks or browser-specific code in this book So, roll up your sleeves—I hope you’re ready to get your hands dirty in some AJAX code!... 226 227 227 228 229 231 232 233 233 234 235 235 237 238 239 240 240 240 240 241 241 vii Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications Apache2 and OpenSSL on Windows 241 WSDL 241 Summary 242 8 Drag and Drop with AJAX Chess 243 AJAX Chess 243 Problems to Solve 244 The Chess Class 245 Starting the Application ... is a downloadable ZIP archive that contains complete code for all the examples presented in this book You can download the code archive from http://www .sitepoint. com/books /ajax1 /code.php Updates and Errata The Corrections and Typos page on the book’s web site, at http://www .sitepoint. com/books /ajax1 /errata.php will always have the latest in- xiv Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz formation about known typographical . Button 199 8. Drag and Drop with AJAX Chess 243 A. AJAX Toolkits 283 Index 287 Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications by Matthew Eernisse Licensed. State 276 Wiping the Board 278 AJAX Chess Back End 280 Future Enhancements 280 Summary 281 viii Build Your Own AJAX Web Applications Licensed to siowchen@darke.biz A. AJAX Toolkits 283 Index 287 ix Licensed. siowchen@darke.biz 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: