Ajaxy

Introduction

Ajaxy is an unobtrusive, degradable and accessible Ajax integration solution. Ajaxy helps you to produce entire Ajax-driven websites, similar in functionality to Facebook and Google Mail.

Features

• Back button support – many Ajax driven websites don’t support the back-button in browsers, meaning that users have no means to bring back previous content. Ajaxy utilises a hashing mechanism to enable this.
• Bookmarkable URLs – whenever new content is loaded, the URL ’s hash will change to reflect the changes – this URL is unique and can be used to retrieve the same content at a later date, much like a regular URL .
• Configurable loading notifier – built-in to Ajaxy is a flexible “loader” that is used to inform the user of a pending request.

Why Ajaxy?

• No page refreshes. The user doesn’t need to wait for an entire page to reload, and for all the elements to be rendered.
• Allows for a more fluid user experience. You have control over what happens between requests.
• The user is never left with a blank white screen, as they might be when navigating in the conventional way.
• Allows you to address connection issues within the comfort of your template. The user isn’t faced with a horrible browser message. For example, if their connection goes dead while on your website, and if they try to access a new page, you can simply show them a message to that effect.
• Fully bookmarkable plus back-button support. Using Ajaxy does not diminish usability whatsoever; I’ve made every effort to make this as accessible and usable as an Ajax integration-solution can be!
• Ajaxy is very flexible. It will work in most situations. If, for example, you need to re-initiate event handlers within a replaced area, Ajaxy provides a way to do that via function callbacks. Although, I recommend you use jQuery’s live() for most event handling.

Ajaxy has been specifically designed to be used on smaller websites, where there are only a few pages. It will scale, but it hasn’t been designed for massive e-commerce shops or anything like that. Use it wisely. This is ideal for a small portfolio site, or a bespoke campaign web-page or just a section of a large site. You could, for example, make a degradable tabbing panel using Ajaxy (although that’s not its intended purpose)!