I created an AJAX ASP.NET class called AJAX Web Development with ASP.NET at LVSOnline.com. This fourth ASP.NET class in the series focuses on teaching students how the Ajax can be integrated within the ASP.NET framework.
Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) isn’t a technology but rather a grouping of technologies. Ajax uses a communication technology (typically SOAP and XML) to send and receive an asynchronous request/response to the server, and then leverages presentation technologies (JavaScript, DOM, HTML, and CSS) to process the response.
Ajax lets you execute a server-side method through a JavaScript call, without requiring a browser refresh.
The class is only $30 and there are no other materials or software needed to purchase.
Topics covered:
Week 1: Ajax overview; partial rendering; Ajax Extension controls; Script Manager
Week 2: Update Panel; Handing client errors; Update Progress
Week 3: AJAX Control Toolkit
Week 4: JavaScript libraries: jQuery
Week 5: Timer, Web Services and JSON Overview
Week 6: AJAX ASP.NET Controls: Telerik
To give you an idea of how each lesson looks, here is the first lesson (.pdf).
When Does Class Start?
The class runs five times a year for six weeks in January, March, May, August and October. To learn more view the course description page and contact me to find out the exact date on when you can register.
Creating an object-oriented AJAX engine
Once there is an understanding of the AJAX engine the focus can be on the actual response and page display; this is where the real power lies. Since rewriting the engine for each project is tedious and time consuming, an object-oriented solution can be very useful. This kind of engine can be reused for all of your AJAX projects and scaled to meet different projects’ needs.
An object-oriented AJAX engine will also help you separate your interface code from your request data, which will enable you to reuse this engine in multiple projects. The AJAX engine is not difficult to construct once you understand the syntax for creating custom JavaScript objects. The first step is to create a constructor function, which will be the access point to the object.
function Ajax() {
this.toString = function() {return "Ajax"; }
} read more…
AJAX, an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a group of technologies combines to accomplish powerful new forms of the web interactions. It’s composed of JavaScript, the XMLHTTPRequest object and XML, JSON, (X)HTML or even plain text.
Asynchronous means that you can make an HTTP request to a server and continue to process other data while waiting for the server’s response. For example, you can make requests to a server-side script to retrieve data from a database as XML, send data to a server-side script to be stored in a database or simple load a static XML file to populate pages of your web site without ever refreshing the page.
Behind the scenes data transfers are accomplished through the XMLHTTPRequest object, which is the heart of the AJAX engine, as it’s used to exchange data asynchronously with a server-side language, XML or other text format. It combines with the DOM (Document Object Model) to display the AJAX response data as (X)HTML and CSS.
The DOM is a language-independent interface that makes common web page elements accessible through scripting languages. This is extremely useful when working with dynamic data, such as an AJAX response, because it can be parsed by JavsScript and added to page elements on the fly without a browser refresh.
read more…
DHTML is a buzzword that came onto the scene during the version 4 browsers and tried to bring the “sexy back” to web development. Even though web standards, accessibility and unobtrusiveness were still in their infantcy, it did make the web world more aware of what you could do on the client (browser) before sending data to the server.
Even though the defintions of DHTML may never be totally accurate (the changing of the styles of HTML elements by means of JavaScript), if we can take what we have learned in the past and apply them now we can get a very thorough understanding of what JavaScript can do.
This e-book (.pdf) and example code (.zip) covers some topics I covered on this website as well as many others I have not, such as: the DOM, table sorting and highlighting, regular expressions, hide-show, pop-up windows, form validation and formatting, alertless error messages, date picker, google maps, and ajax basics.
Jeremy Keith and Derek Featherstone talked about how Ajax and Accessibility can live in harmony with each other at SXSW07. Topics covered include: progressive enhancement, the 3 layers of the web (content, presentation and behavior), thin vs. rich clients, XMLHttpRequest object, patterns, screen readers, and much more.
Here are their presentation notes (.pdf) as well.
Nicholas C. Zakas, author of Professional JavaScript for Web Developers and Professional Ajax, works at Yahoo! in Sunnyvale CA as a frontend engineer has been involved in web development since way back in 1996. Nicholas was nice enough to give me some of his time to answer some questions concerning JavaScript, Ajax, and web development in general.
read more…
Jesse James Garret is a user experience expert and co-founder of adaptive path coined the phrase “Ajax”, which gave a name to the implementation of exisiting technologies using JavaScript. In this interview he talks about how he came up with the name, his view of what Ajax is, usability issues and more.
