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Ajax library

I was looking at libraries for my project, and was thinking about using
Prototype, but I was seeing that people have reservations about it.
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic XMLHttpRequest
stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own stuff as I need it.
I've seen one called advAjax, but the documentation is about as bad as
Prototype IMHO. I was having trouble figuring it out.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use? I could write my own
I guess, but as I am not that good at JavaScript yet, I would rather
use one and build on with my own stuff. Any ideas?

Oct 18 '06 #1
14 2214
pa***********@gmail.com wrote:
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic
XMLHttpRequest stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own
stuff as I need it.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use?
I'm biased, but I like mine ;)

http://www.AjaxToolbox.com/

It doesn't try to be a monster library or a complete black-box solution.
It's just a robust and extensible communication layer, making it easy to
make and handle requests. Making divs appear, highlighting changed content,
populating forms, etc - that's all left as an exercise to the reader ;)

I think the examples are concise and the documentation is clear and
complete. Let me know what you think!

--
Matt Kruse
http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com
http://www.AjaxToolbox.com
Oct 18 '06 #2

Matt Kruse wrote:
pa***********@gmail.com wrote:
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic
XMLHttpRequest stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own
stuff as I need it.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use?

I'm biased, but I like mine ;)

http://www.AjaxToolbox.com/

I think the examples are concise and the documentation is clear and
complete. Let me know what you think!
I'm not biased and I like Matt's library too - you can actually read it
and see what it does.

In fact, I added AjaxEveryRequestBegin and AjaxEveryRequestEnd to the
callbacks possible so I could have a page report the total number of
active requests in the form of a progress bar (the current
AjaxRequestBegin and End are only called when the first request starts
and all requests end which initially confused me, but looking at the
library code immediately made it clear what was going on).

I'd been using prototype before that and debugging was a nightmare -
loads of errors simply get sucked up by the library and tracing back
what the original problem was took ages.

So. Use Matt's.

Oct 18 '06 #3
pa***********@gmail.com a écrit :
I was looking at libraries for my project, and was thinking about using
Prototype, but I was seeing that people have reservations about it.
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic XMLHttpRequest
stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own stuff as I need it.
I've seen one called advAjax, but the documentation is about as bad as
Prototype IMHO. I was having trouble figuring it out.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use? I could write my own
I guess, but as I am not that good at JavaScript yet, I would rather
use one and build on with my own stuff. Any ideas?
Hi,

New in the use of ajax I first used prototype, great stable library. You
can find widgets libraries build on it. The documentation is correct.

I tried rialto, turbiwidgets etc...

I know switch to the dojo toolkit because of the large amount of widgets
included, a very active developpement team, a support mailing list.
Dojo is known for his lack of documentation.

Roger
Oct 18 '06 #4
pa***********@gmail.com wrote:
I was looking at libraries for my project, and was thinking about using
Prototype, but I was seeing that people have reservations about it.
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic XMLHttpRequest
stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own stuff as I need it.
I've seen one called advAjax, but the documentation is about as bad as
Prototype IMHO. I was having trouble figuring it out.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use? I could write my own
I guess, but as I am not that good at JavaScript yet, I would rather
use one and build on with my own stuff. Any ideas?
Like everyone else with an opinion on this, I'm biased, but I like YUI. It is
the best documented of the libraries. It is light, modular, and open.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/
Oct 18 '06 #5
pa***********@gmail.com wrote:
I was looking at libraries for my project, and was thinking about using
Prototype, but I was seeing that people have reservations about it.
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic XMLHttpRequest
stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own stuff as I need it.
I've seen one called advAjax, but the documentation is about as bad as
Prototype IMHO. I was having trouble figuring it out.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use? I could write my own
I guess, but as I am not that good at JavaScript yet, I would rather
use one and build on with my own stuff. Any ideas?
I haven't really done anything with Ajax, but I am completely sold on
JQuery, and I know it has a lot of Ajax capabilities built into it. Also
has an active community (via both mail list and Nabble discussion
board), as well as fantastic documentation.

http://jquery.com/

--

*** Remove the DELETE from my address to reply ***

================================================== ====
Kevin Scholl http://www.ksscholl.com/
ks*****@comcast.DELETE.net
------------------------------------------------------
Information Architecture, Web Design and Development
------------------------------------------------------
We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of
the dreams...
================================================== ====
Oct 19 '06 #6
pa***********@gmail.com wrote:
I was looking at libraries for my project, and was thinking about using
Prototype, but I was seeing that people have reservations about it.
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic XMLHttpRequest
stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own stuff as I need it.
I've seen one called advAjax, but the documentation is about as bad as
Prototype IMHO. I was having trouble figuring it out.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use? I could write my own
I guess, but as I am not that good at JavaScript yet, I would rather
use one and build on with my own stuff. Any ideas?
Ajax, or UI widgets? Which are you inquiring about?

Someone needs to seperate these two!

For "Ajax" functionality - which I take to mean background calls to the server using XMLHttpRequests and incremental updates of the document, I'd recommend DWR if you have a Java backend. This enables you to export certain interfaces to the browser, and call methods on the server and process the return value (which may be a fully-fledged Object) in a callback. http://getahead.ltd.uk/dwr/

For well-documented, stable, capable UI widgets, I'd go for http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ complemented by http://www.jackslocum.com/yui/index.php Other widget libraries I've seen are all flaky, slow, undocumented, and generally NOT usable in the real world!
Oct 21 '06 #7
Look at what others are using (865 respondents)...
http://ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxianc...survey-results
(spoiler: "Prototype, the most popular Ajax framework, by a
considerable margin: 43% of you use it.")
or raw results:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplayS...U=240246533425

Oct 21 '06 #8
halans wrote:
Look at what others are using (865 respondents)...
http://ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxianc...survey-results
Popularity is often not a good indicator of quality. Especially in the world
of javascript.

--
Matt Kruse
http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com
http://www.AjaxToolbox.com
Oct 21 '06 #9
Matt Kruse wrote:
halans wrote:
Look at what others are using (865 respondents)...
http://ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxianc...survey-results

Popularity is often not a good indicator of quality. Especially in the world
of javascript.
Perhaps Prototype lacks in clarity, but if you follow closely the
project, the library had some changes since v.1.4.0... (with backward
compatibilities). Don't be so quick to discard something ; if so many
people use it, it's because it is stable in many browsers (even some
that I've never heard of) Of course, I had some exception thrown by
Prototype, and admit that it was my fault every time (*sig*) ... like
many libraries out there, some checks aren't made directly in the
library for speed purpose.

A good documentation of Prototype can be found here :
http://www.sergiopereira.com/articles/prototype.js.html (it only
convers v.1.4.0 though... the most recent version of Prototype can be
compiled from the repository --
http://dev.rubyonrails.org/browser/spinoffs/prototype/ -- on Ruby on
rails' web site, or look at Script.aculo.us...)

There's a lot of thing built on top of the library, I've wrote some
components also, and I added Rico on top of that (http://openrico.org/)
to be able to send multiple updateables (DOM elements and JS objects)
through server side XML, and it's all fairly easy to use (easier than
to learn DirectX anyways!)

One could add Script.aculo.us (http://script.aculo.us/) for dynamic
effects (the most recent compiled* version of Prototype, v.1.5 rc1 is
included)

(* compiled because Prototype is a collection of .js files that are put
together to form a single file, called prototype.js. But you can use
all module without too much of dependancies...)

But if you project is not that heavy, or if you refresh the entire page
a lot, Prototype might not be for you ; it is meat to refresh only part
of the screen, and rarely the entire document.

You could also look for Echo2 that is very impressive, but costly :
http://www.nextapp.com/platform/echo2/echo/

I'm not discarding any suggestion made in this thread, I just felt
writing about the pros of Prototype because so many people are quick to
crap over it ; it's all a question of "what type of Webapp you're
building" and "what are your coding techniques". Personally, I've
looked at Dojo, and I think that Prototype's way suits more my coding
habbits, and my Webapp's needs. (I haven't had the time to look at your
lib Matt, but I've read about it, and it looks alright.)

So, the general idea is : do not only read what others say, try it
yourself, even if people don't agree with it. Besides, if Prototype is
so bad, why is it hosted (and included) in the Ruby on rails package ?

-yan

Oct 22 '06 #10

Yanick wrote:
[snip]
>
You could also look for Echo2 that is very impressive, but costly :
http://www.nextapp.com/platform/echo2/echo/
Not !! Sorry, I didn't read the whole thing right, EchoStudio cost
money ; the whole library is free under the GNU LGPL License. My
mistake !!

Oct 22 '06 #11
Yanick said the following on 10/22/2006 2:57 PM:
Matt Kruse wrote:
>halans wrote:
>>Look at what others are using (865 respondents)...
http://ajaxian.com/archives/ajaxianc...survey-results
Popularity is often not a good indicator of quality. Especially in the world
of javascript.

Perhaps Prototype lacks in clarity, but if you follow closely the
project, the library had some changes since v.1.4.0... (with backward
compatibilities). Don't be so quick to discard something ; if so many
people use it, it's because it is stable in many browsers (even some
that I've never heard of)
The fact that "many people use it" doesn't mean anything. Many people
still use document.all and eval even though both are not that good to use.
So, the general idea is : do not only read what others say, try it
yourself, even if people don't agree with it. Besides, if Prototype is
so bad, why is it hosted (and included) in the Ruby on rails package ?
Because the Ruby on rails package doesn't know any better?

--
Randy
Chance Favors The Prepared Mind
comp.lang.javascript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq & newsgroup weekly
Javascript Best Practices - http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com/bestpractices/
Oct 22 '06 #12
So, the general idea is : do not only read what others say, try it
yourself, even if people don't agree with it. Besides, if Prototype is
so bad, why is it hosted (and included) in the Ruby on rails package ?
Prototype seems to be a interesting experiment in JavaScript
programming that I think was worth trying but it failed as pointed out
by the knowledgable regulars on this group. I don't think Prototype was
included in Rails because it was considered a model of incredible
JavaScript programming. I think it is there because DHH didn't want to
write client-side code because he didn't have the interest or time.
Sam's Prototype was around and available (legally or otherwise) for
inclusion. Prototype is the obvious weeping sore in the Rails world. I
like Rails and the RJS idea. But no Prototype for me.

Oct 22 '06 #13
This framework looks pretty nice, but the demo is damn slow, or isn't it?

Marek

Yanick schrieb:
Yanick wrote:
[snip]
>You could also look for Echo2 that is very impressive, but costly :
http://www.nextapp.com/platform/echo2/echo/

Not !! Sorry, I didn't read the whole thing right, EchoStudio cost
money ; the whole library is free under the GNU LGPL License. My
mistake !!
Oct 22 '06 #14
I mean AJAX, not UI widgets. I've been playing around with Matt's, and
it works well for what I need I think. I may play around with
Prototype, but it does more than I need. But it wouldn't affect me
because whatever I use is what I'll use, I really won't add on too much
other than my own stuff, or things that are compatable. Thanks for all
the input everyone.

TheBagbournes wrote:
pa***********@gmail.com wrote:
I was looking at libraries for my project, and was thinking about using
Prototype, but I was seeing that people have reservations about it.
All I really need is some basic Ajax stuff, the basic XMLHttpRequest
stuff. I will probably add on to that with my own stuff as I need it.
I've seen one called advAjax, but the documentation is about as bad as
Prototype IMHO. I was having trouble figuring it out.
Are there other basic libraries that I could use? I could write my own
I guess, but as I am not that good at JavaScript yet, I would rather
use one and build on with my own stuff. Any ideas?

Ajax, or UI widgets? Which are you inquiring about?

Someone needs to seperate these two!

For "Ajax" functionality - which I take to mean background calls to the server using XMLHttpRequests and incremental updates of the document, I'd recommend DWR if you have a Java backend. This enables you to export certain interfaces to the browser, and call methods on the server and process the return value (which may be a fully-fledged Object) in a callback. http://getahead.ltd.uk/dwr/

For well-documented, stable, capable UI widgets, I'd go for http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/ complemented by http://www.jackslocum.com/yui/index.php Other widget libraries I've seen are all flaky, slow, undocumented, and generally NOT usable in the real world!
Oct 24 '06 #15

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