AJAX Data Services Released

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007

Adobe labs has released the AJAX Data Services - AJAX Data Services is a JavaScript library that lets AJAX developers access the messaging and data management capabilities of Flex Data Services directly from JavaScript. It lets you use Flex clients and AJAX clients that share data in the same messaging application or distributed data application.

[Check it out]

Posted in flex, javascript, news |

AJAX First Steps

Sunday, December 24th, 2006

So, yeah, its Christmas eve...and guess what I had some extra time this afternoon! So, I decided to take some of the initial steps to learn AJAX. I decided to start off with prototype. For a pretty simple example I found a quick zip code lookup tutorial by Pete Freitag.

Here are the peices/parts:

The HTML

PLAIN TEXT
HTML:
  1. <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript"></script> <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"></script> <form>     zip:
  2. <input style="background-color: #ffffa0" name="zip" id="zip" onkeyup="checkZip();" type="text" /> </form>

The JavaScript (ZipCode.js)

PLAIN TEXT
JavaScript:
  1. function checkZip() {
  2. if($F('zip').length == 5) {
  3. var url = 'checkZip.cfm';
  4. var params = 'zip=' + $F('zip');
  5. var fullUrl = url + "&amp;" + params;
  6. var ajax = new Ajax.Updater(
  7. {success: 'zipResult'},
  8. url,
  9. {method: 'get', parameters: params, onFailure: reportError});
  10. }
  11. }
  12. function reportError(request) {
  13. $F('zipResult') = "Error";
  14. }

The ColdFusion (checkZip.cfm)

PLAIN TEXT
HTML:
  1. <p class="badzip">Please enter a valid zip code.
  2.  
  3. SELECT name, state FROM zips
  4. WHERE zip =
  5.  
  6. </p><p class="goodzip">#ziplookup.name#, #ziplookup.state#
  7.  
  8. </p><p class="badzip">Zip code not found.

There is also a zip code db (MySQL) for the data end of things.

Considering the lack of code I'm thinkin' that is pretty slick to get external data into an HTML page with no page refresh. I'm pleased so far.

Helpful resources found so far:
Quick Guide: http://particletree.com/features/quick-guide-to-prototype/
Scriptaculous Wikie for Prototype: http://wiki.script.aculo.us/scriptaculous/show/Prototype
Unofficial Prototype documentation: http://www.sergiopereira.com/articles/prototype.js.html#UsingAjaxUpdater

Merry Christmas!

Posted in ajax |

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About me

I'm a senior developer at RealEyes Media, Adobe Certified Instructor and Adobe Certified Professional. Here you'll get my ideas and experience Flex, Flash, ColdFusion and related technologies as well as some generally off the wall stuff.