What language would this be?

Dale

What web language is used for this:

A table of text, and when someone clicks it, it turns straight away into a dynamic textbox ?

I thought "AJAX" would be used, but I cannot seem to find any tutorials for it. If you know what language it is, then please could you tell me, and possibly point me in the direction for some tutorials.

Thank You.

NeverSayDie

Well, you'll probably need to clarify that in a bit more detail, as in, what kind of "table of text"? In terms of language, if you want to change things on the clientside (ie in the browser, without loading a new page), Javascript is what you use, more specifically, DHTML refers to using Javascript and HTML for dynamic effects on the clientside. It isn't a language, just a technique using Javascript to update the HTML/CSS end of a page once it's already loaded. AJAX isn't a language either btw, just a general term for using a set of technologies to make web pages more dynamic (specifically, combining Javascript, XML over HTTP, and a server-side backend in order to send requests and update parts of a page without reloading the whole thing).

You could use AJAX for this, if you need to pull/push stuff from the server side dynamically, otherwise, it's just DHTML - ie using Javascript to modify your HTML, from a regular string to a text box, or whatever it is you're trying to do.

For Javascript info, try Google, there's loads of tutorials out there.

Hobbes

You could do it in UML as well. But without seeing the underlying code its hard to take a guess.

Syth

The J in AJAX stands for Javascript. It sounds like Javascript to me.

Dale

NeverSayDie wrote:

You could use AJAX for this, if you need to pull/push stuff from the server side dynamically

Yeah, thats exactly what I want to do. I'll check on g00gle for tutorials, thank you.

democrates

Most likely a javascript (aka ECMAscript) feature ok.
Java applets can achieve similar results, as can flash and svg. Unless you are a glutton for punishment I'd leave the cms/ide/leading-edge people to deal with all the xforms/svg schema mapping etc. and focus on incrementally applying what others have designed to give your users what they need.

Ajax is J.A.A. - just another acronym, for something people had been doing already... Check out http://www.javascript.com/ for knowledge and goodies.

Also replete is the O'Reilly book 'Javascript - The Definitive Guide', and though there's little in any IT book these days that you can't get online, personally I'm a paper romantic. Shut up, I compost and recycle.

Kernel32

Isn't Ajax something you clean the toilet with?

Back in the day when Microsoft and Sun were buddies there was remote scripting. As far as I can tell I was about the only developer in the world that actually used it. Bout 6 years back I worked on a large web application where we remotely communicated with the sever using remote scripting to perform on the fly calculations and the like. I guess we were ahead of our time.

democrates

Kernel32 wrote:

Isn't Ajax something you clean the toilet with?

Yes, but this 'new improved' version spawns new bugs instead of killing them;

Lawnkiller

If I remember correctly, I think the VS2003 DataGrid in ASP.NET does something similar.

Other than that, I'd agree with the AJAX and JavaScript. If you wantto make life a little easier with regard to JavaScript and AJAX, have a look at www.morfik.com

democrates

Lawnkiller wrote:

If you wantto make life a little easier with regard to JavaScript and AJAX, have a look at www.morfik.com

Hmm. Sounds great-ish for a win proprietary app. Lot of skepticism around morfik on slashdot, many seem to think it's a hoax, so far it's vapour-ware. In fairness their domain was registered in 2000 and they have a d# trademark since 2001, so it could be they're drumming up hype to keep investors on-side as the claimed five year development drags on with nary a sale in sight, and/or just savvy marketing. Time will tell if it lives up to the hype.

Meanwhile you might like to try the community edition of backbase for ajax development I found (free to try or for non-profit use), I'm not recommending it as I haven't tried it yet (have just started evaluating ajax), but I was intrigued by the cool demos on their site.

Lawnkiller

Yeah - was kinda skeptical about morfik myself. There doesn't appear to be a huge amount of specific tech info.

That backbase thing looks nice also. It would be nice if there was a good dev. env. for AJAX applications fairly soon. Its only a matter of time.