Book Image

PHP and script.aculo.us Web 2.0 Application Interfaces

By : Sridhar Rao Chivukula
Book Image

PHP and script.aculo.us Web 2.0 Application Interfaces

By: Sridhar Rao Chivukula

Overview of this book

script.aculo.us is a JavaScript library that provides dynamic visual effects, user interface controls, and robust AJAX features. It is to client-side what PHP is to server-side ñ powerful, simple, complete fun, and above all, a MUST! As developers, we all dream of building applications that users can instantly fall in love with and get productive. Simple and niche applications are the future of web applications. script.aculo.us when used with PHP as a server-side scripting language, can give us a new way of looking at things and changing the way we work. script.aculo.us provides you with easy-to-use, cross-browser user interface JavaScript libraries to enhance your web sites and web applications. It provides dynamic visual effects, user interface controls, and robust AJAX features. This book covers all aspects for a developer to learn and master the art of using advanced JavaScript also referred to as 2.0 aspects in PHP web applications. script.aculo.us is an effective and powerful add-on to the Prototype library and when combined with PHP, it can make a lot of difference. The difference every developer dreams of. This book has been written keeping in view every basic step as well as covering the most complex aspects while writing our applications ó from simple effects, to the AJAX way of communicating through systems in applications. It gives you a completely new way of adding interactivity to your web applications. You will learn how sript.aculo.us provides interactivity and beauty to your project so that it engages users and appeals to the masses. Faster, more efficient, and more productive applications are what we are trying to build. Each chapter of this book has been hand-crafted to make sure that you as a developer can learn and master the art of making beautiful applications. The book covers all the various aspects of script.aculo.us with a few real-world clone projects, which will surely help you explore your creative side. The aim of this book is to make you go "WOW"!
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
PHP and script.aculo.us Web 2.0 Application Interfaces
Credits
About the author
About the reviewers
Preface

Chapter 4. Adding Effects and Multimedia to User Interface Design

We finished Chapter 3 on the note that the party has only just begun. So, let your hair down and get ready to play with code! We have learned about the necessities that enable us to dive into the script.aculo.us world and explore it.

In this chapter we will learn how to:

  • Add effects and multimedia content

  • Use different types of effects such as morph, scale, opacity, fade, appear, and many more

  • Use sounds and play MP3 songs using script.aculo.us from any browser

Introduction to effects

Before we get started, do you remember how we impressed your friends in Chapter 2? Even without knowing much about the effects, you were able to use them.

Effects help us in improving the look and feel of our applications during user interactions. Imagine a situation where a user clicks on the Delete button in an application, and an offending item is deleted (using AJAX). Now the user thinks What just happened?

The idea, therefore, is to use effects...