execute web pages in javascipt 1

[brianpercival]

didn't know how to make the subject more specific, but this is what I am looking for.. a right click on an icon should popup a menu and clicking on one ofhte menu items should execute a coldfusion page, in background. I should be able to basically do a http post in javascript and then handle the response in javascript. Can anyone plz direct me to some links that throw light on this?

regards,
Brian

 

[tsdragon]

One word: AJAX Google it.

Tracy Dryden

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

 

[elegidito]

Does anyone else think its kind of weird to hear about the "hit new AJAX" technology? This stuff's been around forever (well, awhile), it's just gotten a nice little acronym and recognition thanks to Gmail and others. It can't just be me, can it? ;-)

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

 

[dwarfthrower]

Nah, it's not just you. One of the young turks in the office is all AJAX this and AJAX that... I showed him some code I wrote four years ago and that kinda shut him up for a while.

[sub]Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world.
There's nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams.[/sub]

 

[tsdragon]

It may not be new to YOU, but it IS new to a lot of people. It's one of those technologies that took a while before people realized just how useful it could be, and in how many different situations.

We're all impressed by how forward thinking you were in using the technology four years ago. Please do not insult us by implying that we are stupid for having just discovered it.

If you really want to be constructive, tell us what technologies you are using NOW that the rest of us will otherwise just be discovering four years from now, and save us the long discovery process.

Tracy Dryden

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

 

[tsuji]

Well, to be really constructive, answer questions related to "AJAX" in substance and in context (not here-or-there you'll-find-the-answer type, we all know somebody somewhere know the answer) rather than just buzzing an empty word of some fashion. There are plenty of threads which do not conclude satisfactorily either because the op is way over or the responder way...I don't know what.

 

[tsuji]

Further I believe dwarfthrower expressed a genuine observation shared by many developers. MS has had already introduced substantive support amid not in fanfare through its msxmlhttp implementation. Moz catched up because of its usefulness by cloning it which is good---why a good technology be buried in a partisan argument? And now, some people take it up and present themselves as mentor and evangelist of the technology. Should we not be more humble and put the technology in a correct perspective? at least in the tek-tips forum?

 

[tsdragon]

Point taken. I have not had a situation where I have been able to use AJAX since I "discovered" it (mostly I've been maintaining older code), so I have no concrete examples to give. However, when I "discovered" AJAX I did as I suggested above ("google it") and found a huge number of resources that helped me to understand what this "new" technology was good for. I probably bookmarked a couple for later reference. Next time I will at least post a link or two.

I used to post things like "take a look at XmlHTTPRequest", but that seemed to confuse and/or scare people even more.

Tracy Dryden

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

 

[kaht]

I agree with tsuji, I really don't think anybody was trying to demean your suggestion Tracy.

-kaht

...looks like you don't have a job, so why don't you get out there and feed Tina.

 

[kaht]

bleh, I read and type too slow

-kaht

...looks like you don't have a job, so why don't you get out there and feed Tina.

 

[tsuji]

Thanks Tracy and peace to all!

 

[dwarfthrower]

We're all impressed by how forward thinking you were in using the technology four years ago.

It's hardly "forward thinking" to read the documentation for a technology you're getting paid to understand and use the components of that technology in the manner in which they were designed to be used.

I wasn't trying to big-note myself - merely expressing agreement with elegidito's comment.

Personally I think it's great that these technologies are starting to find favour among developers. For far too long the whole "server round-trip" paradigm of web development held back the application of true web "applications" as such. If it took the coining of a funky 'code-name' to make it accessible to people then that's all well and good. Hell, even I sold my soul and allowed the ponytails to use the A word on some of our marketing literature.

But we should remain cogniscent of the fact that "AJAX" like "DHTML" are just marketing buzzwords used to dumb down the technology to make it appeal to non-technical people. They are not standards and holding them up as such will lead to inconsistent results and floods of people making "My AJAX doesn't work" posts on tek-tips.

So explain the concepts of AJAX, explain the guts of how it works for each individual implementation, but try and avoid sounding like it will be a panacea for any and all development ills.

[sub]Never be afraid to share your dreams with the world.
There's nothing the world loves more than the taste of really sweet dreams.[/sub]

 

[tsdragon]

The "forward thinking" comment was facetious.

I don't know why you have so much trouble with the term AJAX. It is a perfectly good, pronouncable acronym for a combination of technologies: Asynchronous Javascript and XML. What is the problem with that? It doesn't "dumb down" anything, it simply provides a simple and descriptive term for a cumbersome phrase. If that makes it more accessible to people, so much the better.

As for explaining the concepts of AJAX. Why should that be necessary when others have done it much better than I could? I learned about AJAX the same way I told the OP to: I googled the term. If I point them in the right direction they'll find the same sources I did, and learn the same things, perhaps more. If the OP is too lazy to do as suggested, then TT is probably not the place for them anyway. We are here to help each other, not do other people's work for them.

As tsuji pointed out, I could have provided some actual links, and I will next time. But there's no point in trying to describe something that has already been described elsewhere in much greater detail, that's why people here link to other threads and other sites all the time. Why rewrite a whole description for one posting (and do it again the next time)?


Tracy Dryden

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