Is Ajax a new combination of technologies, or the same old stuff web developers have been using for years? Both, actually. Ajax builds on older technologies and techniques but reaches a tipping point where the results are new. Ajax: The Definitive Guide gives you a leg up on this new stage of web development, revealing ways to apply Ajax solutions to classically difficult web interface and structure issues. This book is still in progress, but you can still get the scoop on Ajax through our Rough Cuts version, which gives you online or PDF access to this guide as it evolves. Ajax: The Definitive Guide demonstrates how to build browser-based applications that function like desktop programs, using sophisticated server-aware approaches that give users information when they need it. You'll explore how web standards -- like XML, CSS, DOM, and XHTML -- not only make Ajax possible, but why developing with them is faster, easier and cheaper. The book also explains:

• Server-side backend components and how to connect them to user interfaces in the browser
• Web application frameworks such as Struts, Django, Ruby on Rails, and Zend
• Loading and manipulating XML documents, and how to replace XML with JSON within JavaScript code
• Manipulating the Document Object Model (DOM)
• Designing Ajax interfaces for usability, functionality, visualization, and accessibility
• Site navigation layout, including issues with Ajax and the browser's back button
• Adding life to tables & lists, navigation boxes and windows
• Animation creation, interactive forms, and data validation
• The new frontiers of Search, Web Services and Mash-Ups
• Applying Ajax to business communications, and creating Internet games without plug-ins
• The advantages of modular coding, ways to optimize Ajax applications, and much more

You will also find references to XML and XSLT, the JavaScript Frameworks, Toolkits, and Libraries used throughout the book, and various Web Service APIs. Ajax offers web developers a much broader set of tools and options, and Ajax: The Definitive Guide describes them all in exhaustive detail.