AjaxTags (a subcomponent of the Java Web Parts project)
November 17th, 2007 Arsen
Java Web Parts The AjaxTags component of the Java Web Parts project is a taglib that allows for very easy, purely declarative AJAX functions to be attached to any element on a page.
It is nice because it does not require you to change anything about your existing page, you can add AJAX features after the fact very easily. The taglib consists of two common tags, and two others that are less frequently used, which have one or two attributes apiece. Very simple! All you do is drop a tag directly after the element on the page you wish to AJAX-enable, configure an entry in an XML config file describing the AJAX event, and you’re done! AjaxTags comes with a number of request and response “handlers” which provide common AJAX functions (i.e., construct XML from a form and submit it, update a div with the servers’ response, execute returned populate a select, transform returned XML via XSLT, etc). It also has tremendous flexibility for you to create your own handlers to do other things, like transfrom the server’s response via XSLT using Sarissa (this was a contributed custom handler which is now standard in AjaxTags). AjaxTags does not provide pre-made AJAX widgets as other libraries do, but it does provide the foundation to very easily and quickly build these (see the cookbook example of building Google Suggests with AjaxTags). AjaxTags also provides timed AJAX events, so you can continually refresh an iFrame for instance. AjaxTags is, in short, an exceedingly simple, powerful and flexible way to introduce AJAX into your applications without having to write ANY code yourself!
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