[FX.php List] Ajax/LAJAX's JavaScript requirements

[Kevin Futter]

On 19/10/06 9:42 AM, "Joel Shapiro" <jsfmp at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Thanks Kevin.
> I didn't know that about firewalls.
> And that's great advice about development practices (although for
> most client projects, I doubt I'll be able to justify developing two
> ways to accomplish the same task -- probably just the "no fancy
> scripts" way, which of course is less fun :-(.
> 
> Thanks,
> -Joel

I understand your concern about the extra work Joel, but once you're up to
speed it's often not that much, it's more about deploying the JS and AJAX
sides of things differently. If you can abstract your scripts and separate
them from your data and page structure, then you can develop your page(s) to
operate with normal HTTP form transactions, and use scripting to supersede
that when available.

Think of it as an extension of the idea of "return false" on form actions.
No JS available? Your form falls back to standard POST, where you deal with
it server-side. Otherwise, the scripting do its magic. I'd recommend any of
the books by Jeremy Keith, Stuart Langridge or Cameron Adams/James Edward
for info on unobtrusive scripting. The elegance of this approach is
compelling. And best of all, you end up accommodating the widest selection
of users.

I know I tend to bang the accessibility drum around here a bit, but many
legacy development techniques really do hamper access for people outside the
narrow definition of 'normal'. And although I'm not necessarily talking
strictly about people with sight impairments, you often hear developers say
things like "but I don't have any blind users!". The Internet's most
important consumer of public websites is in fact completely blind: Google.

-- 
Kevin Futter
Webmaster, St. Bernard's College
http://www.sbc.melb.catholic.edu.au/



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