Comment Re:Microsoft? (Score 1) 510
I was doing stuff like this before XMLHttpRequest, and I'm sure many others were too.
BY IMAGE SWAPPING - use javascript to dynamically construct a URL and assign that as the source for an existing 1x1 px blank gif, passing information to a cgi in the process (cgi returns same blank gif)
document.images['spy'].src = "http://site.com/trade_data_for_gif.cgi?name=" + document.forms['daform'].elements['name'].value;
This is very interesting to run every second or two on a large text field; later you can watch a "movie" of people typing, erasing, spellchecking, etc. Very interesting to see the stuff they decided to erase rather than sending :-p
Of course, the image swap method isn't much good for getting data back from the server (though there are some kludgy ways), so -
Use frames (see? they're good for something!) - where one frame is hidden (zero height or width) and is full of scripts that monitor the main page and talk to the server.
For output to the user, I used textareas or (shudder) Netscape 4's layers, and had much of the same functionality that "AJAX" "invented".
BY IMAGE SWAPPING - use javascript to dynamically construct a URL and assign that as the source for an existing 1x1 px blank gif, passing information to a cgi in the process (cgi returns same blank gif)
document.images['spy'].src = "http://site.com/trade_data_for_gif.cgi?name=" + document.forms['daform'].elements['name'].value;
This is very interesting to run every second or two on a large text field; later you can watch a "movie" of people typing, erasing, spellchecking, etc. Very interesting to see the stuff they decided to erase rather than sending
Of course, the image swap method isn't much good for getting data back from the server (though there are some kludgy ways), so -
Use frames (see? they're good for something!) - where one frame is hidden (zero height or width) and is full of scripts that monitor the main page and talk to the server.
For output to the user, I used textareas or (shudder) Netscape 4's layers, and had much of the same functionality that "AJAX" "invented".
