Ajax - confused Guide, Part 1: Summary of Ajax tools and techniques 

  And comprehensive reference tool to help you Quick Start 

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  Class: Junior 

  Gal Shachor (shachor@il.ibm.com), Senior Technical Staff, IBM 
  Yoav Rubin (yoav@il.ibm.com), software engineers, IBM 
  Shmulik London (shmulikl@il.ibm.com), researchers, IBM 
  Shmuel Kallner (kallner@il.ibm.com), software engineers, IBM 

  July 23, 2007 

  Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) programming technology is gradually leading Web application development areas.    Every day new developers into the Ajax development of the hall, they have different development background.    This series will be the first part of the provision from the IBM ® Ajax Developer Group Ajax single reminder of development resources.    According to author their own ramp-up experience for you provided some practical information, which can help you quickly enter efficient Ajax development track. 

  Ajax is a Web applications, computer technology, which combines JavaScript, Cascading style sheet (Cascading Style Sheets, CSS), HTML, XMLHttpRequest object and Document Object Model (Document Object Model, and DOM), the standards for more information Please refer to reference materials.    In the browser running on Ajax applications in a way asynchronous communication with the Web server, and only part of the updated pages.    Ajax through the use of technology, can provide rich, browser-based user experience. 

  Ajax at the beginning of the trip before, need to know a lot of different languages, standards, tools and libraries.    In the beginning it is necessary to make a choice between different options and combinations to a development environment may be some reluctance.    The authors in accordance with their own ramp-up (the initial phase of the project preparation work) experience help you on the road to avoid likely to be encountered by some of the more common and annoying problem. 

  master Ajax Ajax series is the best one of the Guide.    The series does not require to know in advance how many Ajax programming knowledge, and describes the various Ajax and related technologies.    If you want to better understand the Web architecture, it may be necessary to Representational State Transfer (REST) be familiar with.    "How to Create a REST Protocol" (see reference) of this article can serve as a good introductory information on aspects. 

  Ajax master reading series, and personally started some development, you will also need a number of other reference information.    W3Schools (see reference) to provide the core technology Ajax (JavaScript, CSS, HTML, DOM, XML, etc.) online reference information. 

  If you are using the Mozilla Firefox browser, then they should use DevEdge Sidebar (see references).    These include various Sidebar Ajax technical standards for indexing, you can use them as a reference guide. 

  Finally, if you think Ajax community to feel, then they should subscribe Ajaxian blog (see references). 

  reference). 

  Despite these problems, you should believe that the majority of users are using the browser.    Can also try to use a variety of library to fill a certain extent, the lack of IE6, such as / IE7 / (please refer to reference). 

  IE7 in IE6 on the basis of a lot of significant improvements, such as the label's support.    For developers, hidden improve even more important.    IE7 provides a better performance JavaScript interpreter, and the rehabilitation of IE6 many defects (such as CSS), making compliance with the standards of most Ajax applications need only a small amount of revision will be able to run on the browser. 

  Reference provided links to download.) 

  References to know more about Trident knowledge.) 

  reference) is one of the most popular.    (To learn more about the function Firebug more details, please refer to the "Ajax Debugging with Firebug").    Firebug is an integrated expansion, which can: 

•   Use breakpoints, variable Show and progressive approach to debug JavaScript code. 
•   View network status. 
•   Show and optimization of the various elements of the DOM tree and CSS. 

  Firebug 1.0 is a powerful and flexible set a milestone in the development of Ajax, is the use of Firefox as the preferred browser strong reasons. 

  references).    These browser through a matching Gecko version of Firefox can provide the same functionality. 

  References) development.    Safari in order to debug applications, recommend the use of a building WebKit.    The building includes: 

•   After customized with CSS and DOM Inspector browser. 
•   Drosera: a JavaScript debugger.    Drosera can be used to debug applications, but its properties compared with Firebug relatively limited. 

  If you persist in Safari test applications, it may be open Safari Debug menu, the menu can be read through the DOM tree, CSS and cache. 

  references), get a workpiece can be used for the development of the Basic Web environment, but also can edit HTML, CSS and JavaScript document editor and editorial tools. 

  Note that Eclipse Web Tools environment is not limited to Ajax development, it supports the focus on the Web server-side application development.    Therefore, it provides such as Syntax highlighting and the completion of the basic code of the core functionality.    It did not provide specific tasks in the development of Ajax Debugging features or DOM manipulation functions. 

  reference), and with the Eclipse Web toolbox combination resulting in a powerful, Ajax development needs to support all aspects of the environment.    ATF provided the following characteristics: 

•   A DOM browser and running CSS Editor 
•   A JavaScript debugger (through the use of Mozilla XUL operational procedures) 
•   Network traffic monitoring 
•   Through the configuration file used for the realization of the simple integration 
•   And JSLint (see references) integration, to verify the implementation of JavaScript 

  The toolkit is a very valuable features are integrated in the run XUL operational procedures, testing and inspection applications. 

  reference) is a very useful, open source, Eclipse-based environment, and can be downloaded for free.    ATF tools developed specifically for Ajax, and Aptana is different, it is for the development of the Web 2.0 application IDE.    Aptana has integrated Ruby Development Toolkit (RDT), which provides a Ruby-Eclipse integration. 

  Aptana can be downloaded as a complete Eclipse environment (compared with the ATF very simple option), can also be used as a plug-in sets added to the group before setting good Eclipse environment. 

  Aptana environment provided a number of useful features, such as: 

•   High-quality user guides and technical reference documents 
•   Ajax workpiece for a complete editing environment, which includes JavaScript code analysis, integration and DOM browser compatibility information 
•   The use of external Firefox browser debugging features 
•   The basic integrated Ajax 
•   Potential marker to the wrong code verification system 
•   Edit documents on the system of any document, and edit remote files using FTP functions 

  You may find, Aptana is more than ATF easy to install and learn, to meet the development needs of your solution. 

  references) is based on JavaScript unit testing framework, through JUnit (a common unit testing for Java) from transplantation to create the JavaScript.    JsUnit support JavaScript function test case for the definition and support in the browser environment running these test cases.    If you would like to code developed by the implementation of the same unit testing, then JsUnit is a very useful framework. 

  (Reference provided in the link). 

  reference) is a JavaScript library, it introduces a number of powerful Ajax Library to help simplify programming.    Although it can not by itself as a framework for Ajax, but it is several other frameworks (such as script.aculo.us, Moo.fx2, Rico, etc.) core.    Prototype support: 

•   Basic DOM operation 
•   Ajax call 
•   A group of practical function 
•   Use input fields and forms 

  Prototype is Sam Stephenson Ruby programming style was the inspiration for the development of post, which is currently the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) license under an open source project (see references). 

  reference) is the MIT license under an open source project.    It has built on the Prototype, together with Ruby on Rails release.    Script.aculo.us is for the development of rich Web-UI Rails application of the framework of a popular, but it could be with other server-side technology used together.    Script.aculo.us Although described as a thin framework, but it has a very powerful animation features, and includes the following features: 

•   JavaScript DOM Based on the Construction of simple procedures can provide DOM operation 
•   Drag-and-drop support 
•   Some controls and small parts, such as automatic, sliding block and in situ editing 

  2 in the list of examples of Script.aculo.us demonstrated the powerful animation effects.    In this example, when his version of the click, it will gradually fade out attention: 

•   JavaScript for the cross-browser stdlib 
•   DOM operation 
•   Download time and for optimizing the size of packaging system 
•   A group of rich, scalable small parts 
•   Drag-and-drop support 
•   Animation support 
•   Very rich integration of the server-side 

  Dojo a selling point is that it is the small parts can be extended, so that they can use the simple small parts to more complex combinations of small parts.    Therefore, the majority of the Ajax framework and the difference is that the Dojo provides a specific programming model guidance function, if compliance with the model, can be like desktop GUI programming interface as Web design. 

  Dojo under the Academic Free License is an open source project, is in the development of the Dojo Foundation (see references).    Dojo is a very active projects, many large companies, such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, AOL, and so provides a Dojo support. 

  Figure 1 shows a Dojo use e-mail application examples.    Can be seen, Dojo provides a tree, table and many other small parts to help create similar desktop UI.    It also simplifies the interaction between small parts. 

•   The use of the rich template DOM operation 
•   Various small parts, such as folding (accordion), and drop-down LiveGrid (pull down) 
•   Drag-and-drop support 
•   Simple animation 
•   For fillet, management, Color Display and other practical tools 
•   Simple integration of the server-side 

  Although Rico, including the function less than Dojo framework, but if a function can be used to meet the development needs of UI, then Rico small amount of memory is an advantage.    In particular, the LiveGrid Rico makes small parts such as creating dynamic table of the common tasks become very simple. 

  (see references). 

  (Reference Guide in W3School links guides is a good introductory tutorial).    You should also visit Ajax Patterns site (see references).    Entry is now the fastest hands on - their application to prepare a try. 

  Under one of this series of articles will be through the development of a simple Dojo based on the blog reader, you will be guided Ajax development of newly acquired knowledge to practice.    Ajax has not set foot on the journey?    Quickly.    Continue! 

  original English text. 

•   Download from the Microsoft Download Center IE Developer Toolbar and Microsoft Script Debugger. 
  
  
•   By adding the Eclipse Web can be a useful tool for the development of the basic Web workpiece environment, as well as HTML, CSS and JavaScript document editor and editorial tools. 
  
  
•   Learn more and download Eclipse Ajax Toolkit Framework (ATF). 
  
  
•   Aptana is a useful open source, Eclipse-based environment, and can be downloaded for free. 
  
  
•   JsUnit is based on JavaScript unit testing framework, it is through JUnit (a common unit testing for Java) and transplanted to JavaScript created. 
  
  
•   JSLint JavaScript is a procedure used to detect problems in the process JavaScript. 
  
  
•   Prototype is a JavaScript library, it introduces a number of powerful functions to help simplify Ajax programming. 
  
  

•   If you want to feel the atmosphere of Ajax community, then please subscribe Ajaxian blog. 
  
  

  About the author 

  Gal Shachor IBM Haifa Research Lab is a senior technical staff and researchers, and middleware in the rich Internet applications and related fields. 

  Yoav Rubin Tekeni Aoun with Israel Institute of Technology Computer Science Department information system professional degree.    Over the past seven years, he has been in the IBM Haifa Research Lab as software engineers, mainly engaged in visualization application development tools and time to deal with the complexity of the field.    His main interest in a Java and Web technology, simplified programming and availability. 

  Shmulik London is the IBM Haifa Research Lab researchers.    He is interested in current professional software component model and Web 2.0. 

  Shmuel Kallner Yeshiva University in New York has information science degree.    In the past 26 years, he has been in different parts of IBM's software engineers,