Chapter 10. Accordion

Adding massive amounts of data to one web page is not a recommended design approach because it can be completely disorienting to the user, and might cause him to go to another site. There are always exceptions, though, which is the case when using an accordion component to display data. Using an accordion component enables a single web page to display much more content without disorienting the user in the process. An accordion has multiple panels that can expand and collapse to reveal only the data that a user is interested in viewing without overwhelming him with everything at one time.

In this chapter, we will learn how to create a custom Ajax-enabled accordion component. An Ajax-enabled accordion can lend itself to many unique situations. For example, you can connect the component to live XML data from a database via a server-side language, which can send and receive XML or any other format that you prefer. The accordion component can be the graphical user interface for a custom web mail application that displays threads in different panels. The server can push new data to the component when mail has been updated, deleted, or added to the database, and the accordion can parse it to update, delete, or add new panels to the thread. This is a perfect example of providing access to massive amounts of content without scaring away the users of the application. It is also a great way to organize the content so that the application is ultimately more usable and purposeful.