Ajax For Dummies 1st Edition by Steve Holzner (PDF)

Description

Ajax is short for “Asynchronous JavaScript+CSS+DOM+XMLHttpRequest.”Even if you weren’t intimidated before, that tidbit is probably enough to make you reach for the Excedrin. Just reach for Ajax For Dummies instead. With screen shots, actual code and explanations, and live Web sites where you can see Ajax applications doing their thing, it will have you using Ajax to create Web applications that look an act like desktop applications in no time. With Ajax, you can speed up and clean up your Web applications. Shoppers at your online store can fill their carts without waiting for multiple page refreshes. Searchers on your sites can get instant results on the same page.This guide takes you on a tour of how Ajax is used today, complete with examples of Ajax applications in action, such as an Ajax-enabled Yahoo! search or an Ajax-based chat application. Then it gives you basics on using JavaScript. After that you dive in and get info on:Writing some Ajax, interactive mouseovers using Ajax, passing data to the server with GET or POST, and moreConnecting to Google for a live searchUsing free Ajax frameworks so you don’t have to start from scratch, including Ajax Gold (written specifically for this book), AJAXLib, and grabbing XML with libXmlRequestAll kinds of Ajax techniques, such as using Ajax for drag-and-drop operations, pop-up menus, downloading images behind the scenes, and moreUsing SACK (simple AJAX code kit), decoding XML with Sarissa, and creating visual effects with RicoHandling XML int Ajax ApplicationsWorking with cascading style sheets (CCS) in Ajax, including setting up the styles, displaying a menu, styling text, handling colors and backgrounds, and moreWorking with Ajax and PHPComplete with a companion Web site, free Ajax frameworks, and sample code you can use, Ajax for Dummies is your friendly guide to creating truly user-friendly Web sites!Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “…done a great job of explaining the various technologies behind Ajax….” (Practical Web Design, June 2006) “…surprisingly good book…” (Computer Shoppers, June 2006) From the Inside Flap Create Web applications that act like desktop onesBrush up on JavaScript, use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rockWhat if shoppers at your online store could fill their carts without waiting for multiple page refreshes? What if searches produced instant results on the same page? With this book you won’t have to wonder “what if” — you can use Ajax to make it happen! Get the scoop on all the technologies and start cranking out great applications.Discover how toUse CSS with AjaxConnect to Ajax communitiesHandle browsers that don?t do JavaScriptTie Ajax into GoogleWork with XML DOMConnect Ajax to PHP and JSP From the Back Cover Create Web applications that act like desktop onesBrush up on JavaScript, use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rockWhat if shoppers at your online store could fill their carts without waiting for multiple page refreshes? What if searches produced instant results on the same page? With this book you won’t have to wonder “what if” — you can use Ajax to make it happen! Get the scoop on all the technologies and start cranking out great applications.Discover how toUse CSS with AjaxConnect to Ajax communitiesHandle browsers that don?t do JavaScriptTie Ajax into GoogleWork with XML DOMConnect Ajax to PHP and JSP About the Author Steve Holzner is the award-winning author of nearly 100 computer books. His books have sold more than 2 million copies and have been translated into 18 languages around the world. He specializes in online topics, especially Ajax, and he has long done commercial Ajax programming. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Ajax for Dummies by Steve Holzner relayed information on JavaScript, XML, PHP, CSS, and Ajax–even delving into some basic CSS for those non-designing programmers. Holzner enlightens us to the intricacies of Ajax, starting with the XMLHttpRequest object, including listings of the object’s methods and properties. From there, Holzner shows how to use Ajax methods to access information in text files, PHP scripts, and XML files: a whole chapter is dedicated to XML and Ajax; another chapter, PHP.What is Ajax? Ajax gets behind-the-scenes data from the server to use in your Web page on the fly without you having to refresh the page or without the page flickering annoyingly. For instance, imagine if every time you entered a letter into the Google search field, the whole screen flickered and refreshed as Google searched for a list of words with those same starting letters. I bet you would avoid Google at all cost if that were the case. Thankfully, there’s Ajax.Back to the book, the PHP section appeared friendly, with a light, yet complete introduction to PHP. Holzner shows how the PHP server-side script can code XML data for use with Ajax. He articulates on the Get and Post methods for sending data to the server-side program, and explains how to use a server side script to access outside domains such as Google.Ajax frameworks take center stage in the book as well. The author provides his own framework, and throughout the frameworks introduced, sprinklings abound of framework events and functions such as drag and drop, pop-up menus, and downloading images behind the scene. One framework even provides examples for making a drag-and-drop shopping cart (without the payment gateway). The Livegrid framework allows you to display and sort table data fetched behind the scenes.The CSS and Ajax component provides flashes of insight into how to show and hide a menu with Ajax. Although some rather basic CSS finds itself in this section, the overall content engages the reader nicely. More bluntly, this chapter is more of a CSS introduction than an Ajax–CSS tutorial. The JavaScript section, too, lines up as an introduction to the ins-and-outs of basic programming. What else would one expect from a Dummie’s book?Be forewarned, the reader should have some basic HTML and CSS knowledge before delving into this book (and preferably, HTML5 and CSS3, in that order). Best yet, the reader would have a background in JavaScript already (after reading HTML5 and CSS3), even on a rudimentary scale. Most ideally, however, the reader could have background knowledge of PHP, as the PHP chapter in this book makes for a nice refresher to those with introductory PHP skills.Overall, Holzner wrote a compelling book, drifting from the basics to the complex in a straightforward, easy to follow manner. I would recommend it for people relatively new to Ajax or for people interested in learning more about frameworks.

⭐I wanted to add some AJAX processes to a few web-pages I’ve been building, and I’ve usually had very good results with the unfortunately-titled “…for Dummies” series. This one, however, brings down the average considerably. The examples are written in pieces, so you have to skim ahead to get the full code for whatever process is being taught. And I learned the hard way that at least one crucial method (“.send”) that’s needed when a “HEAD” request is submitted. I may still be able to use this as a first reference while I’m learning AJAX basics, but I’ll remember to double-check the code with online resources whenever I need to do any troubleshooting.

⭐Usually the “for Dummies” books are well, written, humorous and informative. This one, however, needed to go back for some serious editing.The writing style was stilted and hard to follow, not to mention there were plenty of errors.But I could overlook that if the content was valuable. Unfortunately, there were many problems with the content in this book.First, the example code did not match the screen shots. Mostly it was some trivial wording changes, but things like that lower the reader’s confidence in the veracity of the book.Second, the way Holzer steps you through the code is both confusing and a waste of space. He shows a code snippet – but just the lines he’s describing. Then the next snippet is the first snippet plus a few more lines (in bold), and on and on, so that you almost never see the entire code file in one piece, and in some cases he doesn’t show the entire contents of the file at all.That wouldn’t be so bad, because of course you can download all the examples from the website. The problem is, about half of them don’t work, and being an Ajax Dummy, I don’t know how to debug them. I tried them in Firefox and Safari, and got the same results in both.The author and publisher need to go back through this book and revalidate everything, and rewrite the code samples so they’re more like every other programming book out there.

⭐I had been developing websites and web applications in ASP, VBA, PHP, JavaScript and HTML. I was getting pretty good at it. But, I had no way of grabbing refreshed data from the server and presenting it on the client side without rewriting everything on the client. Then, along came AJAX for Dummies … just what I needed!I also bought the companion, Teach Yourself AJAX in 10 Minutes. By working through the simple examples, I developed an understanding of AJAX and how to apply it. Now, I can grab data from mySQL, msAccess or other data stores and update just the significant portion of the client page.The book gave me the basic concepts and understanding. The creativity to apply it was in my hands. Great purchase!

⭐The problem is not the content or the book itself, the problem is the format in Kindle. Do not buy a programming related book in Kindle, it damages the formatting completely makink it useless. Go for a physical or PDF version.

⭐A maybe 3 stars. The typos are amazing. It’s as if Mr. Holzner never looked at the finished product. Here’s some lines from Page 81: Read/write Read/write Read-only / Read-only Read-only Read-only Read-only Read-only Read-onlyWhat is this? (And this is one of MANY MANY). Was there even a proofreader? Wiley People: Hire someone already. Many typos, like every page is filled with typos. Headings in the middle of text, just weird stuff. bgcolor when it should be bgColor; not a biggie but indicative. There clearly was no attempt at all to review the book before publication.

⭐This is a review of the kindle edition.The formatting of this ebook is absolutely terrible. All the bits are present, but not necessarily in the right order, the right size, the right color, or the right font.It seems that the software which converts the original to kindle format gets confused by drop-caps, figures, tables, and source code.It further appears that no human — or at least none with any sense of pride — bothered to check the conversion.Having seen the sample, I thought that I would be able to tolerate the formatting, especially for the bargain price of £3.77, but a quarter of the way through the book, I found myself totally frustrated.I returned it for a refund, since to do otherwise would simply encourage these half-baked conversions.

⭐The book has good clear step by step examples to drive home the concepts of AJAX. It has code examples that can be downloaded to back up the book examples. So anyone who wants to get up and running withAJAX can start here and will not be over whelmed. I did find that a couple of chapters dedicated to client and server frameworks on AJAX overly long, a little out of date.

⭐Does the job…

⭐A gem for beginners to Ajax, provided they are very proficient with Javascript and XML. But I suspect it will ‘age’ very quickly and most IT textbooks do.

⭐Very useful and easy to follow. Love the book.

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