Good Ajax Tutorials

Created By ScottPhillips on 11/19/2007

If you're looking to learn some AJAX, these are some of the best tutorials to start with...

Developer Notes for prototype.js
When I first started trying to use this library, a few years ago, I noticed that the documentation was definitely not one of its strongest points. As many other developers before me, I got my head around prototype.js by reading the source code and experimenting with it. I thought it would be nice to take notes while I learned and share with everybody else.

I'm also offering an un-official reference for the objects, classes, functions, and extensions provided by this library.
URL: http://www.sergiopereira.com/articles/prototype.js.html
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AJAX:Getting Started
Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. In a nutshell, it is the use of the nonstandard XMLHttpRequest object to communicate with server-side scripts. It can send as well as receive information in a variety of formats, including XML, HTML, and even text files. Ajax’s most appealing characteristic, however, is its “asynchronous” nature, which means it can do all of this without having to refresh the page. This allows you to update portions of a page based upon user events.
URL: http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/AJAX:Getting_Started
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Creating an Autosuggest Textbox with JavaScript, Part 1
Creating an Autosuggest Textbox with JavaScript, Part 1
By Nicholas C. Zakas.

Over the past year, Google has branched out from its search engine into other types of Web applications. One that caused a great deal of excitement among Web developers is Google Suggest. The basic idea is very simple: as you type, Google suggests search terms that come up with results. The first suggestion is filled into the textbox as you type while a list of several suggestions appears in a dropdown list beneath the textbox. If you haven't tried it yet, check it out before reading on.

The idea behind Google Suggest is something that has been used in desktop applications for some time and has only recently made it onto the Web. Google Suggest wasn't the first implementation of such an interface (check out the Bitflux Blog LiveSearch), but it popularized the technique among developers to the point where people have dissected the source code and attempted to recreate the functionality.

In this series of articles, you will learn how to build an autosuggest control one step at a time. First, you'll learn how to implement type ahead functionality (filling in the textbox as you type). Then, you'll add the dropdown suggestion list to the control. Last, you'll learn how to get the suggestions from the server.
URL: http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/ncz/index.html
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Animated Live Search / Ordered List
I’ve been meaning for some time to give a little tutorial on the live search I created for this latest design. There are a few steps involved, and I’ll do my best to explain each as we go. I should also note that I’m not including all the effects that you’ll find in my search. I need to keep mine unique, right?
URL: http://orderedlist.com/articles/howto-animated-live-search/
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Live Search Explained
Trend: Live search will gradually replace traditional search in web applications. As mainstream programs such as Windows Vista matures up to release, and live search is deeply integrated, we can expect more web pages implementing live search. Apple’s Spotlight and MSN Desktop Search uses the same Live search paradigm that we’ll probably see a lot more in the year to come.

My post from yesterday has more on different examples of live search usage.
URL: http://justaddwater.dk/2006/01/26/live-search-explained/
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sorttable: Make all your tables sortable
This is not a new trick, sorting a table using the DOM. However, this mini-library has two nice attributes; the first is, unsurprisingly, that it follows my principles of unobtrusive DHTML, as you'll see below. The second is that, as mentioned above, it knows how to sort a variety of different data types, and it works them out for itself -- you don't have to tell it.
URL: http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/sorttable/
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Make an AJAX Website in Less than 10 Minutes
I've been toying around with AJAX apps and XMLHttpRequest but have wanted to put up a site that loads all of its content asynchronously. If you're like me and you learn best from working with examples you're only 10 minutes away from your first AJAX website.
URL: http://www.maxkiesler.com/index.php/weblog/comments/make_an_ajax_...
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Rasmus’ 30 second AJAX Tutorial
I find a lot of this AJAX stuff a bit of a hype. Lots of people have been using similar things long before it became “AJAX”. And it really isn’t as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. Here is a simple example from one of my apps.
URL: http://blog.coderlab.us/rasmus-30-second-ajax-tutorial/
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Ajax Toybox
Play with Ajax! The toybox is designed to be a showcase for simple Ajax examples and techniques. Due to the experimental nature of the applications in the toybox, please excuse the occasional error message or problem in making things work. I’m providing the toybox so you can increase your knowledge of the workings of Ajax.
URL: http://www.funwithjustin.com/ajax-toybox/
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AJAX Tutorial with Prototype
I wanted to give an example of a good use of AJAX, and at the same time keep it simple. So I thought a good example would be to build a zip code verifier. As soon as the person enters the zip code it makes a request to the server to see if the zip code is in the database, and returns the city and state.
URL: http://www.petefreitag.com/item/515.cfm
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Drag and Drop Sortable Lists
URL: http://tool-man.org/examples/sorting.html
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Alternate Ajax Techniques
By now, nearly everyone who works in web development has heard of the term Ajax, which is simply a term to describe client-server communication achieved without reloading the current page. Most articles on Ajax have focused on using XMLHttp as the means to achieving such communication, but Ajax techniques aren't limited to just XMLHttp. There are several other methods; we'll explore some of the more common ones in this series of articles.
URL: http://www.webreference.com/programming/ajax_tech/
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Guide to Using AJAX and XMLHttpRequest from WebPasties
Although the XMLHttpRequest object might sound complex and different from any other JavaScript object you have ever used, it really isn't. A good way to think of the XMLHttpRequest object is as you would think of the JavaScript Image object. As we know, with the Image object you can dynamically specify a new URL for the image source without reloading the page. Similarly with the XMLHttpRequest object, you can dynamically specify a URL to get some server data without reloading the page.
URL: http://www.webpasties.com/xmlHttpRequest/
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AJAX: Instant Tutorial
Simply put, AJAX allows you to make a call to an http server (typically an RSS feed or a webpage), get its content and load them into your existing page without having to refresh the whole page. This means that services like email don't have to reload the whole page every time you click a message, saving on bandwidth (loading the header/footer all over again) and making things more efficient.
URL: http://aleembawany.com/2005/09/01/ajax-instant-tutorial/
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Nice Forms
You basically know a web form when you see one as they always look the same and they’ve kept this look over the years. Try as hard as you might but web forms can only change their appearance so much. Some may argue that this is a good usability feature and I tend to agree but there comes a time when you just need to style web forms so they look different. How do you do that?
URL: http://www.badboy.ro/articles/2005-07-23/niceforms_preview/
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