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GarageGames.com AJAX'ified

Name:	Rick Overman
Date Posted:	Feb 13, 2006
Rating:	4.0 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Blog post

This web update contains the soft launch of an AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) library that I have been working with. If you care it's cool, if you don't you'll never notice, because the page should "just do" what you expect it to.

AJAX is the buzzword of the web with everyone using "it" for all the wrong reasons in all the wrong places. I finally found a nice small "library" without all the framework baggage that lets me inject a little RPC anywhere I want without all the overhead of most the "libraries" floating around the web.

So after too many lost posts -- rating resources and the notification checkbox are finally AJAX background calls! I have tested this with Firefox, IE, Safari and Opera! If you have any problems, please let me know.

If this test goes well I will be expanding into other areas of the site, form posing comes to mind (no more broken back button). Suggestions welcome.

--Rick

Recent Blog Posts

List:	12/19/06 - Scheduled Outage December 19th at 11am PST. 09/26/06 - A Good Problem to Have 06/02/06 - Goodbye Old Office :( 04/30/06 - What's up at GG? New MySQL servers and more... 04/03/06 - Want a Web Development Job at GarageGames? 02/13/06 - GarageGames.com AJAX'ified 02/09/06 - Be a Hero Answer A Question 12/22/05 - Website Update, Update

Submit your own resources!

Anton Bursch (Feb 13, 2006 at 23:44 GMT)

Cool!
Edited on Feb 14, 2006 00:06 GMT

Todd Pickens (Feb 13, 2006 at 23:45 GMT)

Hey Rick,

I didn't understand a word of that except the "I have tested this with Firefox, IE, Safari and Opera! If you have any problems, please let me know." part.

I don't know if thats suppose to mean the whole site, but with Opera, ...she no worky.
Edited on Feb 14, 2006 00:14 GMT

Rick Overman (Feb 13, 2006 at 23:59 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@ Todd. I have not looked at the community page problems with Opera. I only tested these latest changes. Again if anyone wants to submit a fix for Opera I will include it.

Phil Carlisle (Feb 13, 2006 at 23:59 GMT)

Hahha.. cool post Todd. I wonder if you can see thi

Andrew Hull (Feb 13, 2006 at 23:59 GMT)

So, you are saying, that if i type out all this comment, and then click the Notification check box *which i am doing now* i won't lose my comment.

BEAUTIFUL!!
Edited on Feb 13, 2006 23:59 GMT

Todd Pickens (Feb 14, 2006 at 00:14 GMT)

@ Phil ...woops, got distracted, I'll go edit it.

Nick Zafiris (Feb 14, 2006 at 00:16 GMT)

Damn, I just wrote a huge reply only to lose it after pressing the notify checkbox! hehe

Chris Labombard (Feb 14, 2006 at 00:19 GMT)

I keep having an issue where I want to post on a thread but the bottom is cut off, like it's in a frame with no scrollers... When I click and drag on the text it scrolsl for me.

Im using Firefox.

Timothy Aste (Feb 14, 2006 at 00:24 GMT)

The site is translating everything to Cyrillic for me.....?
Just kidding, great stuff! :)

bank (Feb 14, 2006 at 01:01 GMT)

Cyrillic? lest do some test - привет всем русским..
will see... doing "post"..

edit: nope.. it's not displaying.. but when I open post for edit - I still can see the russian test. huh...
but anyway, I like the progress going on the site!

edit2: huh.. now I need to click on "notify" and then on POST with empty message box just to subscribe to the thread..
Edited on Feb 14, 2006 01:05 GMT

Jameson Bennett (Feb 14, 2006 at 03:09 GMT)

Rick:
What library are you using? Ive been looking for a nice clean one myself.
You may want to check older versions of safari... i dont have one available myself to check with but I used to have issues with it a little over a year ago.
Thanks

abc (Feb 14, 2006 at 05:13 GMT)

Cool. I just happened to notice a small graphic issue on the main community page - doesn't seem to be related to new features. Right now four of the five blog tabs have the "new post" icon for me. The icons have extended the width of the tabs over the space allocated for the blog box and make Firefox vertically seperate that box from everything else so that there's no overlap with the snapshots, and that of course causes a massive amount of whitespace to appear above the blogs and below the snapshots.

James Laker (BurNinG) (Feb 14, 2006 at 06:44 GMT)

Awesome... No more Comment Swallowing when clicking on "Notify..."

Cisor (Feb 14, 2006 at 08:23 GMT)

@Jameson:
Check out importXML.js by Mark Wilton-Jones at http://www.howtocreate.co.uk.

It's very small and handles all browsers. It uses the optimal method for each platform and then falls back to iFrame XML parsing if need be. (Although I had to change it to recognise and cater for ActiveX being disabled in IE, to reuse internal indexes, and to failsafe the IFrame fallbacks for IE).

He also created a parser which strips fat off the script and takes script size to 1k. (The entire script ends up being eval'ed, which does entail a performance hit).
Edited on Feb 14, 2006 08:31 GMT

Cisor (Feb 14, 2006 at 08:27 GMT)

Rick,

I'm not getting much joy with the site today. All this on Firefox 1.5.01.

1) When I select 'Unread posts', it shows I have 0 unread (which cannot be) and then shows me everything.

2) Similarly for 'unanswered posts'.

3) The watched threads is now sort-of 'fixed', ie. the first X show up, but because there are more of them than the block can show, they extend beyond the boundaries. Also, there doesn't seem to be a 'more watched threads line' to cater for this overflow condition.

4) Watched threads still only shows watched threads with new posts. Is that how it is supposed to be? How do we see all watched threads?

Edit: I checked it for IE and item 3) extends the block to cater for all watched items.
In IE all threads also appear as read. (it's been almost 24 hours since I last checl posts, so there must be at least a few I haven't read).
Edited on Feb 14, 2006 08:47 GMT

Jason Swearingen (Feb 14, 2006 at 10:15 GMT)

@Rick: what ajax library did you use? I'd be currious to know.

Gary Preston (Feb 14, 2006 at 15:08 GMT)

Now that is a nice addition to the website, I've lost a fair few replys by seeing and clicking the notify box just before clicking post. Nice work.

Don Hogan (Feb 14, 2006 at 15:38 GMT)

You know, I read this and thought "Interesting, but I bet I never notice it." Ho-ho-hoooo boy was I wrong - I hadn't realized I had developed a subconcious hesitation to click the "Notify me" box! Now I click without fear - I'll watch every thread and resource I visit!

Seriously though, great work and addition, Rick! Thanks!

Rick Overman (Feb 14, 2006 at 23:29 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Using SACK from www.twilightuniverse.com

Jason Swearingen (Feb 15, 2006 at 12:40 GMT)

thanks for that link rick, it seems like a good resource.

Ryan Snook (Gryphon) (Feb 17, 2006 at 22:12 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Nice!

John Hortenstine (Feb 18, 2006 at 06:46 GMT)

Sounds good. Time to try it out.

If someone actually has a fix to the community page that works well in just Opera I would like to see it. Opera 9TP allows site specific style sheets and javascript. Right now I just switch to User Mode.

Andreas Schiffler (Apr 16, 2006 at 22:13 GMT)

My recommendation: drop the X from AJAX and replace it with the J (JSON). Less bytes to transfer and parses much faster than XML.

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