[ironknee]

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...;nclm=iPodnano

down at the gallery you can scroll through the images...

is it called AJAX???

is there a place to learn it?

thx

[mduell]

If you look at the page source, it's just a bit of Javascript... I don't see any XML, so why would it be AJAX?

[ironknee]

thanks

i have no idea what ajax is...what is ajax?

[Chuckit]

AJAX is the use of XMLHttpRequest in Javascript to communicate with the server and dynamically update the server with information from the page, update the page with information from the server, or both.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by ironknee

thanks

i have no idea what ajax is...what is ajax?

The most common use of Ajax is to get a web-based form to behave more like an application.

In a traditional web-based form, you need to select some stuff and scroll down to the bottom to find some sort of submit button.

With Ajax you can trigger some event on the server via a Javascript event handler (which are "onclick", "onchange", etc.). This event on the server could be querying a database, pulling some content from XML, or whatever. Ajax does not have to involve XML, I use Ajax to make dynamic database calls on this page (and throughout my recently recoded site):

NetMusician :: web publishing software for musicians

These events also happen asynchronously, meaning that you don't have to wait for one event to finish before the other starts (although controlling this behavior has some browser issues/bugs/challenges).

The net result is this: when you are playing around in an OS X preference window, when you click on a checkbox, the application can do something immediately the second you click on the checkbox. Prior to Ajax, you were limited to Javascript which simply controlled what you saw on that given page (e.g. a Javascript event might trigger a pop-up window or something), or applying the change with a form submit button. Now you can get form widgets and stuff to behave just like you'd expect in an application pref dialog or something.

Does this make sense?


The Apple thing is probably using Ajax, although it could also be done in straight Javascript if the images were preloaded.

[SirCastor]

To add to Besson, The strongest examples of AJAX type stuff are gmail and this very forum. The Forum may not be Ajax proper, but when you do a quick reply, it uses the javascript http events to upload your posting and update the page.

Likewise, gmail does practially everything with an Ajax system. It's just kind of a cool way to get information to react on the web. I imagine that it is the future of some powerful applications

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by SirCastor

To add to Besson, The strongest examples of AJAX type stuff are gmail and this very forum. The Forum may not be Ajax proper, but when you do a quick reply, it uses the javascript http events to upload your posting and update the page.

Likewise, gmail does practially everything with an Ajax system. It's just kind of a cool way to get information to react on the web. I imagine that it is the future of some powerful applications

Yes, who could forget the Quick Reply feature here! Another common use is to get Ajax to hide/conceal some dynamic elements of a page (e.g. show/hide the "latest news" sidebar where the show function will pull the latest stories from the database)

[ironknee]

wow thanks all

[ironknee]

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...;nclm=iPodnano

so is there a place where i can get the code for a newbie?

thx

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by ironknee

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL...;nclm=iPodnano

so is there a place where i can get the code for a newbie?

thx

I don't know of any place, but if you are a newbie and would like to understand this this would be an excellent project to take on, as it shouldn't be too difficult (with the exception of the sliding animation, which I'd leave to the very end). It's often better to write something yourself that you can understand rather than trying to figure out somebody else's work and make it fit for your own purposes.

[Chuckit]

I believe the script responsible for the gallery is at http://store.apple.com/rs/js/gallery.js, but it probably won't mean much to you if you don't already understand the subject.

[SirCastor]

AJAX - MDC
That's the mozilla ajax site. They have a good intro to it.

[besson3c]

This is the tutorial I learned from:

AJAX Help: Simple Introduction to AJAX and XMLHttpRequest