Ajax-ified Weblog: This is a neat example of Ajax-ifying Movable Type comments.
if you try to submit a comment now, the form fields will go “dark”, and you’ll see a progress bar as your info is sent to the server. When the server gets the data and processes it, it sends the properly formatted comment back to the page, which plops it into place under the others.
There are a ton of test comments from people wanting to see it in action, so don’t be shy — add your own. It works well. (NOTE: Not on this entry. Follow the link above.)
However, I always wonder…why? Where is the line between traditional Web development and Ajax? At what point do you look at an operation and say, “That needs to be done without reloading the page.”
I’ve talked before about the usability implications of Ajax, but in this case, I’m just wondering what the reasoning was to implement it this way and not the “normal” way. Is there an un-written set of guidelines that people are using to decide whether or not to Ajax something?
I'm curious what effect Ajax will have on usability. With this technique, the unspoken nature of Web apps is changing, and apps using Ajax will likely do things that users don't expect. When I first starting using client-side HTTP requests back in 1999 (long before the snazzy name), I did…
Well, in this case, it was more of an experiment than anything else - just trying to see what could be done. Although I do think it's a pretty useful implementation. Rather than reload the whole page just to view a few lines of text, why not use Ajax techniques and only update what needs to be updated?
What is missing from Ajax is the easy ability to push stuff to clients. Classic example, is a blog like this, would be way cool, if it automatically added new posts as you were watching it.
