AJAX pros explained
How is AJAX different?
The classic web application model works in the following way:
- Most user actions in the interface trigger a request back to a web server.
- The server does some processing - retrieving data and talking to various legacy systems
- And then it returns an HTML page to the client.
It's a model adapted from the Web's original use as a hypertext medium, but what makes the Web good for hypertext doesn't necessarily make it good for software applications. Let's look at AJAX model a bit closer.
An Ajax application eliminates the start-stop-start-stop nature of interaction on the Web by introducing an intermediary - an Ajax engine - between the user and the server. Instead of loading a webpage, at the start of the session, the browser loads an Ajax engine - written in JavaScript and usually tucked away in a hidden frame.
This engine is responsible for both rendering the interface the user sees and communicating with the server on the user's behalf. The Ajax engine allows the user's interaction with the application to happen asynchronously - independent of communication with the server.
It basically means that the user is never staring at a blank browser window and an hourglass icon, waiting around for the server to do something, because any response to a user action that doesn't require a trip back to the server - such as simple data validation, editing data in memory, and even some navigation - the engine handles on its own.
If the engine needs something from the server in order to respond - if it's submitting data for processing, loading additional interface code, or retrieving new data - the engine makes those requests asynchronously, usually using XML, without stalling a user's interaction with the application.
Pros of Ajax
Because Ajax supports dynamic and continuous user experiences, user productivity increases significantly and measurably (e.g., seconds-saved-per-transaction x number-of-transactions-per-year). Because Ajax provides similar advanced user interface features to those in desktop applications (e.g., advanced UI controls, animated effects and adjustable layout controls), thereby providing the visual and interaction tools needed to make the application self-explanatory, users spend less time learning and operating the application. Ajax's partial page update feature offers reduced communications versus HTML's traditional approach of click, wait, and refresh.
- Bandwidth utilization
By generating the HTML locally within the browser, and only bringing down JavaScript calls and the actual data, Ajax web pages can appear to load relatively quickly since the payload coming down is much smaller in size. An example of this technique is a large result set where multiple pages of data exist. In addition to "load on demand" of contents, some web based applications load stubs of event handlers and then load the functions on the fly. This technique significantly cuts down the bandwidth consumption for web applications that have complex logic and functionality.
- User interface
The most obvious reason for using Ajax is an improvement to the user experience. Pages using Ajax behave more like a standalone application than a typical web page. Ajax enables rich user interfaces traditionally only found in installable desktop software. Typical rich user interface features found in Ajax applications include:
- Standard user interface (UI) controls (e.g., buttons, input fields and combo boxes)
- Advanced UI controls (e.g., tabbed palettes, calendar widgets, tree widgets and data grid widgets)
- Flexible, dynamic layout containers that adjust to the size of the embedded content and window size
- Floating palettes and modal dialogs
- Animations and animated effects
- Cut and paste, and drag and drop
- Open source
While open source software is not mandatory for Ajax projects, a large part of Ajax's momentum is due to the open source community's commitment to Ajax. Today, many Ajax open source projects bring the power of community-based open development models and no-cost licensing models to developers.
- Platform independence (OS, server, browser, IDE)
One of the main attractions of Ajax is that it does not lock developers to a particular hardware platform, operating system, application server, web browser or IDE. Developers are free to choose among many technology providers, commercial and open source, to find the products or open source technologies that best match their unique requirements and preferences, while achieving the key benefit of write-once, run-everywhere, across multiple computing devices, operating systems, and web browsers.
Send us your RFP or contact us directly via +375 17 222 62 51 and find out more reasons why Qulix Systems will become your reliable Ajax partner.
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