What is AJAX?
What is AJAX?
If you find yourself asking this question then you’re either new to PHP/Javascript or you have been hiding under a rock for the past three years.
Since around 2006, the term/buzzword ‘AJAX’ has been thrown around like a frisbee in a playground. So what exactly is AJAX?
If you’ve had an auto-suggest bubble pop up as you’re searching, or if you’ve seen form sub-sections magically appear as you choose options, then you have already used AJAX. Slow, static web pages have given way to speedy, animated interfaces with more nifty features.
Some examples of what you can achieve with AJAX include:
- Auto-suggest popups
- Form elements appearing/hiding as you complete the form
- Slider controls
- Draggable/droppable content
The term AJAX stands for ‘Asynchronous Javascript And XML’. Technically, AJAX is when javascript sends requests back to the server, receives a response in XML and acts upon it. These days though, AJAX is used more of a blanket term of for anything interactive which uses javascript.
If you have been developing PHP and looking to take your applications to the next level of interactivity, then check out some of the nifty AJAX Javascript frameworks out there that do all the hard work for you:
Tags: ajax, frameworks, javascript, jquery, mootools, prototype
December 17th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
Thats a nice write. Would just like to add that,ASP.NET 3.5 now also includes support for UpdatePanels integrating with WebParts, ASP.NET AJAX integration.
If you are using a shared hosting server, then most web hosts would install it on the servers by default. But if you are on a VPS or a Dedicated Server customer you can either download the ASP.NET 3.5 framework at this URL, http://www.asp.net/downloads/essential/ or else you may ask the admins to install it for you.