Preface

Ajax is the necessary paradigm in Web 2.0 sites. Most Web 2.0 sites are built with PHP and Ajax. Extending Ajax is about delivering front-end services for accessing back-end services in PHP in a quick and easy manner. With this book in hand, you will learn how to use the necessary tools for Ajaxification of websites and iPhones.

The PHP Ajax Cookbook will teach you how to use the combination of PHP and Ajax as a powerful platform for websites or web applications. Using Ajax for communication with the server leads to faster response with PHP at the back-end services. The combination of Ajax and PHP has many features such as speeding up the user experience, giving your web client much quicker response time, and letting the client browser retrieve data from the server without having to refresh the whole page. You will learn the nuances of optimization and debugging Ajax applications. Further, you will learn how to program Ajax on iPhone devices.

This book will teach you popular selector-based JavaScript followed by important concepts on debugging, optimization, and best practices. There is a collection of recipes focused on creating basic utilities such as validating forms using Ajax and creating a five-star rating system. As jQuery is quite popular, useful tools and jQuery plugins like Ajax tooltips, tab navigation, autocomplete, shopping cart, and Ajax chat are covered subsequently. By the end of Chapter 7 you will learn to visually speed up website responsiveness and build SEO-friendly Ajax websites. You will also get to know about all popular Ajax webservices and APIs like Twitter, Facebook and Google Maps, which are covered in Chapter 8, Ajax Mashups. Finally, step-by-step recipes are presented to build iPhone apps using basic libraries and everyday useful Ajax tools.

Build rich, interactive Web 2.0 sites with rich standards and Mashups around PHP Ajax.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Ajax Libraries, teaches us how to work with the most famous JavaScript libraries and frameworks with capabilities of Ajax functionality. These libraries were selected by our subjective opinion and we are not trying to say which library/framework is better or worse. Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter 2 , Basic Utilities, focuses on basic Ajax operations that deal with forms, form controls, Ajax tables, and upload operations. Some "best" practices based on user experience and the performance of the specific system are explained.

Chapter 3, Useful Tools Using jQuery discusses jQuery plug-ins that are useful in transforming a normal website into an Ajaxified website with good looking tooltips, image galleries with a lighbox, selecting dates with datepicker, quick visual effects, and layout functionality.

Chapter 4, Advanced Utilities, teaches us how to build advanced features like chat, plotting charts, decoding Captcha using canvas, and displaying data in grid..

Chapter 5, Debugging and Troubleshooting, discusses JavaScript debugging techniques using browser plug-ins like Firebug.

Chapter 6, Optimization, teaches us how to speed up code execution through minification, triggering JavaScript early, object caching, and tips from YSlow and Google Page Speed tools.

Chapter 7, Implementing Best Practices to Build Ajax Websites, discusses best practices like avoiding markup-specific codes, building search-engine friendly Ajax websites, security considerations, and implementing Ajax Comet.

Chapter 8, Ajax Mashups, discusses how to make use of existing web services from JavaScript by utilizing Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Twitter, Google Maps, and geocoding web services.

Chapter 9, iPhone & Ajax, teaches us how to build mobile friendly websites using mobile frameworks and build a native iPhone application using a PhoneGap framework.

What you need for this book

In this book you basically need Apache, MySQL, and PHP installed in your computer. If you don't have PHP, MySQL, or Apache installed in your computer, we would recommend you download the XAMPP package from its website: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html. Furthermore, as the code editor you can use a simple editor like Notepad++ (Windows), IDE Netbeans, or Eclipse.

Who this book is for

This book is an ideal resource for people who like to add Ajax features to websites and who prefer standards and best practices for building SEO-friendly websites. As the book covers advanced topics, readers need to be aware of basic PHP, JavaScript, and XML features.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."

A block of code is set as follows:

if(isset($_GET["param"])){
$result["status"] = "OK";
$result["message"] = "Input is valid!";
} else {
$result["status"] = "ERROR";
$result["message"] = "Input IS NOT valid!";
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

" $('#dob').datepicker({
"   numberOfMonths: 2
" });

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

# cp /usr/src/asterisk-addons/configs/cdr_mysql.conf.sample
     /etc/asterisk/cdr_mysql.conf

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.

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