Ajax Girl

Matt Raible has posted on the Ajaxified Body pattern, that loads content into the main area instead of reloading an entire page.

The surrounding template stays put, and the red area changes when you have an action:

This is an old question: “When should you just reload the page?” In the sample application you see the trade offs. Every click causes a red “Loading…” indicator, and just the main area changes. The browser doesn’t have any indication that something is happening, hence the need for the custom red indicator. You also then have to implement support for browser history, make sure that direct access works and the like. The positive is that you don’t get a refresh flash, but is that enough to warrant the change?

One of the use cases on the page is the rich table component. That should definitely be able to refresh and page without the page changing, but when the main content gets swapped in, I start to question. What do you think?

Matt uses SiteMesh, a great technology that can knit together the look and feel, and can fit in very well in this kind of world. If a browser goes directly to a page it can piece together the entire page, but an Ajax request can come in and it can just send back the main content. Very nice.

Source: Ajaxian » Front Page
Original Article: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/ajaxian/~3/412888359/ajaxified-body-when-to-refresh-the-page