Clean Up Your Applications Using AJAX
Thursday 12 April 2007 6:13:00 am
PHP enables you to do a lot with web applications using an extremely thin client. One of its drawbacks, however, is the delay between page loads and its inability to get new data without submitting a form. AJAX gives you an additional communication channel with your PHP server, allowing you to send and receive data without reloading the page. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities and, when matched with JavaScript DOM manipulation, lets you create rich, interactive applications that remove the "click-and-wait" you have suffered through for years.
This article gives a practical introduction to AJAX. We will describe two successful PHP libraries and create a small application, a Google Suggest-like search field.
To get the most out of this article, you should have good skills in object-oriented programming in PHP4 or PHP5. You should also have some knowledge of JavaScript.