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Added 18 Jan 06 Updated Today
Publisher For Dummies
Publication Date 2006-03-13
Paperback - 384 Pages
ISBN 0471785970
"...surprisingly good book..." (Computer Shoppers, June 2006)
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 more
- Connecting to Google for a live search
- Using 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 libXmlRequest
- All kinds of Ajax techniques, such as using Ajax for drag?and?drop operations, pop?up menus, downloading images behind the scenes, and more
- Using SACK (simple AJAX code kit), decoding XML with Sarissa, and creating visual effects with Rico
- Handling XML int Ajax Applications
- Working with cascading style sheets (CCS) in Ajax, including setting up the styles, displaying a menu, styling text, handling colors and backgrounds, and more
- Working with Ajax and PHP
Complete 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.
Brush up on JavaScript, use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rock
What 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 to
- Use CSS with Ajax
- Connect to Ajax communities
- Handle browsers that don?t do JavaScript
- Tie Ajax into Google
- Work with XML DOM
- Connect Ajax to PHP and JSP
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 more
- Connecting to Google for a live search
- Using 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 libXmlRequest
- All kinds of Ajax techniques, such as using Ajax for drag-and-drop operations, pop-up menus, downloading images behind the scenes, and more
- Using SACK (simple AJAX code kit), decoding XML with Sarissa, and creating visual effects with Rico
- Handling XML int Ajax Applications
- Working with cascading style sheets (CCS) in Ajax, including setting up the styles, displaying a menu, styling text, handling colors and backgrounds, and more
- Working with Ajax and PHP
Complete 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.
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 more
- Connecting to Google for a live search
- Using 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 libXmlRequest
- All kinds of Ajax techniques, such as using Ajax for drag-and-drop operations, pop-up menus, downloading images behind the scenes, and more
- Using SACK (simple AJAX code kit), decoding XML with Sarissa, and creating visual effects with Rico
- Handling XML int Ajax Applications
- Working with cascading style sheets (CCS) in Ajax, including setting up the styles, displaying a menu, styling text, handling colors and backgrounds, and more
- Working with Ajax and PHP
Complete 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.
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 more
- Connecting to Google for a live search
- Using 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 libXmlRequest
- All kinds of Ajax techniques, such as using Ajax for drag-and-drop operations, pop-up menus, downloading images behind the scenes, and more
- Using SACK (simple AJAX code kit), decoding XML with Sarissa, and creating visual effects with Rico
- Handling XML int Ajax Applications
- Working with cascading style sheets (CCS) in Ajax, including setting up the styles, displaying a menu, styling text, handling colors and backgrounds, and more
- Working with Ajax and PHP
Complete 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.
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 more
- Connecting to Google for a live search
- Using 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 libXmlRequest
- All kinds of Ajax techniques, such as using Ajax for drag-and-drop operations, pop-up menus, downloading images behind the scenes, and more
- Using SACK (simple AJAX code kit), decoding XML with Sarissa, and creating visual effects with Rico
- Handling XML int Ajax Applications
- Working with cascading style sheets (CCS) in Ajax, including setting up the styles, displaying a menu, styling text, handling colors and backgrounds, and more
- Working with Ajax and PHP
Complete 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.
Brush up on JavaScript, use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rock
What 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 to
- Use CSS with Ajax
- Connect to Ajax communities
- Handle browsers that don?t do JavaScript
- Tie Ajax into Google
- Work with XML DOM
- Connect Ajax to PHP and JSP
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.
Brush up on JavaScript, use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rock
What 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 to
- Use CSS with Ajax
- Connect to Ajax communities
- Handle browsers that don?t do JavaScript
- Tie Ajax into Google
- Work with XML DOM
- Connect Ajax to PHP and JSP
Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file.
Brush up on JavaScript,(r) use free Ajax frameworks, and make your sites rock
What 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 to
* Use CSS with Ajax
* Connect to Ajax communities
* Handle browsers that don?t do JavaScript
* Tie Ajax into Google
* Work with XML DOM
* Connect Ajax to PHP and JSP
- Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + CSS + DOM + XMLHttpRequest) combines existing Web technologies into a single platform that allows developers to create rich Web applications that are very fast and look more like desktop applications
- Major Web players are already using Ajax to create a new generation of Web applications, including Google (Ajax is behind Google Maps, Google Suggest, and Google Groups), Amazon, and Yahoo!
- Our book shows Web developers step by step how to get up and running with the Ajax development platform and application architecture
- Topics covered include creating JavaScript effects, styling with CSS, using the XMLHttpRequest object to fetch data, working with Ajax design patterns, harnessing Ajax toolkits, and server-side scripting with PHP and JSP
- The companion CD-ROM includes all code from the book, XML tools, and usable Ajax applications
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The book has alot of source code written, with great examples and sources of the examples on net. If you want to learn AJAX I can recommend it, but I will recommend it for intermediate users, with general programming knowledge. If you dont have that I bet there are other good "... for dummies" books out there.
I finally destroyed the library book with an coffee incident, so I ordered the book from Amazon. Got it in a week, and for a great price. If any norwegians read this, I payed a total of 150,- NOK, including shipment! And thats way cheaper than going to a store here and buy it. Great, Amazon. Happy customer signing off. :)
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.
After completing the book and working on various projects, it becomes less useful and you’ll probably want to switch to a more reference-oriented book. For beginners though, this book cannot be beat.
I had (and still have) no particular interest in Ajax, but because I try to stay conversant with all platforms, I felt that if anyone could explain Ajax quickly, it would be Holzner.
I am not disappointed.
I don’t think this book, despite its being a "dummies" title, will do a neophyte much good. If you aren’t at least minimally familiar with HTML, Javascript, XML, PHP, CGIt CSS and some other technologies, you’ll get lost really fast.
On the other hand, for people who already possess at least some basic knowledge of these technologies, Holzner’s book will quickl provide the conceptual framework you need for understanding Ajax.
Jerry
It started out fine, but as the code got more complex, more and more typos started showing up in the code. This was not impossible to remedy, thankfully, since all the code is available as a download on their website. The real problem, however, was digging through each line of code, comparing it to the copy I downloaded from their site, trying to figure out whether the error was my fault or the book’s.
Another nagging problem is that after the first couple chapters, the book stops giving you the complete code for each application, expecting you to already know what Javascript needs to be where after reading 100 pages of a "Dummies" book. Even worse, many times it only tells you WHERE to write said code, not WHY you write it; several lines are not explained at all, which makes remembering what goes where that much more difficult.
By the time I got to Chapter 4, the typos, assumptions, errors, and several other problems forced me to give up on the book, return it to the store, and resort to simply reading more in-depth tutorials online for free.
Sure, I could just copy the code straight from their download files and be done with it, but why bother copy/pasting something this complex without really understanding it, and paying thirty dollars to do so?
I’m giving it two stars because the first couple chapters really did help me to get a vague understanding of how all this works, as well as some rudimentary Javascript. After that, it’s too infuriating to bother with as a complete beginner, which is who the book is SUPPOSED to be for.
Not counting the obligatory Part of Tens section (lists of tens that are in the back of Dummies books), this book is broken down into 4 main sections:
1. Getting Started
Here, the reader is given a glimpse of what can be done with the Ajax technology - from Google Maps and Google Suggest to the drag ’n drop power of the Rico framework, enough is given to wet the reader’s appetite. A decent overview of JavaScript, the main language requirement for implementing Ajax, is given here as well.
2. Programming in Ajax
In this section lies the meat of Ajax - how to use the XMLHttpRequest JavaScript object. Assuming the reader understands JavaScript to some extent, one leaves this section not just with a vague understanding of the workings of Ajax, but with enough know-how to starting implementing it (albeit in a rudimentary form) right away.
3. Ajax Frameworks
Now that the reader has learned how to create manual Ajax requests, this chapter leaves all of that behind - sort of. Frameworks are basically libraries of code written and organized by developers for easy access to complex tasks, allowing the user to do things such as grab XML data from the server or move an element in the document without having to reinvent the code wheel in order to do so. A number of these frameworks are reviewed in this section, both for the client and for the server. Most server-side examples are PHP-based, but should be understood by anyone with a Java background (some Java frameworks are covered as well).
4. In-Depth Ajax Power
This section is somewhat a continuation of Part One, which left off with the JavaScript tutorial. Here, the reader gets on overview of some of the other technologies used in Ajax, specifically XML and how to manipulate it’s data with JavaScript; CSS, used to control the look of the web page; and PHP, to handle data processing on the server.
I highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn Ajax, I’ve been able to walk away from this book with enough knowledge to start adding Ajax to my current applications immediately, and now have enough clarity to understand more complex Ajax books, such as Ajax in Action. With a little web development experience under one’s belt, most other readers will able to do so as well.
Contents:
Part 1 - Getting Started: Ajax 101; It’s All About JavaScript
Part 2 - Programming in Ajax: Getting to Know Ajax; Ajax in Depth
Part 3 - Ajax Frameworks: Introducing Ajax Frameworks; More Powerful Ajax Frameworks; Server-Side Ajax Frameworks
Part 4 - In-Depth Ajax Power: Handling XML in Ajax Applications; Working with Cascading Style Sheets in Ajax Applications; Working with Ajax and PHP
Part 5 - The Part of Tens: Ten Ajax Design Issues You Should Know About; Ten Super-Useful Ajax Resources
Index
As I said, I wouldn’t write this off as just another Dummies title. For one, Steve Holzner has an excellent track record of writing tech books that have become the go-to references in the industry. As per usual, he also does a great job on this book, albeit in the "Dummies" style of presentation and writing. There is an abundance of code and screen shots that make it easy to follow along, and he presents just enough background on JavaScript and other Ajax components to bring you up-to-speed if those are not your strong areas. The only "nit" I have is that some of the code and screen shots in Chapter 2 don’t quite mesh. The code statements for what should be on the screen don’t quite match what actually printed out. It’s as if the screen shot was made with a slightly reworded JavaScript routine. It still is essentially the same, but it threw me slightly as I was going through the material.
I felt the book really came to life in Part 3 with coverage of the different frameworks. I don’t think any of the other books I’ve read on Ajax to date have had quite this much information on all the different frameworks you can implement to eliminate much of the "heavy lifting". Since Steve does a good job of presenting the pros and cons of each, you’ll quickly determine if a framework is the way you want to go, and which options might be best for your particular project.
While not the most technical book on the subject, Ajax for Dummies does bring some angles to the table that aren’t present (or as strong) in other books. It’d be a good introduction to the subject matter, or a nice second volume to gain a different perspective on the technology.
It mentions lots of different available Ajax frameworks. May help you to decide a framework to use.
If Ajax is of no interest to you, it will be when you finish reading this informative masterwork.
Now more good news, after reading Holzner on Ajax, you’ll be prepared for the very best book (technically) yet published on Ajax: David Crane’s "Ajax in Action" - a Manning Publication. While Holzner takes you from ground level to 30 thousand feet with Ajax, "Ajax in Action", by David Crane, plummets you to explore many leagues beneath the surface, - after completion of these 2 books, you will join the ranks of the Ajax cognoscenti and dazzle your friends and foes alike with your newly acquired understanding of the foundation driving Web 2.0... Welcome to the future of the Internet!
If the data being updated is small, say current temperature, stock price, page count or something like that, the amount of transmitted data is very high when compared with the amount of data that is actually changing.
Ajax is a series of techniques that allow the client computer to keep the base page and only transmit the changing data. That is, the headline, most of the text, the pictures, everything that doesn’t change is kept in place and only the temperature, price or page count is transmitted.
This book gives an excellent tutorial on how to use the various components such as JavaScript, XML, CSS and others to create what might be called an Ajax page. It also gives a wide series of URLs to go to for the most current information and demonstrations.
Optimized for
Internet Explorer 6.0+, 
Firefox 1.5+!