Articles by Rob Gonda

A Brief History of AJAX

Mon, 19 May 2008 13:00:00 EDT

On April 30, 1993, CERN announced that the World Wide Web would be free for anyone to use and the Web took off, jumping from 130 Web sites in 1993, to over 100,000 in 1996, to 11.5 billion sites in 2005. The main protocol used on the Web is the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It's a patented open Internet request/response protocol intended to publish and receive HTML pages.

What Is AJAX?

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 17:15:00 EDT

It's become very popular lately, even though it's not exactly new. It's been possible to use the concept behind AJAX since browsers introduced the XMLHttpRequest function in 1999. Enjoy Rob Gonda's highly popular ColdFusion Developer's Journal article on AJAX, the hottest software development of 2005, with plenty more heat promised for 2006.

ColdFusion Frameworks: ColdBox 2.0.3 Released

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 13:15:00 EDT

This release is the first one to include contributed content from Rob Gonda, Tom de Manincor, Brian LeGros, Sana Ullah and Aaron Roberson. The ColdBox Team and contributors are growing. So enjoy this release. The ColdBox website is also being renovated and will be launched soon. Development is now strong for version 2.1.0 and we have some extraordinary features coming your way. So please show your support and God Bless.

Nitobi AJAX Components for ColdFusion 8 Beta

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:15:00 EDT

Nitobi (http://www.nitobi.com) has announced it will support the ColdFusion platform in its suite of enterprise AJAX components. The ColdFusion edition of Nitobi Grid and Combobox offers support to newer as well as older versions of Coldfusion. The implementation enables a simple backwards-compatible CFINCLUDE style XML API for reading and writing the Nitobi compressed XML schema for AJAX transport.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: The AJAX News and Feed Reader

Sat, 19 May 2007 15:00:00 EDT

The AJAX News and Feed reader is an application written in ColdFusion using ajaxCFC, a free open source ColdFusion/AJAX framework, and a Model-View-Controller design pattern. It contains the basic functionality of taking an unlimited number of RSS 2.0 feeds as input, parsing the XML data, listing the feeds in a left menu, and showing the news entries in the main area. You can add/delete feeds at any point as well as request a feed update. This example doesn't permanently store any feed, eliminating the need for a database or tedious install. All feeds are stored in the session of the user using the application and are deleted when the session expires.

JSEclipse For AJAX

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 11:00:00 EST

JSEclipse is a new plugin for the Eclipse environment that helps developers code JavaScript faster and with no errors. With JSEclipse, you can complete a variety of tasks, from editing small sections of code to working with the next big AJAX library or developing plug-ins for a product that embeds JavaScript snippets.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: Some Classic Examples

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

Ever since the term AJAX was coined, the concept has spread like wildfire in developer communities. Lots of applications have been developed using AJAX. In fact, a lot of applications were developed using AJAX long before AJAX came into existence. In this section, we will go over some AJAX application examples to give the reader some sense of what AJAX is capable of and what applications have been built using it.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: AJAX Alternatives

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

AJAX is a viable way to develop richer, more interactive Web applications. These kinds of applications are typically referred to as 'Rich Internet Applications' (RIAs). RIA is a term that describes the next-generation Web applications that combine the performance and functionality of desktop software with the universal deployment advantages of the Web.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: AJAX Application Architecture

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

Given the challenges associated with AJAX, it is particularly important to architect an AJAX application properly. Otherwise the result can be either lackluster performance or a code maintenance nightmare, or both.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: The AJAX Software Platform Requires Real Design

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

AJAX has raised the awareness of the potential of Web applications. It has also deepened and broadened the use of JavaScript and DHTML in application development. There are significant benefits to AJAX, but there are also significant challenges.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: Servers Are for Data, Not Pages

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:00:00 EST

AJAX changes the role of Web pages from being merely HTML documents into 'applications' that contain both HTML markup and code. And it changes the role of the 'server' from merely serving HTML pages to serving data too. In classic Web applications, Web servers serve HTML Web pages. Some of the pages are static; others are generated dynamically by server-side logic.

Real-World AJAX Book Preview: What is AJAX?

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 15:00:00 EST

'Ajax, shorthand for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is a web development technique for creating interactive web applications. The intent is to make web pages feel more responsive by exchanging small amounts of data with the server behind the scenes, so that the entire web page does not have to be reloaded each time the user makes a change. This is meant to increase the web page's interactivity, speed, and usability.'

AjaxCFC For jQuery

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 15:00:00 EST

I finished today the implementation of AjaxCFC for jQuery. It's the same Ajax <-> CF integration you already know, but using the jQuery Ajax engine. It supports full JSON and WDDX serialization, has improved error handling, improved log4javascript integration, still supports named and unnamed arguments, and just so you can use it right away, it's back compatible with the DWR syntax. The only incompatibility is the change of the $() function, which you can actually override if you wish, but I didn't on my release.

My 2.5 Hour AJAX Presentation Marathon

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 11:15:00 EST

Check out my 2h 17mins AJAX presentation recording. I presented AJAX in various flavors to the Scottish CFUG last week and I promised to post the slides and files. You may check out the Adobe Connect Presentation, download the slides, and download the source code. Code includes examples for ajaxcfc, dojo, jquery, prototype, spry, and well as hand-coded XmlHttpRequest objects. AjaxCFC examples also include some using the Model-Glue and MachII frameworks, not included with this download.

jQuery Button Contest - Many Prizes!

Sun, 29 Oct 2006 11:00:00 EST

To encourage people to promote the jQuery project and get as many people involved in the community as possible, jQuery is holding a contest to build a 'Powered by jQuery' button.

DOM Versus innerHTML

Mon, 23 Oct 2006 15:30:00 EDT

There is quite a debate when using Ajax/DHTML on whether to use DOM nodes or innerHTML. I've been a follower of innerHTML, not only because it's easier, not only because you reuse the same view layer, but now also because it's indisputably faster.

Uploading A File Via AJAX

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 19:45:00 EDT

It is not possible. Lol, well, ok.... the XMLHttpRequest cannot send multipart/form-data, therefore, cannot upload files. There are two ways around this.

Enterprise-Level AJAX Thinking

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 09:00:00 EDT

This session, aimed at enterprise developers, will discuss how best to enrich your users' experience by the use of AJAX.

AJAX: Making the HTML User Experience Almost As Pleasant as Flash

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 10:15:00 EDT

AJAX can make the HTML user experience almost as pleasant as Flash. The main advantage of Flash, in spite of its vector animations, is that you never reload the page. Flash Remoting allows you to interface with the server in the background and AJAX does exactly the same for HTML pages.

AJAX: XMLHttpRequest Vs. iFrames

Mon, 27 Feb 2006 21:00:00 EST

There is not better or worse when comparing these two techniques, but they are certainly different. While both of them allow you to communicate with the server in the background, you should choose the appropriate for your situation.

Happy Birthday AJAX!

Sun, 19 Feb 2006 17:30:00 EST

It's been one year since Jesse James Garret wrote the first article on Ajax, which gave a name to the existing technology and helped it to boom and reach magnitudes and a buzz never imagined by anyone before. It's still taking off, with new magazines, seminars, and articles everywhere.

Web 2.0: Web Applications vs. Desktop Applications

Thu, 26 Jan 2006 09:45:00 EST

Will web applications ever replace regular desktop applications? Will desktop applications adopt web paradigms? Are web applications 'Web 2.0'?

Rob Gonda's AJAX Blog: "ajaxCFC update for DRWUtil.AddRows"

Thu, 19 Jan 2006 12:00:00 EST

Enough said, since I include the file, I guess I need to support the built-in functionality, but the addRows out-of-the-box was accepting arrays and objects. I serialize the ColdFusion queries into a more complex object which was not recognized by the addRows function, so I modified it to add wddx support. When you pass a wddx object to addRows it will now automatically populate your table, even without the need to cell functions (like the array or object methods).

ajaxCFC - Addressing Html Code in Application.cfc

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:00:00 EST

I just got hit with an email informing me that ajaxCFC will break when application.cfc adds code onRequest(start|end). I modified the framework to reset the content before the JavaScript response, and abort it at the end of the asynchronous call. I am not quite happy with the abort though, so if someone has a better solution to eliminate all code generated by onRequestEnd please comment it here.

ajaxCFC port for the Model-Glue Framework

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 12:00:00 EST

The latest fad in the Model-Glue list has been AJAX. How to incorporate Ajax requests to the Model-Glue framework. Is it pointing directly to the model? To the controller? or going thru the full cycle by pointing to index, then controller, model, back to the controller, and passing arguments back to the view?

Adobe vs. Microsoft Death Match For RIA Leadership

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 16:30:00 EST

The buzzwords du jour are AJAX, RIA, Web 2.0... Both Adobe and Microsoft are involved and trying their best to get market share. Abode has Flash and Flex; and AJAX is compatible with every programming language and plays really well with CF (through ajaxCFC). Microsoft has been working on Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), previously called Avalon. This presentation layer takes an xml based declarative language called XAML (pronounced zammel), that stands for eXtensible Application Markup Language.

Rob Gonda's ColdFusion Blog: ajaxCFC with Security and Debugging Released

Tue, 20 Dec 2005 09:45:00 EST

ajaxCFC now supports built-in improved security, enforcing get or posts verbs, and also optionally checks for the http-referer to match your site. These two checks will prevent a third party from monitoring HTTP packets and trying to call them manually by pasting the full AJAX request to a browser.

Rob Gonda's Two-Part AJAX Special: Now In One Part

Mon, 14 Nov 2005 11:00:00 EST

It's become very popular lately, even though it's not exactly new. It's been possible to use the concept behind AJAX since browsers introduced the XMLHttpRequest function in 1999. AJAX isn't a technology, or a language, and there's no recipe to implement it; it's just a combination of various components to achieve something you otherwise couldn't: asynchronous http requests. However, since early 2005, when Google and Flickr popularized the concept, its use has grown rapidly.