Ajax and Ajax Frameworks

I have been a developer for nearly 20 years and a web developer for about 10 years. Over the years, I have considered creating a blog to share the things I have learned (and am learning) about web design and development, but I never seemed to have the time. When I began learning about web development using Ajax and Ajax Frameworks, I decided to take the time to create this blog.

My intention for this blog is to focus primarily on Ajax Frameworks, but since web development requires knowledge of many technologies, I will occasionally write about things such as CSS, Javascript, PHP, MySQL, Flash, etc.

Lately, I have been using JQuery as my primary Ajax tool. Although I have used other Ajax Frameworks in the past (Dojo Toolkit, Yahoo! User Interface Library, Scriptaculous/Prototype), JQuery has thus far been the easiest to learn. In my first few posts I will discuss some of the JQuery Plugins that I have created. Some of these include: a plugin for Google Maps (jquery.imGoogleMaps), Form validation and submission  (jquery.imValidateForm), Page Populater (jquery.imPagePopulate), and a plugin to create lists (jquery.imList).

While I am still learning about some of the other Ajax Frameworks, I hope that what I have learned will be helpful to others. Just remember, “When you can pull the pebbles from my hand…”

Archive for the ‘Javascript’ Category

For years I’ve seen the calls to ‘return false’ following an onclick event, but I never realized what it was used for. Once I began using Ajax, I quckly learned why using ‘return false’ was so important. Because Ajax processes a request without refreshing the browser, I was able to see the inherint functionality of the browser when a button is clicked. The browser appears to jump to the top of the page. Adding ‘reutrn false’ after the onclick event will ensure that the browser page does not ‘jump’. Try it out.

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After many years of creating Flash-enabled websites (and writing a lot of ActionScript), I decided to explore the use of Ajax. I had grown so accustom to developing websites where page refreshes weren’t required that I rarely created websites using HTML only. From everything that I read prior creating website using Ajax, I thought that it had the promise to replace Flash. My primary reason for exploring the use of Ajax to create websites was because, as I learned more about marketing a website (and how most search engines don’t/can’t index Flash-only sites), I decided that it was better to appear in a search engine’s listing than to have cool navigation (and animation!).

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