FabSwingers.com forum: Ajax search

By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Wouldn't it be great if we had an ajax search, seen a few sites like this now (can also write ajax myself)

Its great, instant and fast way of searching and the way forward (i think)

If you don't know what Ajax is (not the cleaning powder)

you can say have a few boxes at the top of page with what you are looking for and below the results,

for example

tick men and all the guys instantly show, tick bi and only the bi guys will show, tick none smoker and all the none smokers show..

You could find exactly what you are looking for in seconds

No submit button as list changes as boxes ticked, its instant, easy on the database, no page refresh and far easier than normal search.

I can't put an example as external link.

Oh I love Ajax lol

Tony

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By (user no longer on site)
Forum Mod
over a year ago

If its that good I expect there's a high cost involved

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Nope!

Its not a new programming language, just a mix of others really.. Its actually easier to do than a normal search page with requests to the database.

I bet admin already know about it, its just daunting using something new, but really is easy.

Look up Ajax on wikipedia.org

Tony

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By (user no longer on site)
Forum Mod
over a year ago

Thats far too techie for me

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

"Thats far too techie for me

Nooo anyone can code if they want to learn, its not 1/2 as hard as peeps think.

Like anything though it only appears hard if you don't know how.. (or if you rub it)

At a guess this site already uses php, MySql, html, flash, javascript and more so admin already using the needed programming languages for it

Tony

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By (user no longer on site)
Forum Mod
over a year ago

Running away now

you're scaring me with all that gobbledegook

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By *obbytupperMan
over a year ago

Menston near Ilkley

"Running away now

you're scaring me with all that gobbledegook

The term Ajax has come to represent a broad group of web technologies that can be used to implement a web application that communicates with a server in the background, without interfering with the current state of the page. In the article that coined the term Ajax,[1] Jesse James Garrett explained that the following technologies are required:

HTML or XHTML and CSS for presentation

the Document Object Model for dynamic display of and interaction with data

XML and XSLT for the interchange, and manipulation and display, of data, respectively

the XMLHttpRequest object for asynchronous communication

JavaScript to bring these technologies together

Should be clear now Honeypot.

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

feck i cant even work the remote control, i have to get my 8 year old to do it, and after 8 oclock i have to come on here as i cant change channels lol

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By *entadreadMan
over a year ago

Essex

"feck i cant even work the remote control, i have to get my 8 year old to do it, and after 8 oclock i have to come on here as i cant change channels lol"

I am volunteering to change your channels...

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

"feck i cant even work the remote control, i have to get my 8 year old to do it, and after 8 oclock i have to come on here as i cant change channels lol"

Betty can I borrow your 8 year old please??

I just got a new surrond sound thingy and havent got a clue how it works with my new TV

I would ask my own kids but the oldest is worse than me with techy stuff - she keeps crashing her PC and the youngest just looks at me with a glazed look on her wee face

Shona

x x x

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By *andcCouple
over a year ago

London and Cheshire

Ajax search!

You'll find it between the washing powder and washing up liquid in most supermarkets

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

The problem with AJAX is the load it would add to the site and the additional bandwidth required.

Traditional search: Select filter options, submit form, db query is based on those options, small recordset returned, formatted as html and sent to client.

Ajax search: Search page accessed and a giant unfiltered recordset is returned and starts to be sent to the client.

Personally I don't see AJAX adding anything to the basic search to make up for the additional load, or the additional work with caching etc to offset it.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

[Removed by poster at 09/03/10 13:02:23]

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

With a clever bit of coding, there is no giant amount of pre-processing and bandwidth needed.. searching the whole database in 1 go is bad anyway if a huge database.

If the call to the database only searches the columns/rows it needs to fill the first page and returns it to client, at button a "MORE" button instead of page numbers cancels out the need for the server to calculate how many page numbers it needs to show.

I made a little ajax search for searching my own music, yes I only had about 45k of tracks but I managed to get resources real low.. and quicker than wmp search.

Tony

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

You're close but wrong. The actual background database query will be the same in both searches, so the DB isn't overloaded. The difference is the communication between the client (Firefox, IE, Safari, etc) and the WEB server feeding the page.

Rather than having to send an entirely new page bit by bit and pixel by pixel, the AJAX Web Server only sends the *changes* to that page, dramatically cutting down on bandwidth and reducing the speed that the page refreshes.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

[Removed by poster at 14/03/10 17:38:33]

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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago

Yep, it only updates the part of the page needed... thats why I said in the opening post, no page refresh needed.

It meens the rest of the page "other than results" don't need to be sent to browser again.

However its done I still love ajax

Tony

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

It depends how it's done. But if you're applying filters dynamically after the initial search then your first hit on the DB/Cache/Whatever is an unfiltered one.

So AJAX:

SELECT TOP 50 *

FROM tblSwingers

WHERE Deleted = 0

Client then clicks "females" checkbox and causes fresh request

SELECT TOP 50 *

FROM tblSwingers

WHERE Deleted = 0 AND sex = 1

Client then clicks "non-smokers" checkbox and causes fresh request

SELECT TOP 50 *

FROM tblSwingers

WHERE Deleted = 0 AND sex = 1 AND smoker = 0

As opposed to traditional:

Client ticks non-smokers check box then checks females only check box then clicks 'search' button.

SELECT TOP 50 *

FROM tblSwingers

WHERE Deleted = 0 AND sex = 1 AND smoker = 0

So your AJAX search results in three times as many queries as a traditional search.

There's certainly a place for using AJAX, for example using it to allow non-full page refresh paging of results which will cut down bandwith as you pointed out. Although you hit useability issues...how many of us instinctively use the back button on our browser?

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

my mind is well and truly boggled now! xxx

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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago

I think it's about using Ajax to wipe up the mess left by smokers and sex.

Personally I prefer Vim, but each to their own

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