Max Kiesler - Designer
60 More AJAX Tutorials
SubscribeMonday, May 08, 2006
With the popularity of AJAX growing every day I've had the opportunity to collect and try out many more tutorials in the last several months. These examples and how-to's represent the best tutorials that I've personally used or otherwise had the opportunity to work with out of the overall group. This post is intended for individuals who learn best by example. Most of the listed tutorials come complete with instructions and source code. I've also categorized all of the tutorials for easy browsing. Enjoy!
Please let me know through email or a comment if you know of any other great AJAX tutorials and I'll be glad to post them. Also special thanks to all of the folks who produced all of these wonderful free tutorials.
Also See: Round-up of 30 AJAX Tutorials
AJAX Activity Indicator Tutorial
CakeTimer - An Ajax File Uploads Progress Bar
This is a demonstration of an AJAX powered progressbar to monitor file uploads with (Cake)PHP.
HowTo add Ajax in-progress indicators
Ok, so my little del.icio.us app (click link to read about how I added Ajax functionality to a simple Rails app) is pretty cool, but it was missing one big thing. When the user clicks the "Get Results" link she has no idea that the page is communicating with the server.
AJAX Bookmarklets Tutorial
Creating Huge Bookmarklets
A bookmarklet is a special piece of JavaScript code that can be dragged into a user's link toolbar, and which later can be clicked on to implement cross-site behavior. People have done all sorts of cool stuff with it.
AJAX Chat Tutorials
AJAX Chat Sources Code for Download
After a slow start (following the announcement of the XHTML (ajax) Chat) things got finally busy. I had so many requests that I have decided to offer the complete sources for download.
Lace - Ajax Chat
Lace is a free, lightweight Ajaxian communications engine suitable for a shoutbox, chat room or similar. Version 0.1.3 brings with it several bug fixes, a tiny bit of code reorganization and most importantly, an oft-requested User List.
Most Simple Ajax Chat Ever
Very easy to use AJAX chat demo.
AJAX Client-Server Communication Tutorials
Implementing simple AJAX interaction in your Web Application using XMLHttpRequest object
Everybody till now must have atleast heard about AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML). This example will give you an idea about how you can implement simple AJAX interaction in your web application.
Make asynchronous requests with JavaScript and Ajax
In this article, you'll begin with the most fundamental and basic of all Ajax-related objects and programming approaches: The XMLHttpRequest object. This object is really the only common thread across all Ajax applications and -- as you might expect -- you will want to understand it thoroughly to take your programming to the limits of what's possible.
Advanced requests and responses in Ajax
n this article, I move beyond the basics in the last article and concentrate on more detail about three key parts of this request object, the HTTP ready state, the HTTP status code and the types of requests that you can make
AJAX
In this tutorial, you'll be introduced to Ajax, a technology that allows you to send these requests through small JavaScript calls, meaning the user doesn't have to wait for the page to refresh.
All Request, All The Time
Let's build a simple application that accepts input from the user, passes it to some PHP on the server that checks it against a database, and returns the result to the browser. It comes in three parts.
AJAX Drag and Drop Tutorial
Drag and Drop Tutorial (with a cool video)
Adding items to a shopping cart in common e-commerce applications isn't very close to the actual "add to cart" metaphor, since it requires clicking an "add to cart" button, watch a new page (the shopping cart), and then go back to the shop or checkout with buttons. Ajax allows to get closer to the cart metaphor, by enabling drag-and-drop interactions and giving immediate visual feedback, without leaving the shop.
AJAX Dynamically Content Loading Tutorials
Dynamically loaded articles
This is a basic example showing you how to use AJAX. In this script, you have a list of article titles at the right side. When you click on one of them, AJAX will be used to request the content of the article from an external file and show it in the main DIV.
Ajax - Dynamic Content
This small generic script makes it easy for you to load content of external files into HTML elements on your page.
AJAX Forms and Autocomplete Tutorials
Scriptaculous Lists with PHP
The drag-and-drop effects, most notably the sortables, caught my eye because the look great, they are so easy to implement, and they're just so much nicer than the standard listbox with up/down arrows that we see in most of today's applications and administration tools.
Alter data with Ajax forms
Displaying rich formatted questions and lists, even paginated, is not enough to make an application live. And the heart of the askeet concept is to allow any registered user to ask a new question, and any user to answer an existing one. Isn't it time we get to it?
Dynamic Client Lookup
This script uses AJAX to autofill a form. Open the demo and type in 1001 in the "client ID" text field. AJAX will when you have done this call a script on the server and auto fill the rest of the form with client data.
Chained Select Boxes
This script uses Ajax to popuplate a select box with cities based on which country you choose.
Ajax Dynamic List
This script shows you a list of options based on what you type into a text input. Example: Type in "A" and Ajax will get you a list of all contries starting with "A".
AJAX Framework and Toolkit Tutorials
My-BIC - Tutorials and How To's
A collection of easy to follow tutorials using the My-Bic Framework including a, hello world - getting your ajax setup, posting comments via AJAX and changing views from a drop down. There are beginner and intermediate tutorials here.
New Echo2 Tutorial Series
Part 1 of a multipart Echo2 tutorial series, entitled "Ajax with Echo2 and Eclipse" is now available from our web site. The related archive with the Echo2 distribution plus the EchopointNG library is available here.
AJAX Design Patterns - Using The Dojo Toolkit
Is this tutorial any different from the others? Well yes and no, it is different in being a tutorial on how to design and build a complete site and not just some fancy little details like how to turn caching in AJAX off or how to create a fancy widget.
Using Dojo and JSON to Build Ajax Applications
In this article, I will show how to build Ajax-enabled applications using Dojo and JSON--two very different but complementary technologies that can significantly enhance the interface and usability of web applications.
AJAX General Tutorials
Building a Spy
Step by step instructions on how to build a Digg like spy page.
Building a Shelf in WordPress
Nice tutorial on how to build a sliding shelf in Wordpress.
AJAX from Scratch: Implementing Mutual Exclusion in JavaScript
This AJAX from Scratch series of articles describes fundamental techniques needed to develop AJAX Rich Internet Applications in JavaScript from scratch.
Saving Session Across Page Loads Without Cookies, On The Client Side
This is a mini-tutorial on saving state across page loads on the client side, without using cookies so as to save large amounts of data beyond cookies size limits.
A Tale of Two IFrames or, How To Control Your Browsers History
This is a mini-tutorial on the black art of iframes and browser history, known to AJAX experts but rarely presented clearly.
AjaxWorld Special: What Is AJAX?
Learn more about AJAX and ColdFusion
Simple Ajax Functions - Snippets
I've created a list of very common JavaScript functions for Ajax. They have been created in quick reference fashion and do not contain any fancy stuff. Instead of creating one function which can handle various tasks depending on passed values, they are split into seperate basic task functions. The reason for this is simplicity.
AJAX Using ASP.NET 1.1
You've heard of it. It is the latest buzz term for web programmers these days. AJAX is an acronym that stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX gains its popularity by allowing data on a page to be dynamically updated without having to make the browser reload the page. I will describe more about how AJAX works, and then go into some sample code to try out.
Speed up Your AJAX Based Webapps
It sets the expiry of the JavaScript to years and not days. Once the JavaScript file is downloaded it is never downloaded again, ofcourse unless you force it by removing the file in the cache. If you visit the site often the JavaScript will not be removed from the cache.
Kick-start your Java apps, Part 2
This tutorial guides you through the development of a small human-resources application, first using conventional JavaServer Pages (JSP) based technology, and then migrating it to a highly interactive solution using Ajax.
Howto integrate Google Calendar in your website using AJAX
One of the features I find it interesting in Google calendar is the possibility to create shared calendars, but also the availability of your calendar as XML or ICAL whatever it's a private or public one. As soon as we have XML of our calendar available I was wondering why not integrating Google calendar directly in website.
Create Your Own Ajax Effects
Why let script.aculo.us have all the fun? Start building your own Ajax-driven visual effects today. The basic and prebuilt effects in script.aculo.us are nice, but if you really want to build something great why not investigate doing your own, homegrown, do-it-yourself effects. We're going to show you how to take basic effects and build on them to create your own.
AJAX Getting Started Tutorials
An Introduction to AJAX
A very nice introduction to AJAX.
Nitty Gritty Ajax
In the course of this tutorial, we're going to look at what Ajax can do. Then we'll use a JavaScript class to simplify your first steps toward the ultimate in speedy user interactivity.
A simple AJAX example
Based on Rasmus's 30 second AJAX tutorial, I've cobbled together a very rudimentary example of one approach to AJAX programming. A "Hello, World" AJAX program, if you will. You can view the demo here on my site, and download the source code (document attachment at the bottom of this article).
A List Apart: Articles: Getting Started with Ajax
The start of 2005 saw the rise of a relatively new technology, dubbed "Ajax" by Jesse James Garrett of Adaptive Path. Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. In a nutshell, it is the use of the nonstandard XMLHttpRequest() object to communicate with server-side scripts.
Ajax Toybox
Justin has put together a nice group of AJAX tutorials including, Hello, World, Dynamic City, State Lookup, Ajax to Clean Your Clock, Ajax Calculator and an RSS News Ticker.
Introduction to Ajax
When it comes to Ajax, the reality is that it involves a lot of technologies -- to get beyond the basics, you need to drill down into several different technologies (which is why I'll spend the first several articles in this series breaking apart each one of them).
Ajax Toolbox / XMLHttpRequest AjaxRequest Library Examples
A great group of AJAX examples.
Rasmus' 30 second AJAX Tutorial
I find a lot of this AJAX stuff a bit of a hype. Lots of people have been using similar things long before it became "AJAX". And it really isn't as complicated as a lot of people make it out to be. Here is a simple example from one of my apps.
An Ajax "Hello World" project to Get You Going
Sometimes we all want something very simple to build a thorough understanding of the mechanics of a new technique before we dive into the deeper water beyond. Now, if you are into ASP.NET and not PHP you might like to take a look at my version of this ultra-simple introduction to Ajax with sincere thanks to the original author.
Ajax Beginners Tutorial
In this tutorial we'll discuss the basic principles of remote scripting using Ajax, a combination of javascript and XML to allow web pages to be updated with new information from the server, without the user having to wait for a page refresh.
AJAX Image and Gallery Tutorials
Image crop - DHTML user interface
This script gives you an Image crop/resize DHTML user interface. Drag a rectangle around the area you want to crop. Click the "Crop" button and let Ajax send crop data to the server and the cropped image back to you. PHP uses ImageMagick on the server to crop and convert the image.
Prototype Javascript Lightboxes
This class is based on Prototype 1.5. The code is inspired of the powerful script.aculo.us library. You can even use all script.aculo.us effects to show and hide windows if you include effects.js file.
AJAX Sortable List Tutorial
How to Make Sortable Lists
Many web applications need to offer an interface to order items - think about categories in a weblog, articles in a CMS, wishes in an e-commerce website... The old fashion way of doing it is to offer arrows to move one item up or down in the list. The AJAX way of doing it is to allow direct drag-and-drop ordering with server support.
AJAX RSS Tutorials
Simple Ajax RSS ticker script
This very small and simple script reads RSS data from an external source and shows them inside a predefined box DIV or other tag) on your page. What you have to do is to specify the url to the RSS feed, how many items you want to show, and for how many seconds you want the script to display each item.
Dragable RSS boxes
This is is a script that uses Ajax to read data from external RSS sources and display them inside dragable boxes. You can also create new boxes dynamically directly from the page. This is the first version of this script. New functionality will be added to this script during the following weeks and months.
Slide In RSS items
This scripts reads RSS feeds from an external source and displays them on your page. Each items appears after a predefined number of seconds by sliding in from the right side.
RSS Ticker with AJAX
Well, with this powerful RSS ticker script, you can now easily display any RSS content on your site in a ticker fashion! This script uses a simple PHP based RSS parser called LastRSS for retrieving a RSS feed, then Ajax and DHTML to display the feed dynamically and with flare. As a pre-requisite then, your site itself must support PHP, though the page using this ticker can be any regular HTML file.
AJAX Shopping Cart Tutorials
Fly to basket (Shopping cart)
This is a DHTML shopping cart module. The products will fly to the shopping basket when you click on the "Add to basket" button. Ajax is used to dynamically update the content of the basket.
Flexstore on Rails Tutorial
Flexstore is a traditional Shopping Cart application that you can write in Ruby on Rails. Very comprehensive and cool.
AJAX Sorting Tutorial
Sorttable: Make all your tables sortable
While the web design community gradually moves away from using tables to lay out the structure of a page, tables really do have a vital use, their original use; they're for laying out tabular data.
AJAX Trees Tutorials
Update a tree with AJAX
his scripts adds an AJAX extension to my static folder tree. Open the demo and press down your mouse button on one of the nodes in thee tree. This will make a text box appear which makes it possible for you to rename nodes. AJAX is used to send this value to the server without reloading the page.
Static list based folder tree
This is a list based folder tree. What you have to do is to create a UL LI list. The script will then create the tree based on this list. The script uses cookies to remember state of nodes. It also includes functions for expanding/collapsing all nodes.
AJAX Username Availability Tutorial
AJAX username availability checking
The goal of this AJAX example is to allow a user who is registering for your site to see if the username they want to use is taken already or not, without having to submit a form and reload the page.
AJAX Voting Tutorial
Digg-like AJAX Vote On
This tutorial will show you how to add AJAX-enhanced interactions to askeet. The objective is to allow a registered user to declare its interest about a question.
Ajax Poller
A poller script that uses Ajax to send vote to the server and receives vote results from the server. The results are displayed in some animated graphs.
Comments on this post
yvo schaap on 05/08 at 04:14 AM
I am missing a star rating script. like this one: http://www.yvoschaap.com/index.php/weblog/css_star_rater_ajax_version/
TLAB on 05/08 at 05:31 AM
Just ro signal my tutorial that introduce to sajax:
http://tlab.trekkinglab.com/article/10-steps-to-create-a-simple-ajax-mail-sign-up
Ron on 05/08 at 08:16 AM
Great list. Thanks for taking the time to put this together.
P.J. Onori on 05/08 at 09:53 AM
Seriously, you’re the AJAX reference King. Thanks so much for another great list.
JohnReed on 05/08 at 10:48 AM
Just found on Digg.... Another Great list of Ajax Articles and Ajax Tutorials…
Ajax Impact have around 110 Ajax Tutorials and 120 Ajax Articles on their Website. Check them out....
Arvana on 05/08 at 11:19 AM
Thanks Max—this is a great list. AJAX is getting to be more and more fun! It’s exciting to see what kinds of new ideas will be coming out next.
raul on 05/08 at 02:20 PM
All great… Here’s the ajax tutorial I’m looking for:
How to create draggable div borders (with max and min limits) so readers can resize the text column of their blog at will.
Sumeet Wadhwa on 05/08 at 04:56 PM
cool list!! thanks...anybody know of any resources to integrate and modify google maps to match the look and feel of the host website?
Bryan on 05/09 at 09:25 AM
There are a few good tutorials at http://www.ajaxlessons.com/ajax-workshops-archive/.
TAD on 05/09 at 01:14 PM
Hey Max,
Thanks for listing my Ajax rails tutorial yet again! Appreciate it!
Murthi on 05/10 at 09:05 PM
Max great job, I like to suggest one more for your collection. Following shows a perfect model for collaboration between application developers and web designers.
No serious applications can ever emerge with out a solid set of reusable GUI Widgets, which must offer higher-level abstractions that let developers focus on business logic at hand. Imagine writing desktop GUI, without Windows GUI-API. Are you going to implement all the primitives yourself and include in the same functions that implement business logic?
This web page teaches how one can build reusable Ajax GUI Widgets:
http://cbsdf.com/technologies/DHTML-Widgets/Widget-samples.htm
I am a Java developer. I ask Web designers to give us great GUI Widgets and we will build great GUI applications!
Niko on 05/11 at 12:59 PM
Genial, thank you for these AJAX tutorials.
serverok on 05/14 at 12:25 AM
Many thanks for a selection of articles. I hope this project will be and to develop further.
sandeep on 05/15 at 01:47 AM
Its really wonderful collection for ajax beginners
Angel on 05/18 at 08:02 PM
Excelente sources, excelent refrences.
Vadimas on 05/19 at 12:45 PM
IBM has perfect series of tutorials:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-ajaxintro1.html
Joe on 05/23 at 12:01 PM
Excellent Ajax-Tutorials. Thank you for collecting this Tutorials. Excellent work!!!
Mlanka on 06/05 at 12:54 PM
nice post as ever....i’ll keep checking for updates..
ThambiDurai on 06/06 at 01:48 AM
Thank you Max..
for your Ajax collection
regideon on 06/14 at 12:29 AM
Great stuff for AJAX. Great job Max.
Biyi on 06/18 at 06:01 AM
Having visited this web space more than once and to find a wealth of information on the new buzz word every ones talking about, I know for sure that I can always count on Max Kiesler for helping me keep track of what’s new on ajax - Imagine all the nifty tools now available following the advent of Ajax (Live Preview - one of my favorites) and the new web 2.0. Just what a guy like me needs to keep our minds enriched with all the various possibilities open to the use of AJAX on web applications.
More two years ago, I was not sure that I will still be doing development in web applications - but with AJAX, my interests has been renewed. Great round up Max!!!
DhanaSekaranR on 06/26 at 09:49 PM
I need Beginner Ajax Tutorial.
snowdog on 07/20 at 12:33 AM
Great job! I found another interesting tutorial about my favourite prototype library at http://particletree.com/features/quick-guide-to-prototype/
Christian 'Snyke' Decker on 08/03 at 04:52 PM
Hi Max,
I’m really sorry to say but you actually linked to a rip off of my tutorial:
http://www.ajaxprojects.com/ajax/tutorialdetails.php?itemid=14
The original post is this one:
http://snyke.net/blog/2006/02/05/ajax-design-patterns/
I would be really glad if you could fix it 
Regards,
Chris
Jimy on 08/14 at 10:39 AM
Tnx u Max. Its really wonderful collection for ajax beginners, great job.
Modpul on 08/14 at 11:31 AM
great list! tnx u Max
http://ajax.solutoire.com also has a lot of ajax resources
Abubakar Gurnah on 08/23 at 01:07 AM
Well this is really good thing to put on the net..
Greg on 09/02 at 02:15 PM
It is very useful. Many thanks Max
Pedro Ferreira on 09/05 at 01:57 PM
Thank you!!
It’s very important for us!
Tim Lammers on 09/14 at 06:44 AM
Someone ever heard of the Ajax tools they use for Novulo?
glen on 09/21 at 03:05 AM
Cool ,It’s very useful for me!
Thank you Max..
Find White Papers on 10/04 at 07:07 AM
Great list of AJAX tutorials and reference. An extensive list indeed.
rxbbx on 10/05 at 12:38 PM
Visited before.. didnt see this part. Glad I found it. Great Collection.
Regards
PlasmaSoftware on 10/05 at 03:50 PM
Amazing list! very useful
Logan on 10/09 at 08:36 AM
must say a few useful list. thanks and i hope you keep on adding to it because there are still many tutorials i havent found yet.
nickspring on 10/10 at 01:17 AM
Excelent information. Thx.
teddy on 10/11 at 01:47 AM
Nice Ajax tutorials resources.
Hope you collect more Ajxx Frameworks tutorials
Jagdish on 10/11 at 06:19 AM
excellent.
Find lovely YUI examples here too:
http://www.jackslocum.com/yui/index.php
Tim on 10/12 at 09:31 AM
I have written an Ajax tutorial:
[url=http://www.thephppro.com/articles/ajax1.php]http://www.thephppro.com/articles/ajax1.php[/url]
mike on 10/12 at 03:30 PM
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Steve Terjeson on 10/13 at 01:00 PM
Excellent resource, I have posted a link here from my Ironvine Search Marketing blog. I have already had a chance to play with a couple examples here and wanted to give my thanks for doing all the hard work of organizing and archiving these AJAX sources.
~Steve
Search Marketing Specialist on 10/17 at 08:15 AM
Great Ajax Tutorials. I am referring people to this page! I digged it 5 times already
Hosting Colombia on 10/18 at 04:36 PM
Really cool resources! Thanks
mkportal on 10/20 at 02:17 AM
the best tuts over here
also referring to this page
Rusty Sandhu on 11/07 at 02:55 AM
Well done, Max. This list is quite informative. Thanks.
Neznaika_Waka on 11/11 at 08:50 PM
Very nice Ajax resources.
Really cool resources Thanks!
fietskar on 11/15 at 05:38 AM
refering some friends of me, over here ..
here we can learn a lot
eMule Forum on 12/10 at 05:20 PM
Great Ajax Tutorials. I am referring people to this page! I digged it 9 times already 
chers
R. Bram on 02/06 at 10:55 AM
This is a great resource, i added a link on my webmaster forum. Thanks very much ... i learned a lott of it
prince on 04/15 at 10:24 AM
I have written a web app whose demo is available at http://dyumnin.com/demo/ I am putting together a set of articles on how I went on to implement it at http://dyumnin.com/webapps/howto/web_application_components_javascript.shtml
hoping to recieve feedback form others
Joe on 05/14 at 02:43 PM
Thanks for the great ajax tools, i’ll make a use of them on my page.
Versand on 05/25 at 11:56 PM
Excellent resources, really great.
CoderGirl on 05/29 at 02:49 AM
thank u so much.
I wanna know about AJAX Based SEARCHING.
I wanna do a thesis about AJAX ,but i don’t know where to start ..
oops..
anyone help me ???????
Ajaxa.net on 05/31 at 09:26 PM
Thanks for your job. I’ll place translation to Russian for some of this at our resource
haidar on 06/07 at 09:34 AM
thanks
Peter Laird on 06/13 at 10:18 PM
One more tutorial from the peanut gallery:
http://dev2dev.bea.com/pub/a/2007/05/google-mashups.html
I wrote an article about how to easily create an Ajax powered Google Maps mashup. It uses simple techniques, including the XmlHttpRequest to retrieve a JSON feed of locations, to plot locations on a map.
PraP on 06/18 at 03:36 AM
Great Work !!
Green Tea on 06/21 at 04:36 PM
Great Ajax Tutorials
Artikel schreiben on 07/14 at 02:04 AM
Nice Ajax resources.
Thank you.
chriseo on 07/15 at 04:28 AM
Hey, thanks a lot for these tutorials. I was looking for these kind of information a long time. I had to go to english sites to find that standard. Thanks!
Alex on 07/27 at 01:54 AM
Good list thanks for putting it together
Konin on 07/29 at 01:30 PM
Nice Ajax resources.Thx.
Steve M. on 09/14 at 11:13 PM
I love your blog by the way, I am gonna have to add you to my list of watched blogs.Imagine all the nifty tools now available following the advent of Ajax (Live Preview - one of my favorites) and the new web 2.0
John on 09/19 at 06:29 AM
Excellent AJAX tutorials. Thanks.
lordmarin on 09/26 at 11:49 AM
Great list
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Max Kiesler is an award-winning strategic designer and co-founder
and principal of Ideacodes.com, a web consultancy in San Francisco
focused on next generation websites. About Max...
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