Max Kiesler - Web Design, SOMA San Franciso

AJAX Search Wiki

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Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Search boxes and results seem to be a natural extension of the capabilities inherent to AJAX. If your blog is running Movable Type (MT), I found a great example of how to implement an inline search using AJAX, complete with a progress bar and same page search results.

Jeff Watkins wrote a great AJAX web app to display your search box, and results in a hidden div which slides down when you hit the search button at the top of the page. I found this to be a very good use of in-page AJAX. The reader doesn’t have to go to another page to see the search results and they see the progress bar which gives them an indication that the search is taking place. Additionally, having the search box hidden at the page leaves more room for at the top of the page for other critical navigational elements. Well done!

[Technorati tags: ajax, javascript]

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AjaxDeveloper.org - Ajax Search Wiki - enygma

Comments on this post

Jeff Watkins  on  08/26  at  05:14 AM

Max, thanks for the kind words. However, the search box is more of a hack than a true Ajax application. And true to the Web, I stole the idea from another site—a drop-down panel which had a search field but which used traditional form submission.

I’ve some other ideas for Ajax-y hacks, but at the moment, I’m a little distracted by getting the DHTML bindings code working.

Harry Maugans  on  05/28  at  08:34 PM

I couldn’t get it to work.  :( Love the concept, but I wish he had a more clear explanation.