Ajax Bible

Chapter 1

Essential Ajax

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Introducing Ajax
• Looking at Ajax in action
• Conducting Ajax Live Searches
• Using Ajax chat
• Enabling Autocomplete
• Dragging and dropping with Ajax
• Using Ajax-enabled shopping carts

Welcome to the Ajax Bible! This is the home of all things Ajax. Ajax is the new technology that's blazing through the Internet, igniting Web sites everywhere. The Ajax revolution has come, and it's changing the Internet. In fact, Ajax is the basis of what's being called Web 2.0, the next version of the World Wide Web.

So what's it all about? The central idea is making Web applications look and feel just like desktop applications. For example, take a look at Figure 1.1, where you see the familiar Google search page. Enter a term to search for, such as “Ajax,” and click the Google Search button.

FIGURE 1.1 Google searches for matches to the term you enter.

The screen flashes as it's updated with new data, and the matches that Google found to your search term appear, as you see in Figure 1.2.

FIGURE 1.2 Google displays the matches it finds.

That works OK, but that's not the Ajax way of doing things. Using Ajax, you can work behind the scenes, connecting to the server to get data without causing a page refresh in the browser. For example, take a look at the Google Suggest ...