15.1. The Client Components
The client-side components of an Ajax solution are in charge of communicating with the server and displaying the received data to the user. For FooReader.NET, several client-side components are necessary to manage the overall user experience.
The user interface: The UI ties the user to his or her data. Because the UI is essentially a web page, the usual suspects of web browser technologies are used. The design is marked up in HTML, and CSS (and a little bit of JavaScript) styles it for the desired look and feel.
XParser: The JavaScript library responsible for requesting and parsing feeds.
The JavaScript code: Drives the UI, taking the information XParser received and displaying it to the user. This is contained in the fooreader.js file.
15.1.1. The User Interface
The key to any successful application is the design of the user interface. If the user cannot use the application, there is no reason for the application to exist. FooReader.NET was designed for ease of use. In fact, it borrows heavily from the Microsoft Outlook 2003 (and later) user interface. It has a three-pane interface. The first two panes are fixed width, while the third pane is fluid. (See Figure 15-1.)
Figure 15.1. Figure 15-1
The interface is contained in default.htm, and its layout is as follows:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> ...
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