Anthology of Ideas

I wanted to see how small you could make a fully functional AJAX script that worked cross-browser and degraded gracefully, so I went through an old custom AJAX script and made it as small as I possibly could. In the resulting AJAX scripts, the post version is 410 characters and the GET version is only 359 characters long. The scripts are fully functional and accept the following parameters: URL, DATA (in string form), and ELEMENT (to update).

The scripts could be a little smaller, but it would really kill readability.

“Get” AJAX Script

1. function a(l,d,u){
2. try{r = new XMLHttpRequest();}catch(e){try {r = new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.XMLHTTP');}catch(e){r = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');}}
3. if(r){
4. r.onreadystatechange = function() {if (r.readyState == 4 && r.status == 200){document.getElementById(u).innerHTML = r.responseText;}}
5. r.open('GET', l+'?'+d, true);r.send(d);
6. }
7. }

“Post” AJAX Script

1. function b(l,d,u){
2. try{r = new XMLHttpRequest();} catch(e){try {r = new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.XMLHTTP');} catch(e){r = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');}}
3. if(r){
4. r.onreadystatechange = function() {if (r.readyState == 4 && r.status == 200){document.getElementById(u).innerHTML=r.responseText;}}
5. r.open('POST', l, true);r.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');r.send(d);
6. }
7. }

Combined AJAX Script

This combined script also accepts a fourth parameter ‘p’ that should evaluate true if the data is to be sent by post.

1. function a(l,d,u,p){
2. try{r = new XMLHttpRequest();}catch(e){try {r = new ActiveXObject('Msxml2.XMLHTTP');}catch(e){r = new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP');}}
3. if(r){
4. r.onreadystatechange = function() {if (r.readyState == 4 && r.status == 200){document.getElementById(u).innerHTML = r.responseText;}}
5. if(p){r.open('POST', l, true);r.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');}else{r.open('GET', l+'?'+d, true);}
6. }
7. }

Demo: (Sorry but you will have to go to the full page so the JavaScript is loaded.)

AJAXed WordPress version 1.13 has been released. The major changes in this version include an optional rich text editor (tinyMCE) for comments, cleaner, smaller and faster JavaScript, inclusion of mootools library. Oh, and for users without JavaScript, features that serve no purpose without JS enabled don’t appear.

Changes in aWP Version 1.13

1. Entire Project: Improvements — Many changes and updates for translations to make them more flexible and usable.
2. AWP Core: Feature — Optional default structural CSS is now included, core.css.php file for modules to add required CSS to, and you can have a AWP specific style sheet in the theme’s aWP folder.
3. AWP Core: Improvement — Translations now use aWP-xx.po (mo) naming conventions. Default .po file name has been changed to match.
4. AWP Core: Fix — “Curly quotes” and apostrophes now always display correctly in links.
5. JS Core: Improvement — The giant switch statements have been removed in favor of custom objects.

I have have several people ask if reCAPTCHA and its WP plugin works with aWP. Unfortunately, the plugin was not very AJAX friendly, but the good folks over at reCAPTCHA — in a very aWP-esque move — created an open platform that allows other people to modify the interface and incorporate it into existing projects. I’m happy to announce that reCAPTCHA has been integrated into aWP by default as a module and can be used, without effort, on any WordPress blog that is running aWP.

In further developments, the advanced structure created by AJAXed WordPress allows it to painlessly and finally offer Lightbox support on images that are loaded dynamically. For all that have been wanting it: today is your day.

My original goal in recreating Inline AJAX Page as AJAXed WordPress was more than just a name — INAP originally stood for INline Ajax Post — and a version change, it was to create an AJAX application for WordPress that goes above and beyond what one would normally expect from a plugin and create a platform that anyone can use on their website, or in their projects.

What are some of the other benefits to using AWP?

AWP is completely free. Free to use, free to play with, and free support. The continued development of this project is supported by voluntary user donations.

AWP is easy to use. The basic setup of AWP is very simple to use.

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls of all ages, and all the rest of you who dislike being labeled. I now present to you, in living color, the one and only AJAX’d Wordpress.

AJAX’d Wordpress or aWP is a complete rewrite of INAP that will allow features to be added and modified very quickly. This plugin is truly modular and unlike INAP, is completely customizable. While not available for download just yet, it has now gone live on this website. For those of you that are technically inclined, you will quickly be able to see the changes by viewing the source, Javascript and AJAX responses, but for the rest, you will be able to see the smoother functionality and the more attractive behavior.

Documentation has to be written and expanded and a few features still need to be improved, but we are looking at a RC release in a few weeks.