Combine JavaScript with Java™ code on the server to get the freedom to use the same JavaScript routines on both servers and clients. In addition, the techniques presented throughout this series will allow you to maintain a single code base for both Ajax and non-Ajax clients. Because much of the server-side code would still be written in the Java language, you'll find it necessary to expose the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) features to JavaScript. In this series, learn how to run JavaScript files on the server side, call remote JavaScript functions with Ajax, and use the Java Scripting API with the JavaServer Pages (JSP) technology.

Two key technologies enable next-generation Web sites: Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) and JavaScript Serialized Object Notation (JSON). Business-line applications can benefit from these technologies to provide more intuitive and responsive user interfaces. This article describes how to add Ajax and JSON to Java™ Platform Enterprise Edition (Java EE) Web applications by building reusable JavaServer Pages (JSP) TagLib controls based on Ajax. Within the article, I show how to build an auto-populate control that dynamically populates form fields based on the value entered in an HTML INPUT field. I also describe how to build an Ajax-enabled server validator control that validates a value of an HTML control by performing an asynchronous call to the server that validates the data. The server validator supports single-field validation, composite-field validation (First Name and Last Name), as well as multiple feedback mechanisms including Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and JavaScript alerts. You'll build the controls by integrating JSON, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and Java EE technologies.

This article discusses Grails support for the complementary technologies JSON and Ajax. After playing supporting roles in previous Mastering Grails articles, this time they take center stage. You will make an Ajax request using the included Prototype library as well as the Grails <formRemote> tag. You'll also see examples of both serving up local JSON and dynamically pulling in remote JSON from across the Web.

This article focus on getting jQuery and client-side data managmeent working with ASP.NET 2.0 without ASP.NET AJAX or ASP.NET MVC.

The programming techniques lumped under the name of Ajax can have unintended consequences that actually make development more difficult and hurt application performance. In response, Robbie Cheng offers a model he calls Direct Ajax that, in effect, involves server-based processing rather than the traditional Ajax division of labor.

GMaps4JSF integrates Google maps with JavaServer Faces (JSF), letting JSF users construct complex street view panoramas and maps with just few JSF tags. Hazem Saleh shows how to configure GMaps4JSF with Ajax4JSF and illustrates a weather application that uses GMaps4JSF with Ajax4JSF push component.

Perhaps the most visible feature of the ASP.NET AJAX Extensions is the ability to do a partial or incremental page updates without doing a full postback to the server, with no code changes and minimal markup changes. The advantages are extensive – the state of your multimedia (such as Adobe Flash or Windows Media) is unchanged, bandwidth costs are reduced, and the client does not experience the flicker usually associated with a postback.

Web Services are an integral part of the .NET framework that provide a cross-platform solution for exchanging data between distributed systems. Although Web Services are normally used to allow different operating systems, object models and programming languages to send and receive data, they can also be used to dynamically inject data into an ASP.NET AJAX page or send data from a page to a back-end system. All of this can be done without resorting to postback operations.

The ability to debug code is a skill that every developer should have in their arsenal regardless of the technology they’re using. While many developers are accustomed to using Visual Studio .NET or Web Developer Express to debug ASP.NET applications that use VB.NET or C# code, some aren’t aware that it’s also extremely useful for debugging client-side code such as JavaScript. The same type of techniques used to debug .NET applications can also be applied to AJAX-enabled applications and more specifically ASP.NET AJAX applications.

JQuery is emerging as the JavaScript library of choice for developers looking to ease their creation of dynamic Rich Internet Applications. As browser-based applications continue to replace desktop applications, the use of these libraries will only continue to grow. Get to know jQuery in this series of articles that takes a look at JQuery and how you can implement it in your own Web application projects.