Which Ajax library do you use/recommend?

**Contrid** · Jun 20, 2007, 13:09

Hi there,

Could you please post your comments about Ajax libraries? Tell us which one you use and which one you would recommend. Additionally, what are your reasons for using a specific one.

I think it's time for me to find something proper. I wrote a custom one a while back and have been using it for a while now without any problems, though I think I might be better off with something which provides more features and better advantages.

Looking forward to reading your comments and suggestions.

Best,
Antonie

**Contrid** · Jun 20, 2007, 16:22

I've read about these :

...though I haven't tried any of them yet.

**Raffles** · Jun 20, 2007, 16:46

jQuery is getting a lot of attention lately.

**Contrid** · Jun 20, 2007, 16:50

Originally Posted by Raffles

jQuery is getting a lot of attention lately.

Thanks for the response.
Doing a search on jQuery now. Have heard about it though.
Is this what you use?

**the DtTvB** · Jun 21, 2007, 07:05

jQuery looks good, and it's really small. (Small script file and small syntax) I never used it in any of my projects, but it looks interesting.

Ext JS is really good at creating widgets and such.
It has its own buttons, menus and windows. And these things are accesible via mouse.
But for me, it's really hard to include things, and just including `ext-all.js` will cost 400kb of bandwidth! It's really large, even the code is compressed.
I finally created a web application using Ext library. It was so easy to create dialogs and such, but still, it's confusing!
The bad thing is when the script loads, Firefox freezes for about 2 seconds. It was annoying. Another thing is it doesn't work well on Opera!

Personally, I use dtjs, my own JavaScript library.
It's a small piece of code that prevents me from coding the same thing again and again.

I also used script.aculo.us once when I was a JavaScript newbie.

**Contrid** · Jun 21, 2007, 10:24

Thanks guys!
Please keep those comments coming.

I'm going to give jQuery a try in the next 2 days.
Will come back to post my feedback.

**trappedIntoCode** · Jun 21, 2007, 11:56

Oh you can't miss Prototype! It's the best out there, simple yet elegant, has lots of basic features, serves best when you need simple client-server communication, or some event manipulations..check this out:
http://www.sergiopereira.com/article...odicalExecuter
for complete documentation.

Dojo is will help if you want great GUI's or UI components.
I have used both of them and will certainly keep using.

**DHTML Kitchen** · Jun 21, 2007, 12:44

Which libraries have events wired into XHR?

For example, if I want to subscribe to a call COMPLETE event type.

Code:

SearchPage = new function SearchPage() {
  this.connection = Transport.getInstance().makeConnection();
  formSerializer = new FormSerializer( document.getElementById( "zipcode-lookup" ) );
  
  this.connection.subscribe( Transport.Events.CALL_COMPLETE, aFunction );

  this.stubManager = new StubManager( this.connection );
};

This approach allows the StubManager to subscribe to connection events on another object.

Most libraries allow you to have onsuccess = aFunction. This is just as problematic as a.onclick = function.

Using an observer for AJAX is necessary and most libraries don't do this.

Show me the library that does this!

In fact, most AJAX libraries like YUI and prototype could not be modified to implement observer. Poorly designed? You be the judge!

**kyberfabrikken** · Jun 21, 2007, 13:00

You might want to read this article: http://www.sitepoint.com/article/javascript-library

**DHTML Kitchen** · Jun 21, 2007, 13:01

To work around the limitation, I've found that it is possible to add before advice.

AOP advise is very powerful and can be done using a closure.

However, using advice makes the code hard to debug and is complicated to have to implement by hand.

And speaking of debugging: Avoid Dojo!

Dojo has a lot of brilliant code, but the framework itself is troubled by the eval statement called for each require(). The require statements slow things down tremendously. Trying to ameliorate this with the "Dojo build process" is troublesome. Dojo might work if you want to use the Editor or some components ( a lot of great code ), but I can't say I like the framework itself.

**kyberfabrikken** · Jun 21, 2007, 13:01

Originally Posted by DHTML Kitchen

Using an observer for AJAX is necessary and most libraries don't do this.

Show me the library that does this!

http://www.mochikit.com/doc/html/MochiKit/Async.html

**DHTML Kitchen** · Jun 21, 2007, 13:03

To work around the limitation, I've found that it is possible to add before advice.

AOP advise is very powerful and can be done using a closure.

However, using advice makes the code hard to debug and is complicated to have to implement by hand.

And speaking of debugging: Avoid Dojo!

Dojo has a lot of brilliant code, but the framework itself is troubled by the eval statement called for each require(), making it impossible to get a stack trace. The require statements slow things down tremendously. Trying to ameliorate this with the "Dojo build process" is troublesome. Dojo might work if you want to use the Editor or some components ( a lot of great code ), but I can't say I like the framework itself.

Even here you can see that the Dojo author is blaming eval and not his design:
http://manual.dojotoolkit.org/WikiHo...otBook/Book122

**Contrid** · Jun 21, 2007, 23:30

If I were to develop plugins for Wordpress using a JS library, should I rather try to understand and learn Prototype? I didn't check the files/code now, but I think the Prototype library is in Wordpress already. I'm just scared of clashes in between different libraries in the DOM.

**Stormrider** · Jun 22, 2007, 00:31

I think jQuery is fantastic, but I've not used it for AJAX yet so I couldn't tell you on that front.

**HarryR** · Jun 22, 2007, 01:19

I'm using a mix of ExtJS, jQuery and some home-brew things (e.g. more transparent php<->javascript RPC).

**kyberfabrikken** · Jun 22, 2007, 01:54

Originally Posted by Contrid

If I were to develop plugins for Wordpress using a JS library, should I rather try to understand and learn Prototype? I didn't check the files/code now, but I think the Prototype library is in Wordpress already. I'm just scared of clashes in between different libraries in the DOM.

prototype has a way of going haywire, if you use it together with something else. If the application already uses prototype, you probably don't have a choice, less you want to sort out all the clashes manually.

**CHeeSeBLiND** · Jun 22, 2007, 02:11

I'm down with prototype/scriptaculous.

Even more so now I'm coding with rails.

**Stormrider** · Jun 22, 2007, 02:35

One thing is I'm having a bit of trouble with jQuery at the moment, there seems to be an error in the code (or maybe my code but I'm having a tough time tracking it down, and the error is in the jquery.js file) and there is pretty much non existent support for it. There are no forums or anything, and the mailing lists are pretty dead.

I might have a look at prototype. What is scriptaculous? Is it an addon for prototype or something? I always see the 2 words together...

**Contrid** · Jun 22, 2007, 02:57

Originally Posted by Stormrider

One thing is I'm having a bit of trouble with jQuery at the moment, there seems to be an error in the code (or maybe my code but I'm having a tough time tracking it down, and the error is in the jquery.js file) and there is pretty much non existent support for it. There are no forums or anything, and the mailing lists are pretty dead.

I might have a look at prototype. What is scriptaculous? Is it an addon for prototype or something? I always see the 2 words together...

What error(s) are you getting?

**Stormrider** · Jun 22, 2007, 03:06

Various! Different errors in IE5.5, IE6, IE7 (not to bothered about it working in ie5.5 though), firefox was working fine yesterday, came back today and now that is erroring is well! It seems to be when I use the addClass function. Firebug tells me:

elem.className has no properties
[IMG]chrome://firebug/content/blank.gif[/IMG]eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return(c<a?"":e(parseInt(c/a)))+((c=c%a...

I think I am going to try prototype today.

**Contrid** · Jun 22, 2007, 03:12

Originally Posted by Stormrider

Various! Different errors in IE5.5, IE6, IE7 (not to bothered about it working in ie5.5 though), firefox was working fine yesterday, came back today and now that is erroring is well! It seems to be when I use the addClass function. Firebug tells me:

elem.className has no properties
[IMG]chrome://firebug/content/blank.gif[/IMG]eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return(c<a?"":e(parseInt(c/a)))+((c=c%a...

I think I am going to try prototype today.

I've been experimenting with jQuery for the past hours and all I can say is WOW!!!
Had some issues with a Wordpress plugin because of Prototype though.

**elduderino** · Jun 22, 2007, 03:58

Hi,

I'll also tio my hat towards jQuery as its the only one ive expreimented with and seems very good.... although i do prefer writing ajax myself....just for the pure reason that you know, when it works, its all down to you.......dont get me wrong though somehting like JQuery cuts down hair pulling time an awful lot

**Stormrider** · Jun 22, 2007, 04:07

I've just downloaded prototype, and it seems fairly similar to jQuery so far - quite a lot of the same syntax and functionality - I was kind of forced to by the fact that I keep getting these errors with jQuery. One thing I am missing though is jQuery's $(document).ready(); function - this runs code when the DOM has loaded and is ready to be manipulated, but doesn't wait for images, styles etc to load which it doesn't need.

Does anyone know if prototype has something similar - I am having to use window.onload at the moment, which DOES wait for images etc..

**Stormrider** · Jun 22, 2007, 04:10

If you have having troubles with jQuery & Prototype not playing nicely, you can call jQuery.noConflict(); which will relinquish control of $ to prototype, then you can use 'jQuery' isntead of '$'.