Xmlhttpclient aka AJAX

This web log entry of Joshua Eichorn tells us about a new fancy technique of using JavaScript for background server requests. The advance is that a web application does not need to reload a whole page, but only parts of it. That saves bandwidth and therefore reduces the loading time of a page.

Our recently released new application "Link and Bookmark Manager" already takes advantage of that kind of technology. It is used for moving and deleting elements (links and groups in this case). Just login to the admin area and take a look (username: admin, password: admin). Use the tiny blue arrow buttons to move links or groups up or down. Clicking on the red cross button removes an element. You will notice that the page is not reloaded during these actions.

Needless to say that we do not rely on that feature. If you have JavaScript disabled, the old school page reload is back. Although we have it used quite sparely within this application, we will definitely expand it in our next projects.