Introduction
AJAX is abbrieviated from Asynchrounous javascript and XML. It's not a new technology, but the implementation of a group of technologies to achieve a seamless interaction between client and server.
Typically, xhtml and css to present the information, javascript is used to handle user interactions, and a server side language to perform the users' requests (and normally return data in XML format, in this tutorial, we won't do that), and it all is happening in the background using the Javascript XMLHttpRequest. Javascript plays a main role tie all these technologies together and create the asynchronous interaction between client ans server.
AHAH (Asynchrounous HTML and HTTP) is a subset of AJAX which is another technique, Inspite of retreiving XML, AHAH is retreiving HTML content. Both of them are basically the same, the only difference is the content it returns. Generally, most people will simply call it AJAX, but technically, we should call it AHAH. In this tutorial, AHAH is used.
The Good, Bad and Solutions
The Goodies:
- Reduce connections and bandwidth to the server, images, scripts, stylesheets only need to be downloaded once
- Reduce loading timew. User doesnt have to load pages again and again, it all happens in a same page!
- Increase responsiveness and end user experiences.
The Badies:
- Browser Back button. AJAX web pages cannot connect with browser history engine. If you clicked on back button, you can't navigate those AJAX content.
- Bookmark will not work on AJAX webpages. Due to the dynamic content, you might bookmark the homepage instead of the desired page.
- Javascript is needed. To run AJAX based website, your browser need to have javascript enabled.
The Solutions:
AJAX is not a perfect technology, but some of the limitations can be overcame with some simple solutions. I found this very userful plugin called jquery.history.js. It solves Browser Back Button. For the bookmark problem, we can solve it by appending a hash value in the end of the url.For the last one - javascript, we are going to ignore it. It can be done but I want to keep this tutorial simple.
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Requirements
You will need the following items and environment to run this script
- Web server with PHP support - XAMPP (mac, win and linux)
- jQuery
- history.js
1. HTML
I will provide two versions of HTML code. The first one is the most basic elements you will need to get it working. And the last one is the one I created with some design
Simplified versions<ul> <li><a href="#page1" rel="ajax">Home</a></li> <li><a href="#page2" rel="ajax">Portfolio</a></li> <li><a href="#page3" rel="ajax">About</a></li> <li><a href="#page4" rel="ajax">Contact</a></li> </ul> <div class="loading"></div> <div id="content"> <!-- Ajax Content --> </div>
2. CSS
This is really really simple, just have to keep the loading and content hidden
#loading { background: url(images/load.gif) no-repeat; display:none; } #content { font-family:arial; font-size:11px; display:none; }
3. Javascript
I have added comments in every single lines of the code.
$(document).ready(function () { //Check if url hash value exists (for bookmark) $.history.init(pageload); //highlight the selected link $('a[href=' + document.location.hash + ']').addClass('selected'); //Seearch for link with REL set to ajax $('a[rel=ajax]').click(function () { //grab the full url var hash = this.href; //remove the # value hash = hash.replace(/^.*#/, ''); //for back button $.history.load(hash); //clear the selected class and add the class class to the selected link $('a[rel=ajax]').removeClass('selected'); $(this).addClass('selected'); //hide the content and show the progress bar $('#content').hide(); $('#loading').show(); //run the ajax getPage(); //cancel the anchor tag behaviour return false; }); }); function pageload(hash) { //if hash value exists, run the ajax if (hash) getPage(); } function getPage() { //generate the parameter for the php script var data = 'page=' + document.location.hash.replace(/^.*#/, ''); $.ajax({ url: "loader.php", type: "GET", data: data, cache: false, success: function (html) { //hide the progress bar $('#loading').hide(); //add the content retrieved from ajax and put it in the #content div $('#content').html(html); //display the body with fadeIn transition $('#content').fadeIn('slow'); } }); }
4. PHP
We will not go further on PHP code, this time, I'm using a basic switch to grab the content. The content for the page is being assigned to a variable called "page". And the last line, output the content.
To debug the php script, you can access it by passing data into it, for example:
http://www.someurl.com/loader.php?page=page1
It should display the content for page1. If you know about php and database, you can store the content in the database and retrieve it. Make a simple form to edit the content and BANG... you got yourself a customized content management system.
//Get the page parameter from the url switch($_GET['page']) { case 'page1' : $page = 'Page 1'; break; case 'page2' : $page = 'Page 2'; break; case 'page3' : $page = 'Page 3'; break; case 'page4' : $page = 'Page 4'; break; } echo $page;
Conclusion
That's it. Make sure you check out the demo and download the source code and play with it. If you have created your own, feel free to drop your link in the comment section to show off! : )
Last but not least, I need your support :) If you like this article, please help me to promote it by adding this post to your bookmark. Or you can subscribe to my RSS for more jQuery tutorial and design inspiration posts! Thanks!
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to make use of built-in syntax highlighter.//Get the page parameter from the url
switch($_GET['page']) {
case '#page1' : $page = 'Page 1';
break;
case '#page2' : $page = 'Page 2';
break;
case '#page3' : $page = 'Page 3';
break;
case '#page4' : $page = 'Page 4';
break;
default : $page = 'Page 1';
}
echo $page;
Thanks
http://www.rayreich.com/
using this tutorial. Thank you very much!
We made a lot of adjustments, and used Jquery Address instead of history. We also made it so the loader file uses includes, that way the code and file structure is much cleaner. We did add document.title to change the title tag of the document as well. I'm sure there is a better way to do this using an XML site map, but this works for now.
This also makes only one request to the server, so there's no chance of a page loading and then reloading again.
The javascript code can be found here: http://www.rayreich.com/
Thanks again for this tutorial!
Ian
We've changed the the hide and show call to have it all be inside of the onChange function instead of in the click function. This will allow it to work in all instances.
There are also a few things that need to be done for the deeplink redirect and the hash. I will comment on those as soon as I have some time to post exact instructions on how to do this.
You can see this code here:
http://www.rayreich.com/js/ajax.js
Thank you,
Ian
...introduction text...
'; break; case '#page2' : $page = 'Portfolio
... portfolio text...
'; break; case '#page3' : $page = 'About
... text...
'; break; case '#page4' : $page = 'Contact
On the web it works great., the demo doesn't. I'm using WAMP as a webserver (apache, php, mysql). Any idea what's wrong?
http://www.someurl.com/loader.php?page=#page1
http://www.queness.com/resources/html/ajax/index.php?page=2
if your users use the back button that means you have a serious usability issue.
they are called url fragments and it's relatively easy to implement solving all the ajax shortcomings (or flash site for that matter).
browser need to have javascript enabled? well... screw those who don't have it. it's 2011 already.
advice for the usability issues:
have the menu (and the footer) always visible on the page, scroll only the content.
'; break; } echo $page; ?>
This is how you separate css code:
http://www.tizag.com/cssT/external.php
loader tells the script which page to display, in your case, you can do this:
//Get the page parameter from the url
switch($_GET['page']) {
case '#page1' : include 'page1.html';
break;
case '#page2' : include 'page2.html';
break;
case '#page3' : include 'page3.html';
break;
case '#page4' : include 'page4.html';
break;
}
just save the file in the same directory.
One thing is disturbing me. When page1 is loaded and i click on page 2 -> Is it possible to fade the content slowly out before new content is loaded?
Want a nice fade from unloading till newloading?
somebody an idea? thanks in advance!!!!
regards!!
Jonathon from the comments.
There is just one line like this (almost at the end): -> $('#content').hide();
When i replace it with:
$('#content').fadeOut('500')
it is not working. Do u have an idea how to fix this in jonathons script version ?!
thanks & regards!
Try:
// hide the content and show the progress bar
$( '#content' ).fadeOut( 2000 );
$( '#loading' ).show( );