Synopsis:
The WordPress and Ajax e-book is a comprehensive view on using Ajax with WordPress. It covers Ajax like you've never seen before.
The book contains three real-life examples that provide the rationale and logic behind coding decisions, the reasons for Ajax's use, and the steps from inception to completion of the examples.
First, the book builds a foundation for you to send your first Ajax request.
This includes:
- An explanation of Ajax best practices - What Ajax should do, and what it isn't meant to do.
- How to add scripts and styles properly to WordPress - How plugin and theme authors should add scripts to WordPress. This also covers page detection and other advanced techniques.
- Properly formatting scripts using jQuery - How to adhere to the jQuery authoring guidelines for easy-to-read code and maximum compatibility.
- Localizing your JavaScript files - How to add localized JavaScript variables without using PHP.
- An explanation on how to override someone's scripts and styles.
- WordPress security, including nonces and data validation.
- Several different Ajax techniques are explained.
After the foundation has been built, the book introduces you to sending you first request.
Sending your first request includes learning:
- Learning the code foundation for sending that first request.
- Adding server-side security for the request.
- Processing the request on the server-side.
- Responding to the request on the server-side.
- Parsing the response on the client-side.
- Outputting the data to the user.
After the foundation has been laid and you have a good idea of the theory behind an Ajax request, we begin work on the examples.
- Example 1: WP Grins Lite - We take a common and popular plugin and convert it to use Ajax for the loading of the smilies.
- Example 2: Static Random Posts - We take a common widget and add an Ajax function to it. This example will not only teach you how to create a widget, but also an admin panel, and Ajax functionality.
- Example 3: Ajax Registration Form - We take an ordinary registration form and perform data validation on it using Ajax.
From the Author:
When I was learning Ajax with WordPress, finding good documentation was hard to find. My education was basically ripping code from other plugins, mashing them together, and hoping everything worked.
I've grown a lot in my journey. While I am still far from perfect, I felt it necessary to share what I have learned over the years.
This book began humbly. I thought to myself, "Why not write a quick group of articles on using Ajax with WordPress?"
I began working on an outline, and it became quite obvious this wasn't going to be a short series of articles. In order to adequately cover the topic, there needed to be much, much more.
This project started in 2008 and is definitely geared towards existing developers. The introductory chapters do indeed lay a solid foundation.
It is my hope that the book provides you a rock-solid foundation for using Ajax with WordPress. After the foundation has been laid, you will be walked through several real-world examples. By the end of the book, you should not only have a thorough understanding of Ajax, but how Ajax functions within WordPress itself.
The code examples I present are from my own (sometimes painful) experiences with using Ajax. I've cried. I've bled. And I hope to share my agony (err, joy).
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
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