Book Image

jQuery 1.3 with PHP

Book Image

jQuery 1.3 with PHP

Overview of this book

To make PHP applications that respond quickly, avoid unnecessary page reloads, and provide great user interfaces, often requires complex JavaScript techniques and even then, if you get that far, they might not even work across different browsers! With jQuery, you can use one of the most popular JavaScript libraries, forget about cross-browser issues, and simplify the creation of very powerful and responsive interfaces ñ all with the minimum of code. This is the first book in the market that will ease the server-side PHP coder into the client-side world of the popular jQuery JavaScript library. This book will show you how to use jQuery to enhance your PHP applications, with many examples using jQuery's user interface library jQuery UI, and other examples using popular jQuery plugins. It will help you to add exciting user interface features to liven up your PHP applications without having to become a master of client-side JavaScript. This book will teach you how to use jQuery to create some really stunning effects, but without you needing to have in-depth knowledge of how jQuery works. It provides you with everything you need to build practical user interfaces for everything from graphics manipulation to drag-and-drop to data searching, and much more. The book also provides practical demonstrations of PHP and jQuery and explains those examples, rather than starting from how JavaScript works and how it is different from PHP. By the end of this book, you should be able to take any PHP application you have written, and transform it into a responsive, user-friendly interface, with capabilities you would not have dreamed of being able to achieve, all in just a few lines of JavaScript.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
jQuery 1.3 with PHP
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
Preface
Index

Projects that use PHP and jQuery


Here is a small list of projects that use jQuery along with PHP. This illustrates the variety of uses that jQuery is put to.

WordPress

WordPress (http://wordpress.org/) is probably the best-known blogging software on the net. Recently, the admin dashboard area was given a thorough going over, and is now extremely flexible with the areas you can move around or remove, a navigation menu you can hide at the click of a button, and other improvements. jQuery is used to handle autosaves, word counts, and much more.

RoundCube

RoundCube (http://roundcube.net/) allows you to read your emails online using an application designed to look similar to your normal email client. With jQuery, the engine allows emails to be removed, moved around, and so on, without reloading the whole page.

KFM

I'm proud to say that this is one of my own projects. KFM (http://kfm.verens.com/) is a file manager, which allows you to upload, sort, and rename (and more) your files online. You can even edit text files or play media files. The project is designed to look like a desktop file manager, complete with file icons, tree directory, and so on. jQuery is used for most of it.

Drupal

Drupal (http://drupal.org/) is a Content Management System. Since version 5, jQuery has been included as part of the core. It's more prominently used in some of the modules, but some core functionality, such as story creation is enhanced by allowing text boxes to be re-sized, optional sections to be hidden/shown, and so on.

Now, without further ado, let's get on with the fun stuff.