[...]... allows you to search either the internet or amazon.com 10 Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner When used to perform a search, the results returned by A9.com look very much like those of any other search engine Using Ajax, the developers of this search engine added a Site Info feature that displays additional information about a website when the user moves the mouse pointer over the link, as demonstrated...x Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner Leveraging Ajax Frameworks 127 Popular Ajax Frameworks 128 Framework Demo—Using the CBA Framework 130 Back to the Ajax Typing Challenge Application 132 Designing the Application 132 The Final Result 137 Summary 138 Chapter 6 Digging Deeper into Ajax 139 Project Preview: The Ajax. .. powerful environment for creating and running web applications The individual technologies that make up Ajax include: • JavaScript The programming language used to develop Ajax applications, tying together the interaction of all of the other Ajax technologies • XML Provides a means of exchanging structured data between the web server and client • The XMLHttpRequest object Provides the ability to asynchronously... refreshes You will then learn how to use Ajax to perform an assortment of different tasks xviii Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner Part IV consists of four chapters, each of which addresses a unique topic that is important to rounding out your Ajax skills The first chapter demonstrates the benefits of using XML in place of plain text when retrieving data from web servers The second chapter... How traditional web applications differ from Ajax applications • How to create your first Ajax application • About different examples of Ajax as used in various web applications 4 Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner PROJECT PREVIEW: THE JOKE OF THE DAY APPLICATION In this chapter and in each of the chapters that follow, you will learn how to create an Ajax game application Learning application... using Ajax When it comes to web development, Ajax is truly the “next big thing.” Ajax is becoming an essential ingredient in the makeup of modern web applications Ajax is being used in the development of all kinds of exciting new applications and rightly so, given its ability to support the creation of web applications with desktop-like performance Using Ajax programming techniques you can transform the. .. you will learn Ajax programming through the creation of web-based computer games If this approach to learning sounds interesting and fun to you, then keep reading It won’t be long before you are creating all kinds of fun and exciting web applications xvi Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner WHAT YOU NEED TO BEGIN Ajax is not something that you can buy in a box or download from the internet It... input, new map images are returned from the server and displayed in the map portions of the applications, with near instantaneous results and no page refreshes FIGURE 1.11 Google Maps can be used to zoom in on and display detailed images of maps for any part of the world 14 Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner Netflix Another website that has made notable use of Ajax is Netflix (www.netflix.com) Netflix... can search for and order movies, which are then either downloaded to the customer’s computer or mailed to their residence As Figure 1.12 demonstrates, the Netflix website uses Ajax to display additional information about movies in a popup when the customers move the mouse pointer over its title FIGURE 1.12 Netflix lets customers retrieve and view additional information for any movie in the company’s... all of the same technologies as DHTML and adds the XMLHttpRequest object and XML into the mix Ajax Technologies Ajax is a collection of technologies all of which have been around for a number of years Each of these technologies was developed for various reasons that had nothing to do with Ajax However, because of their complementary nature, web developers have discovered that when used together, these . Program- ming for the Absolute Beginner, Microsoft Windows PowerShell Programming for the Absolute Beginner, Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition Programming for the Abso- lute Beginner, Microsoft. how to use it within your Ajax applications. Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner xviii •C Chapter 5, Ajax Basics.” This chapter ties together all of the information already dis- cussed. JavaScript Events 72 Processing Forms 75 Ajax Programming for the Absolute Beginner viii Div and Span Tags 77 Working with the <DIV> </DIV> Tags 77 Working with the <SPAN> </SPAN>