Due to the number of questions I receive on various forums as well as the number of times I have run into the need for an AJAX response handler in my own work, I decided I would share one of my solutions in the hopes that it will save someone else some time as well. I assume, if you are reading this, that you have a basic knowledge of AJAX and the principles guiding the technology. In addition, basic understanding of how libraries such as jQuery perform AJAX queries and callback functions in JavaScript is a plus. For further reading on these prerequisites, check out this Google search and the jQuery docs.

After manually handling my responses in multiple projects, I finally decided to write a JavaScript object that could handle the XML responses for me and return me a usable object to my callback function. Enter the AJAX Handler object. I decided to let jQuery handle the actual requests for me, but I wanted a way to easily parse out my response, checking for errors and handle them accordingly. The result was something I have been able to use numerous times in different projects. To simplify things, let’s look at the code a piece at a time. At the bottom of this post, you will find the entire code. Read more

Those of you who work on client side scripting to any degree (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc) are probably well familiar with some of the more common JavaScript libraries available. I have looked into different ones to some degree, and I have used a handful of them extensively before settling on one that best fits my needs. You see, as a developer, I love to conceive of my own patterns and objects to do things within my page, but I also don’t like having to delve into the innermost workings of the DOM unless absolutely necessary for optimization. This being said, for large scale applications like Content Management Systems (CMS) or administration panels, I like to use a themed, all inclusive solution like the Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI) or ExtJS (an extension of YUI); however, when working with basic DOM manipulation or personal projects that require a lightweight solution, I have become enamored with the jQuery library.
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