Introduction

Certainly, something must have attracted you to this book. Maybe you are a web developer who wants to learn how to better integrate Ajax into your work. Maybe you want a handy reference to keep by your desk as you create tomorrow's newest technology with Ajax. Well, whatever the case, we're glad you made it.

This book covers just about everything about Ajax and how to integrate it with your web applications. This book is meant for web professionals with intermediate to advanced experience looking to learn new techniques and bring their web applications to the next level.

The first part, "Getting Started," is all about the basics of Ajax. It includes information on how to make requests in Chapter 2, how to receive responses as both XML and JSON in Chapter 3 and how to handle the rendering of the data using CSS and XHTML in Chapter 4. Part II, "Creating and Using the JavaScript Engine," covers how to create an Ajax engine with JavaScript. In order to get some background on object-oriented JavaScript we will start by learning how to create objects with JavaScript in Chapter 5. Once we understand how to create objects we will then focus on creating the engine in Chapter 6. With the knowledge of how to create the engine we will see how it can be used in a real world web application in Chapter 7. Chapter 8 will focus on all of the debugging methods that are available for JavaScript and how to use them to make your life easier. With a better understanding of the Ajax engine we will see how to extend it by adding additional JavaScript objects in Chapter 9.

Part III, "Creating Reusable Components," covers how to create numerous Ajax-enabled components for rendering the response data that is received from the server. The different components that are covered are an accordion, a tree view, a client-side validator, and a data grid. Part IV, "Ajax Patterns," starts with Chapter 14 where we will cover using the Singleton pattern with specific JavaScript objects and using them in our Ajax-enabled web applications. Chapter 15 is an explanation of how to use the Model View Controller pattern to structure our JavaScript objects. The Observer pattern is then covered in Chapter 16 where we will cover how to create an object to cover error management. The Data Reflection and Multi-User patterns are covered in Chapter 17 in order to provide an understanding of how to create interactive web applications that allow people to share web spaces and see each other's updates as they occur. Chapters 18 and 19 are both chapters that will cover different ways or best practices for interactions and usability in our web applications. Part VI, "Server-Side Interaction," will cover the use of various languages to connect with server-side technologies and even the database. The last part of the book, "Finishing Touches," is as it says, an explanation of how to add some finishing touches to your Ajax-enabled web applications, such as security and some best practices.