Book Image

YUI 2.8: Learning the Library

Book Image

YUI 2.8: Learning the Library

Overview of this book

The YUI Library is a set of utilities and controls written in JavaScript for building Rich Internet Applications, across all major browsers and independently of any server technology. There's a lot of functionality baked into YUI, but getting to and understanding that functionality is not for the faint of heart. This book gives you a clear picture of YUI through a step-by-step approach, packed with lots of examples.YUI 2.8: Learning the Library covers all released (non-beta) components of the YUI 2.8 Library in detail with plenty of working examples, looking at the classes that make up each component and the properties and methods that can be used. It includes a series of practical examples to reinforce how each component should/can be used, showing its use to create complex, fully featured, cross-browser, Web 2.0 user interfaces. It has been updated from its first edition with the addition of several chapters covering several new controls and enriched with lots of experience of using them.You will learn to create a number of powerful JavaScript controls that can be used straightaway in your own applications. Besides giving you a deep understanding of the YUI library, this book will expand your knowledge of object-oriented JavaScript programming, as well as strengthen your understanding of the DOM and CSS. The final chapter describes many of the tools available to assist you the developer in debugging, maintaining, and ensuring the best quality in your code. In this new edition, all the examples have been updated to use the most recent coding practices and style and new ones added to cover newer components. Since the basic documentation for the library is available online, the focus is on providing insight and experience.The authors take the reader from beginner to advanced-level YUI usage and understanding.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
YUI 2.8 Learning the Library
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
Preface

Chapter 4. Calling Back Home

As far as web interface design techniques are concerned, AJAX is definitely the way to go. So, what JavaScript library worth its salt these days wouldn't want to include a component dedicated to this extremely useful and versatile method of client/server communication?

The term AJAX has been part of the mainstream development community's vocabulary since early 2005 (with the advent of Google Mail). However, some of the key components that AJAX consists of, such as the XMLHttpRequest object, have been around for much longer (almost a decade in fact). The goal of asynchronously loading additional data after a web page has rendered is also not a new concept or requirement.

Yet AJAX reinvented existing technologies as something new and exciting, and paved the way to a better, more attractive, and interactive Web (sometimes referred to loosely as Web 2.0) where web applications feel much more like desktop applications.

AJAX can also perhaps be viewed as the godfather...