16. Designing with Ajax

Ajax, as mentioned earlier in this book, is “officially” JavaScript’s XMLHttpRequest() combined with XML—but in practice the name is used so often with certain other types of JavaScript and CSS functionality that, in order for a site to appear “Web 2.0”-ish, it’s got to have a certain look and feel.

In this chapter, we’ll be talking about that Web look and feel: both how it’s created and why it’s used. In order to demonstrate these elements, we’ll be using another JavaScript library—jQuery—and you’ll get a brief introduction to its advantages and uses. You’ll learn how to highlight elements, create accordion-like menus, and display modal dialogs (with accompanying visual effects). We’ll finish off with smarter tables, including both zebra-striping (for ease of reading) and sorting by any column.