Best Tutorials 3

[skiflyer]

I'd love to see this forum develop a listing of beginner AJAX tutorials.... we could turn it into a FAQ once the thread advances a bit.

Personally I think we should break it down like so:
1) Complete beginer's guide to AJAX
2) Competent web programmer's guide to starting with AJAX

but, maybe I'm wrong since I have no familarity with AJAX whatsoever... but I want to learn and I'd love to have the insight from AJAX gurus about which tutorials are worth my time and which are not.

 

[BabyJeffy]

Hi skiflyer

Maybe we need to get a decent collection of reference URLs for tutorials and the like... You can't go far wrong with a swift visit to the folks over at w3schools... they have a solid summary w3schools AJAX.

If you are familiar with PHP, then this article at www.sematopia.com shows matching server-side as well as hand-rolled client-side AJAX code. Maybe not an ideal place to start... but it depends what level you are entering at.

Some all-in-one sites have sprung up, too... AJAX Freaks is one of them (and they have their own tutorials available).

And here are a couple of frameworks that I have found with easy to use AJAX integration to your code (currently I'm using Prototype and it seems to fit the task nicely):

Prototype
Dojo

There are loads of blogs out there where developers are constantly posting about AJAX. I have none of these URLs at hand... maybe this thread could turn into some massive link collection!

Anyway, anyone got some real questions we can help with?

Cheers,
Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/blog/

http://www.coedit.co.uk/

[/tt]

What is Javascript? FAQ216-6094

 

[skiflyer]

Ha, I have my first ajax application (w3schools always has the best stuff), this stuff sure is easy.

Excellent links.

 

[rhyno2k]

Another great, easy way to dip into AJAX is by using the venerable jQuery. It's a very small (16k compressed), yet powerful and extensible JavaScript library that is (mostly) cross-browser compatible -- AVOID "Firefox only" examples, the world still uses IE -- and extensible (lots of plugins available).

It offers many of the same eye-candy effects like scriptaculous, moo.fx, etc. and also gives you the power of AJAX in one-line calls:

$("#feeds").load("feeds.html")
// load the contents of feeds.html into the feeds DIV

Highly recommended!


--RHYNO

 

[BabyJeffy]

rhyno2k... what is it about jQuery that makes it "mostly" cross browser? The front page lists all the "big guys" in the current browser arena.

Looking through the Bug list for jQuery there are some rather major bugs (including crashing bugs) however.

I think that it's worth watching these kinds of frameworks... but I wouldn't be investing any time in using them for production code until they have shown that they don't crash their own test suite! *lol*

Cheers for the heads-up on this one, though!

Jeff

[tt]Jeff's Page @ Code Couch

http://www.codecouch.com/jeff/blog/

http://www.coedit.co.uk/

[/tt]

What is Javascript? FAQ216-6094

 

[rhyno2k]

Hi Jeff,

Well actually most of the jQuery final 1.0 code has been pretty stable & cross-browser compatible. It's only when I've combined multiple effects that I've notice IE choke a bit.

As you've hinted at, most of these frameworks are still in their early stages, and may not be "ready for prime time" (although Technorati has taken the jQuery plunge). But I still find many uses for jQuery on non-mission-critical & intranet sites.


--RHYNO

 

[Xaqte]

Personally, I'm all for prototype too! If it is stable enough for gucci, it is stable enough for me.

A nice prototype tut link:

http://prototypedoc.com

X

 

[Xaqte]

I forgot to add this link to many tutorials:

http://www.maxkiesler.com/index.php/weblog/comments/60_more_helpful_ajax_tutorials/

 

[1DMF]

well i've looked at the prototype website not one piece of info on how to use the darn thing!

I've visited prototypedoc.com and can't see a tutorial there, i thought I'd check out the forums and start at the begining with some of the prototype comunity and all there forums seems to be full of is the following (cut & pasted direct 2 mins ago!)

cheap... wiRQbFddSP 7 Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:48 pm
wiRQbFddSP ...

nothing but rubbish!

Does anyone have a proper link to a real manual on how to use prototype, or alternatively recommend another framework that does have usable documentation.

thanks

1DMF

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

 

[Xaqte]

1DMF,

Ok, here is the cheat sheet for prototype, it contains most of the function names:

http://www.snook.ca/archives/javascript/prototype_disse/

Once you have the function names, you can find out more about the individual functions be searching the scriptaculous wiki or in the developer notes

I would highly suggest downloading scriptaculous and examine the functional and unit tests that are included in the download.

I know the documentation is weak, but that is common with most of the frameworks right now. However, I know that better documentation is on the way (look at the last paragraph here:

http://encytemedia.com/blog/articles/2006/9/5/the-flurry-continues-more-prototype-updates)

There is also the mailing list, which is very active:

http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-spinoffs?lnk=gschg&hl=en

Other than that you can find example scripts that people have made, such as:

http://tetlaw.id.au/view/blog/prototype-class-fastinit/

http://prototype-carousel.xilinus.com/

http://prototype-window.xilinus.com/samples.html

http://sinan.ussakli.net/script/

Download the example code and check it out. It is rough learning a new framework (especially when documentation isn't easily found), but I think this one is worth it.

I'll be happy to help out with anything pertaining to this framework.

Other than that, I wish you the best of luck!

X

 

[1DMF]

Nice One, thanks!

"In complete darkness we are all the same, only our knowledge and wisdom separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

 

[tsdragon]

Both prototype and scriptaculous are notorious for their lack of documentation and examples. It is one of the major problems with open source projects: eveyone wants to code, no-one wants to write documentation.

Mochikit has better documentation than the two mentioned above put together. I haven't used it yet, but it looks quite useful and the documentation I read is pretty good. You might find what you need there.

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[rhyno2k]

jQuery has some great documentation available from many sources.

Primary:

http://jquery.com/docs/

Step by Step tutorials:

http://jquery.com/tutorials/

Numerous plugins available:

http://jquery.com/plugins

Visual jQuery offers documentation for internal methods automatically created from the latest builds (and presented in a cool fashion:

http://www.visualjquery.com/

And if you're looking for help, there's a very active community at:

http://www.nabble.com/JQuery-f15494.html

--RHYNO