Building Dynamic Sites with Ajax and PHP

Abstract

In the last chapter, I discussed many of the new and improved features in Dreamweaver CS3, but the one with the real “wow factor” is Spry, Adobe’s implementation of Ajax. Although Ajax started out as an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript + XML, it’s taken on a broader meaning. In simple terms, it’s a combination of existing technologies that allow you to change the content of a web page without the need to reload it in a browser, and rival implementations have mushroomed at a breathtaking pace. Ajax is not without problems, particularly with regard to accessibility and search engine optimization, so in this chapter, I’ll explain what Ajax is, what its pluses and minuses are, and how Dreamweaver has implemented the Adobe version called Spry. I’ll also be discussing PHP, the most popular server-side language, which—among other things—activates online forms to send email, communicate with a database, and make websites searchable.