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Now was one big chapter! I hope you feel, as I do though, that it was well worth the effort. In this chapter we touched on a number of things: JSON, associative arrays, a new way to structure Ajax functions, a new server-side framework, and even a bit of basic game theory. We saw a fair bit of CSS and DOM scripting techniques, and picked up some new JavaScript tricks as well. Most important, we have seen just how fun game programming can be!

In this chapter, we examined the basic technologies and techniques that will be used in the remainder of the book to develop our Ajax applications. We described JavaScript in some detail, including somewhat more advanced topics and ways of making it more “professional” in nature. You learned about XML, including how to parse it on the client. We also touched on the topics of dynamic HTML and DOM manipulation as well as Cascading Stylesheets.

Although it is my hope that this chapter has served as an introduction for those of you who may not have had much exposure to the topics discussed, if you do fall in that category I highly recommend finding any of the very good books that go into these topics in even more detail. Although I believe this chapter has put you on a level playing field that will enable you to explore the applications to come, there is no way I could have covered all the finer points of all these things. You will only help yourself by exploring them further and in more exhaustive detail.

In this chapter we have briefly touched on the server-based technologies and techniques that will be used by the projects to come, including basic webapp structure, servlets, JSPs, Tomcat, and projects built with Ant. We also took a look at XML, specifically parsing XML with Commons Digester as well as the old standby, SAX. If any of this was new to you, and definitely if it was all new to you, I highly recommend taking some time to explore these topics in further detail, especially the last section dealing with webapps, servlets, and JSPs. The projects, which we’ll begin to look at in the next chapter, will delve into these areas in much greater detail, but in a practical way. There will not be a great deal of discussion about the basic theory behind servlets, for example; we’ll simply be using them. Therefore, if you do not already know the theory, you may not get as much out of the projects as you otherwise could.

In this chapter we built our first, real Ajax application! We duplicated—to some degree at least—what the finest minds in Google have done and learned to do something that can be very useful in many web applications. You learned about AjaxTags from Java Web Parts and saw the ease with which you can build Ajax applications using that library. As Obi-Wan Kenobi said to Luke Skywalker when he was finally able to deflect the remote’s lasers with the blast shield down, “You’ve taken your first step into a larger world.”

In this chapter we built a webmail client application utilizing Ajax techniques courtesy of the DWR library. We discovered how DWR allows us to essentially treat Java classes on the server as client-side components, calling methods on them, accessing properties, and so on. We saw how what is truly a small amount of code, with the right libraries, can yield a rather useful application. In addition, we explored just a few more advanced client-side presentation techniques using DOM scripting and CSS.

In this chapter we examined a fairly simple RSS feed reader. You saw how AjaxTags can save you a ton of work and how it allows you to write an RSS reader with a minimum of effort.

In this chapter we have dissected the PhotoShare application and learned about the Dojo library. We have seen how a bit of scripting and CSS/DOM manipulation can yield a somewhat fancy application with some neat special effects. We have also seen how to construct our own simple application framework for the server components of the application. All in all, it has been a fun little project!

In this chapter we constructed something that is genuinely useful to anyone with a hectic lifestyle. If you were to host this application on an Internet-facing server, the ability to have access to your contacts, to-do lists, notes, and appointments from virtually anywhere would be a very handy thing. This chapter also discussed the Prototype library, which underpins a great many Ajax libraries. We also explored the WebWork application framework, which is set to become the next Struts. And last but not least, we explained how to use an embedded database named HSQLDB in our applications.

In this chapter we examined the AjaxChat application, an Ajax-ified version of the venerable Internet chat application. We saw how, instead of resorting to a library, we can use straight Ajax code without it becoming a nightmare of tangled spaghetti.

Now was one big chapter! I hope you feel, as I do though, that it was well worth the effort. In this chapter we touched on a number of things: JSON, associative arrays, a new way to structure Ajax functions, a new server-side framework, and even a bit of basic game theory. We saw a fair bit of CSS and DOM scripting techniques, and picked up some new JavaScript tricks as well. Most important, we have seen just how fun game programming can be!