AJAX Support in Aida/Web

  1. 1. Introduction
    1. 1.1. Example of Ajax updating
  2. 2. Update an element
    1. 2.1. Periodical update
  3. 3. Posting a form element
    1. 3.1. Delayed input field
    2. 3.2. Example of form posting
  4. 4. Ajax components
    1. 4.1. Autocomplete field
    2. 4.2. In-place editing field
  5. 5. Ajaxification of web elements
    1. 5.1. Manual preparation of components
    2. 5.2. How an element is Ajax updated
    3. 5.3. Examples in WebGrid

1. Introduction

AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And Xml) is is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user requests a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.

AJAX is supported by Aida in a way, as closer to Smalltalk programming as possible. You don't need to deal with any Javascript code to ajaxify your web applications.

Main features of Ajax support in Aida are:

  • update of any web element on a page after some event, like click on some other element
  • immediate post (send to a server) of input fields and