[TriLUG] OT custom tag library - ajax

[Aaron S. Joyner]

rleathers wrote:

>Question for anyone with some ajax knowledge:
>
> 
>
>I think we are possibly doing things the hard way here.  It feels like
>someone should have already done what we are trying to do, but if not, then
>I want some advice on turning over what we've done so far so others might
>benefit
>
> 
>
>We started building an application last September.  It is written in PHP and
>uses MySQL.  To keep the user interface from being slow to render and too
>crowded to use, we decided to break things into chunks and create multiple
>independent "windows", each with a fairly narrow and obvious purpose.  To
>get the desired results, we started writing our own tag library which we
>named ARIJAX.
>
> 
>
>We looked at other libraries (dogo, YUI, AJForm) and found that they merely
>provide the transportation layer but not the communication layer. There are
>many instances of ajax requestor calls ( in fact we're using O'Reily's
>HTTP.js from JavaScript: The Definitive Guide ).
>
> 
>
>The problem with those and others that we've looked at is that they don't
>integrate the AJAX communication with the control of the DOM tree.
>
>Additional javascript code has to be written to interpret the results of the
>Ajax call for each and every communication. Arijax integrates the ajax
>request and communication and is able to properly interpret the response to
>render and display additional HTML attributes. 
>
> 
>
>One of the primary issues being faced right now is writing Javascript in a
>browser neutral framework. An "outer" frame-work such as YUI may prove
>helpful. In addition, a more flexible "Verb Subject Information" pairing
>needs to be made instead of the "Verb+Subject Information" as it is now (ie:
>how the data is sent over). 
>
> 
>
>Does this make sense?  
>
>Is anyone aware of a fairly complete library that already does this?  
>
>Is there a better way than what I've described?
>
> 
>
>Thanks,
>
> 
>
>Ryan
>
> 
>
> 
>
>  
>
I honestly didn't take the time to parse the large majority of AJAXyness
above, but as I know you're not averse to Java, have you considered this:
http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/

I know it addresses at least one of your concerns very well, the
handling of cross-platform output which degrades well on all browser
platforms.  I'll let you evaluate if it meets the rest of your needs, as
surely you know them better than I do.

Aaron S. Joyner

PS - To keep things somewhat close to on topic, it was recently released
as entirely open source, under the Apache 2.0 license.  :)