AJAX - Start Here
Contents
1 Overview
AJAX, short for Asynchronous JavaScript And XML, is a group of interrelated Web development techniques used on the client-side (in the browser) to create asynchronous Web applications.
With Ajax, Web applications can send data to and retrieve from a server asynchronously (in the background) without interfering with the display and behaviour of the existing page. Data can be retrieved using the XMLHttpRequest object. Despite the name, the use of XML is not required; JSON is often used instead (see AJAJ), and the requests do not need to be asynchronous.
Ajax is not a single technology, but a group of technologies. HTML and CSS can be used in combination to mark up and style information. The DOM is accessed with JavaScript to dynamically display – and allow the user to interact with – the information presented. JavaScript and the XMLHttpRequest object provide a method for exchanging data asynchronously between browser and server to avoid full page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_%28programming%29
Basically AJAX allows a web page to retrieve information that was not supplied when the page was first drawn. There are many uses for this.
- It can help pages remain a lot smaller as not all of the data has to be on the page, when it first loads.
- It can be used to retrieve real time information for various uses
- It can be used to store data without having to leave the current page.
Pure AJAX can be used in bxp software (bxp) however it can be long and complicated to build. To speed things up bxp has a number of pre-built functions already integrated with the security of bxp to allow these functions to work. These functions are only currently available in the bxp forms.
2 How it works
- When you log into bxp and start a form, the page will draw based on the Form (Web Page is built on Form 1).
- As part of the code of the page you can include AJAX functionality into the form, done through the Advanced Settings > JavaScript onLoad. (AJAX is drawn into the page.)
- When the page is executed in the clients browser, the AJAX can be activated and it works through the BEAPI to access data in any number of forms.
3 Array of Parameters
A full listing is available here AJAX_-_Full_Array_of_Paramters
4 Functions Available
As part of the functionality there are a number of predefined functions. These are set in aryAjax_Settings[16]
As the functions are detailed, please use the links where available for further details.
| Function | Link | |
|---|---|---|
| Append | AJAX_-_Function_-_Append | |
| dbDeleteRecord | AJAX_-_Function_-_dbDeleteRecord | |
| dbInsertRecord | AJAX_-_Function_-_dbInsertRecord | |
| dbUpdateRecord | AJAX_-_Function_-_dbUpdateRecord | |
| Insert | AJAX_-_Function_-_Insert | |
| InsertCount | AJAX_-_Function_-_InsertCount | |
| LiveSearch | AJAX_-_Function_-_LiveSearch | |
| LiveSearchTable | AJAX_-_Function_-_Live_Search_Table | |
| LiveSearchKeyStatData | AJAX_-_Function_-_LiveSearchKeyStatData | |
| Populate | AJAX_-_Function_-_Populate | |
| Populate_AltList | AJAX_-_Function_-_Populate_AltList | |
| PopulateNoClear | AJAX_-_Function_-_PopulateNoClear | |
| PopulateNoClear_AltList | AJAX_-_Function_-_PopulateNoClear_AltList | |
| Table | AJAX_-_Function_-_Table |
5 Solutions
It is possible to build entire solutions using AJAX
One useful concept that AJAX can facilitate is Centralised Listing Centralised_Listing
6 Security
This is further detailed here AJAX_-_Security_engine
7 Error messages and feedback
For a more indepth discussion on this area AJAX_-_Error_messages_and_troubleshooting