JAVASCRIPT

Using AJAX to Build a Web Site Indexing Application with Prototype

One of the best ways to take advantage of the numerous features that come packaged with the Prototype JavaScript library is by using it for developing a real world application. So, welcome to the second installment of the series "Building a web site indexing application with Prototype." If you’re interested in utilizing this robust package for creating an extensible system that indexes web site data, this series will offer you a straightforward guide on how to do this, with minor hassles.

Author Info:

By: Alejandro Gervasio

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February 27, 2007

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-
8859-1" />
<title>Web Site Indexing System using Prototype</title>
<style type="text/css">

body{
   padding: 0;
   margin: 0;
   background: #fff;
}

h1{
   width: 550px;
   padding: 10px;
   background: #ccf;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
   margin-bottom: 10px;
   font: bold 22px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
   color: #000;
   text-align: center;
   border: 1px solid #999;
}

#sitecontainer{
   width: 550px;
   height: 400px;
   background: #ccf;
   padding: 10px;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
   margin-bottom: 10px;
   border: 1px solid #999;
   overflow: auto;
}

#sitecontainer p{
font: normal 11px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
color: #000;
}

#sitecontainer a:link,#sitecontainer a:visited{
    font: bold 11px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    color: #00f;
    text-decoration: underline;
}

#sitecontainer a:hover{
color: #c30;
}

#formcontainer{
    width: 550px;
    height: 300px;
    background: #ccf;
    padding: 10px;
    margin-left: auto;
    margin-right: auto;
    border: 1px solid #999;
}

#formcontainer p{
   text-align: right;
    margin-right: 100px;
    font: bold 11px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    color: #000;
}

.inputbox{
    width: 300px;
    padding: 2px;
    background: #eee;
    font: normal 11px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    color: #000;
    border: 1px solid #999;
}

.submitbox{
    font: normal 11px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    color: #000;
    padding: 2px;
}

textarea{
   width: 300px;
   height: 150px;
   padding: 2px;
   background: #eee;
   font: normal 11px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
   color: #000;
   border: 1px solid #999;
}

</style>
<script language="javascript" src="prototype-1.4.0.js"></script>
<script language="javascript">
// add new web site to index
function addWebSite(e){
   var params='url='+$F('url')+'&title='+$F('title')
+'&description='+escape($F('description'));
   var xmlobj=new Ajax.Updater('sitecontainer','handle_site_data.php',{method:
'get',parameters: params});
   // prevent form from submitting
   Event.stop(e);
}
// attach handler to window object
Event.observe(window,'load',initializeIndexer,false);
// initialize indexing application
function initializeIndexer(){
   // attach handler to web site form
   Event.observe('siteform','submit',addWebSite);
   // display website index when web page is loaded
   var xmlobj=new Ajax.Updater('sitecontainer','handle_site_data.php',{method: 'get'});
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>WEB SITE INDEXING SYSTEM</h1>
<div id="sitecontainer"></div>
  <div id="formcontainer">
    <form id="siteform">
      <p>Your website's URL: <input type="text" id="url"
value="http://" class="inputbox" title="Enter your site's
URL" /></p>
      <p>Your website's Title: <input type="text" id="title"
class="inputbox" title="Enter your site's Title" /></p>
      <p>Enter a short description for your website below (max.
256 chars.)</p><p><textarea id="description" title="Enter a
description for your site"></textarea></p>
      <p><input type="submit" value="Submit Web Site"
class="submitbox" title="Submit Web Site" /></p>
    </form>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Okay, the code listing shown above should be more than enough to get you started using the Prototype library to develop this expansible web site indexing system. I hope you enjoy utilizing this powerful package as much I did.

Final thoughts

In this second article of the series, you finally learned how to use the robust AJAX capabilities that come bundled with Prototype to provide the web site indexing system with the ability to add new web sites to a database table and display existing data.

However, this series isn't finished yet. In the last part I’ll show you how to create a simple PHP script which will take care of interacting with MySQL, as well as send back to the client the corresponding server responses in (X)HTML format.

You’ve been warned, so don’t miss the last tutorial!

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