AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications: Enhance the user experience of your PHP website using AJAX with this practical tutorial featuring detailed case studies

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4.5 (20 Ratings)

Paperback Mar 2006 284 pages 1st Edition

$19.99 per month

Paperback Mar 2006 284 pages 1st Edition

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Key benefits

Build a solid foundation for your next generation of web applications
Use better JavaScript code to enable powerful web features
Leverage the power of PHP and MySQL to create powerful back-end functionality and make it work in harmony with the smart AJAX client
Go through numerous case studies that demonstrate how to implement AJAX-enabled features in your site such as: real-time form validation, online chat, suggest & autocomplete, whiteboard, SVG realtime charting, whiteboard, web data grid, RSS reader, drag & drop

Description

Assuming a basic knowledge of PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL, this book will help you understand how the heart of AJAX beats and how the constituent technologies work together. After teaching the foundations, the book will walk you through numerous real-world case studies covering tasks you'll be likely to need for your own applications: Server-enabled form-validation page Online chat collaboration tool Customized type-ahead text entry solution Real-time charting using SVG Database-enabled, editable and customizable data grid RSS aggregator application A server-managed sortable list with drag&drop support using the script.aculo.us JavaScript toolkit The appendices guide you through installing your working environment, using powerful tools that enable debugging, improving, and profiling your code, working with XSLT and XPath. From the Author, Cristian Darie AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications is mainly a book for beginners, but when designing its contents we tried to find the ideal blend of topics that would help both novice and experienced web developers make a big step forward. One customer was very kind to let us know, through a review, that we succeeded: "The theory behind all the technologies used is very clearly explained, without boring you with details about obvious things. Right from the first chapter you start learning by examples. The examples can be easily adapted to many web projects and they cover stuff that is both useful and fun." Here are a few examples of such "useful and fun" things that you can find in this book: details on using proxy scripts to work around the security measures in modern browsers client-side and server-side code that doesn't break when fed with special characters (such as <, ", etc) code that works efficiently with Internet Explorer 5, 6 and 7, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and others a very quick introduction to SVG, the new rebel kid of the web (and of the house) client-server communication based on message queues that guarantee that your messages aren't lost on the way, and arrive in the intended order at the destination server-side state management techniques that use query string parameters and database records to keep track of your client's activity simple yet effective error-handling structures that combine JavaScript code and PHP code to report when something bad happens on the client or on the server a live errata page that is updated as soon as anyone reports a suggestion or a correction a friendly AJAX tutorial and many case studies that teach you how to use JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and XML together in order to achieve wonderful results The book's authors and the publisher are listening to your feedback, and appreciate when you invest some time to let them know what you think. The first result of this collaboration is an updated version of the AJAX Chat case study that uses (and teaches) JSON instead of XML. Find this new chapter in the code download or on my website. Thanks for reading such a long message. Have fun!" Cristian Darie.

Who is this book for?

This book is for web developers willing to build better web applications. A basic knowledge of PHP, XML, JavaScript and MySQL, or a strong will to learn-as-you-type, is assumed.

What you will learn

Chapter 1: AJAX and The Future Of Web Applications is an initial incursion into the world of AJAX and the vast possibilities it opens up for web developers and companies, to offer a better experience to their users. In this chapter you ll also build your first AJAX-enabled web page, which will give you a first look of the component technologies. You can read this chapter in full, for free, here: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/1825_01_Final.pdf
View AJAX and the Future of Web Applications Demo: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/quickstart/
Chapter 2: Client-Side Techniques with Smarter JavaScript will guide you through the technologies you""ll use to build AJAX web clients, using JavaScript, DOM, the XMLHttpRequest object, and XML. While not being a complete tutorial for these technologies, you""ll be taken to the right track of using them together to build a solid foundation for your future applications.
Chapter 3: Server-Side Techniques with PHP and MySQL completes the theory foundation by presenting how to create smart servers to interact with your AJAX client. You""ll learn various techniques for implementing common tasks, including handling security and error handling problems.
Chapter 4: AJAX Form Validation guides you through creating a responsive, modern form with real-time validation based on server data. View AJAX Form Validation Demo: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/validate/
Chapter 5: AJAX Chat presents a simple online chat that works exclusively using AJAX code, without Java applets, Flash code, or other specialized library, as most chat applications work these days. Chapter 5 has now been updated to cover JSON. You can read the chapter in full, for free, here: www.PacktPub.com/files/Ajax_Chat_and_JSON.pdf
View AJAX Chat Demo: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/chat/
Chapter 6: AJAX Suggest and Autocomplete builds a Google-suggest like feature, that helps you find PHP functions, and forward you to the official help page for the chosen function. View AJAX Suggest and Autocomplete demo: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/suggest/
Chapter 7: SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is a text-based graphics language that can be used to draw shapes and text. (SVG is supported natively by Firefox 1.5, and requires a SVG plugin with other browsers). In this case study you learn how to implement a realtime charting solution with AJAX and SVG. View SVG Demo here: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/svg_chart/
Chapter 8: AJAX Grid teaches you how to build powerful updatable data grid. You""ll learn how to parse XML documents using XSLT to generate the looks of your grid. View AJAX Grid Demo here: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/grid/
Chapter 9: AJAX RSS Reader uses the SimpleXML PHP library, XML and XSLT, to build a simple RSS aggregator. View AJAX RSS Reader Demo here: http://ajaxphp.packtpub.com/ajax/rss_reader/
Chapter 10: AJAX Drag and Drop is a demonstration of using the script.aculo.us framework to build a simple list of elements with drag&drop functionality.
Appendix A: Configuring Your Working Environment teaches you how to install and configure the required software: Apache, PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin.

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Daniel Smith Mar 22, 2009

AJAX and PHP by Cristian Darie, a book that takes us on a journey through a now MUST when you develop web applications. If you are developing anything on the web platform page refreshes are a thing of the past, integrating AJAX is now a standard. This book will help give you the basics on the interaction between AJAX and PHP. This book covers the nitty gritty of JavaScript and their implementations, not using a JS Framework like Prototype.This book will give you a great background in how AJAX functions work in most of the popular frameworks and allow you to build great Web 2.0 application without the need for them. The last chapter however does talk about Drag and Drop using script.aculo.us which is built on Prototype.Some things that can be helpful in this book however include, using the Document Object Model, DOM and CSS, Charting using SVG, and AJAX RSS Readers. Good book overall if you are looking to build apps without frameworks.

Amazon Verified review

Brian Case Jul 23, 2006

Ajax and PHP came at exactly the right time in my self-inflicted education as I am just now gaining functional literacy in OOP, Client/Server. PHP, CSS et. al..There are a lot of things to like about this book, starting with its organization. It starts off by documenting what you need to know to best use of this book. And supplies the URL/Hyperlinks to get those literacies if you don't have them. (Thank you!)It achieves a nice balance of choosing what needs to go into an appendix.It dispenses with the common irritating practice of showing code "excerpts" in favor of showing the entire script and follows each script example with a "What just happened" section that is as clear and concise as you will find anywhere.If you only buy one AJAX book, make it this one.

Nathan Smith Apr 18, 2006

There need to be more Ajax books like this. No, let me rephrase. Rather, more of the Ajax books out there should've been like this one. I just finished reading through AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications and it is by far my favorite book on the topic of Ajax yet. The authors of this book: Bogdan Brinzarea, Mihai Bucica, Cristian Darie and Filip Chereche'-Tosa have done a great job of keeping the topics focused and applicable.While other books I have read covered the concepts behind Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, they did so with a shotgun blast of information. While I appreciate an eclectic approach, it is irrelevant because many examples are for languages I never use. For instance, one single book might have a slew of exercises in ASP.NET and Java, with maybe a few chapters on PHP.Sure, I could install Microsoft's .NET SDK or Sun's J2EE, but the likelihood of me every either using these two platforms is pretty slim. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against Microsoft or Sun as companies. I use Windows like everyone else, and am quite fond of OpenOffice. Suffice it to say, I am a front-end designer who is familiar with PHP.There is a full gamut of examples to test out. I liked the way they list the full code in the text, in addition to offering the option of downloading it from Packt. I've read too many programming books that assume you're right there at your computer while reading. I don't know about you, but I like to take books with me to read when I can grab a spare minute here or there.Before I get into the contents of the book, let me point out a few caveats, in case you are considering purchasing it (which I would still recommend, if you're into PHP). In some of their code examples, they use XHTML 1.1. This is all well and good, but they neglect to specify content-type, meaning that it defaults back to text/html. So, while it still works just fine in a browser, it is against the W3C recommendation for how to serve various media types.XHTML 1.1 should be served only as application/xhtml+xml, so their code examples would be better off as XHTML 1.0 Strict, because they aren't making use of any of the additional features to be found by stepping up to 1.1. Another thing to correct in their code would be line-breaks, which are consistently written throughout as [br/] when really it should be [br /]. Though seemingly innocuous, that single space is important. (Note: I used square brackets in the place of angled brackets, since Amazon does not allow for HTML in their reviews.)Anyway, here is what topics are covered in the book: JavaScript and the Document Object Model, some CSS, XMLHttpRequest, proxy servers, and MySQL. They also touch on how to make use of Prototype and Script.aculo.us. Using this armament, they show you how to create fun stuff such as: live form validation, chat room (with color picker), auto-complete search, real-time SVG charts, XSLT grids, an RSS reader, plus a drag-and-drop to-do list.While some of these topics are covered in other books out there, I had not found one which covered them all from a PHP standpoint. Now that I have, I think I will probably give book reading on Ajax a rest (not REST) for awhile, because I think that with this book, I am contented. Now it's just a matter of going out there and actually making use of the topics that were covered.

TSilver Mar 06, 2007

Good examples and techniques aside, there's opportunities to turn your investment into cash in from projects in the real world. The later chapters contain great code examples for application pieces all web developers need in their arsenal; from javascript and security tips to interface how-to including a neat drag n' drop sortable list app I enjoy using more (probably because I understand it better from the inside out) than the [...] drag n' drop code I had been tinkering around with.If you're a total newbie to AJAX and PHP this book will get your feet wet and dunk you in. If you're a PHP wiz with a good understanding of AJAX, this book will help "gel" it all together for you and add to your programming "street smarts".Even the most impatient learners will appreciated each chapter section's "Time for Action" samples which let you do stuff within the first 5 minutes of cracking the book open. (I jumped right to those sections then went back to read the other stuff if I felt I didn't understand why something worked or didn't work).

Geoffrey E. Quelch Aug 09, 2007

Enjoyed this book. The authors clearly understand their subject and provide useful workable code that can be used as a basis for your own projects.

AJAX and PHP: Building Responsive Web Applications: Enhance the user experience of your PHP website using AJAX with this practical tutorial featuring detailed case studies

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