slayeroffice - web experiments gone horribly awry

03.01.2005 - Version 2.0 #1

This is something I've been meaning to do for a while now, but hadn't had a chance - update the HTTP Response Header Viewer favelet to use XMLHttpRequest instead of a PHP script pretending to be javascript.

There are a few benefits to it being done this way:

  • It will now work on localhost and servers on private networks.
  • It's faster - one request to the javascript, rather than a request to the PHP, which requests your host, which then responds to the PHP, which then responds to you.
  • Less load for slayeroffice.

With this update, I also brought the stylings of the favelet up to date to reflect the look of more recent stuff (it had that light blue circa 2003 look), added drag functionality and avoided innerHTML so that it will work on application/xhtml+xml mime types.

Unfortunately, this doesn't want to work in Opera 8.0 because its implementation of the XMLHttpRequest object is still a bit lacking. Opera users of the Favelet Suite will get the old version.

Lastly, I want to thank Jim Ley for his article that made me aware that I could do this without using a server side language.

Go here to bookmark the new version. If you are a user of the Favelet Suite and are still getting the old version, you'll want to clear your cache. Let me know of any problems you encounter.

Comments

Hey I wanted to send you a few articles to get your brain juices flowing:

http://www.peej.co.uk/thinking/2005/01/json.html

javascript as data interchange format

http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php

AJAX -- javascript+httprequest as an almost "client side webserver" that pokes the existing page and never reloads - but gets new data as needed.
Posted by Andrew Wooldridge on March 9, 2005 @ 7:38 pm

Hey Andrew -

Thanks - I saw the JSON thing via javascript.weblogsinc - wasnt too sure how I felt about it. I think I prefer xml.

And the AJAX thing too - man, I hate that name, I've been playing around with xmlhttp quite a bit lately. I rewrote the response header favelet to use it, and I'm about to employ a solution with it at work that kevin talks about here: http://centricle.com/archive/2005/03/xmlhttprequest-for-usability

Are you going to SXSW?
Posted by Steve on March 9, 2005 @ 9:30 pm

heh, i guess it would be helpful if I read the post the comments where going under. of course you knew I rewrote that favelet with xmlhttp =)
Posted by Steve on March 9, 2005 @ 9:57 pm

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