An Enhanced Ajax Approach to Active Client Pages

The Store

Active Client Pages Technology needs a store. With the Ajax approach, the store is in the JavaScript in the HEAD element of the master page. Data is stored in JavaScript variables, JavaScript arrays or JavaScript object properties. These elements would constitute the store. We saw this previously. The pages come and go but data for the different pages can remain in the store in the script of the HEAD element.

Other Methods of Storing Data

JavaScript 2D Array

If your data, including the information you need in advance, is in the form of a table (perhaps from a database), you can store it in a JavaScript 2D Array. You use the for-loop when creating a 2D array. The following code creates a 2D, 6 X 4 array.

a = new Array(6)

for (i=0; i < 6; i++)

{

a[i] = new Array(4)

}

HTML Table with Display Value of None

If your data, including the information you need in advance, is in the form of a table (from a database, perhaps), you can store it in an HTML Table whose value of the display property is set to "none." Your main HTML element in the master page is the DIV element. This DIV element has the HTML elements for the page and the Ajax script to download text (the page) in advance. When the value of the display property of a table or any HTML element is "none," the table does not occupy any space on the web page.

We can decide to have the DIV element, with one or more HTML tables, with the value of the display property of each of these tables set to "none." You keep your data in the cells of these tables. In the CSS normal flow, it is good to create these tables just before the DIV element of the master page. To create one of these tables, all you need to do is type the following:

<table id=“T1” style=“display:none”></table>

“T1” is the ID of the above table tag. You can use DOM features to add the rows and cells and cell contents. The DOM features you need are given below.