POSTing data to the server, behind the scenes - php

I'm building a website which has a page that users can add content to, and they can rearrange the divs to whichever position and size they want. I'd like to have a save button which saves the current position of each div; however, I don't want the page to refresh each time (I'm also going to have an auto-save, which will have to save the information in the background).
I can't figure out how to post the data to the server though, without causing the page to reload. I figure I need some kind of AJAX request, but can't find anything that tells me how to do that (all the AJAX examples I can find seem to be about reading data from the server). I think I'm just starting to go round in circles now, but I can't get my head around this at all - I know it's probably not a hard thing to do, but I keep getting confused by the different examples.
So, first of all, is this the best way to do it? And, if so, can someone point me to a straightforward example of posting data via AJAX? I'm already using jQuery, so can use that for the Ajax as well.
Thanks.

Super simple AJAX with jQuery:
$.ajax({
url: '/save-the-stuff-url',
type: 'POST',
data: {
// information about your divs, etc.
'foo' : 'bar'
},
success: function(response) {
// if the AJAX call completes successfully, this function will get called.
alert('POST successful!');
}
});
Give it a shot!

Here, try this for AJAX:
$.post("example.php", {
from : "ajax", // put some info in these - they are the params
time : "2pm",
data : "save"
},
function(data) { // callback function - data always passed to it
$("#success").html(data); // do something with that data
}
);
And put this somewhere:
<span id='success'></span>
And then, try this example for example.php:
<?php
if(isset($_POST['from']) and $_POST['from'] == 'ajax'){
echo "<span style='color: green;'>Saved!</span>";
}
else {
echo "<span style='color: red;'>Failure!</span>";
}
?>
And then just modify these to fit your needs, probably changing the file of target. Whatever the script outputs is what is given to the ajax request. This means that if this was my PHP script:
<?php echo "Aloha!"; ?>
And this was my javascript:
$("#output").load("myScript.php");
Then #output would have "Aloha!" in it.
Hope this helps!

Please go through the Jquery site for various examples of post.
HTH

and the jQuery docs pages are a great way to learn jQuery.. the page for post is http://docs.jquery.com/Post
you may also want to look at jQuery draggables if you're not using that yet..
http://docs.jquery.com/UI/API/1.8/Draggable
you can fire a save tied to your draggable object being let go rather easily with
$( ".selector" ).draggable({
stop: function(event, ui) { ... }
});

Related

jQuery scrollbar plugin not working on Ajax loaded content

The problem is this:
I have a simple, two fields form which I submit with Ajax.
Upon completion I reload two div's to reflect the changes.
Everything is working perfect except a jQuery plugin. It's a simple plugin that can be called with simple
function(){
$('.myDiv').scrollbars();
}
It's simple and easy to use, but it doesn't work on Ajax loaded content. Here is the code I use to post form and reload div's:
$(function() {
$('#fotocoment').on('submit', function(e) {
$.post('submitfotocoment.php', $(this).serialize(), function (data) {
$(".coment").load("fotocomajax.php");
}).error(function() {
});
e.preventDefault();
});
});
I've tried creating a function and calling it in Ajax succes:, but no luck. Can anyone show me how to make it work ? How can that simple plugin can be reloaded or reinitialized or, maybe, refreshed. I've studied a lot of jQuery's functions, including ajaxStop, ajaxComplete ... nothing seems to be working or I'm doing something wrong here.
If you're loading elements dynamically after DOM Document is already loaded (like through AJAX in your case) simple binding .scrollbars() to element won't work, even in $(document).ready() - you need to use "live" event(s) - that way jQuery will "catch" dynamically added content:
$(selector).live(events, data, handler); // jQuery 1.3+
$(document).delegate(selector, events, data, handler); // jQuery 1.4.3+
$(document).on(events, selector, data, handler); // jQuery 1.7+
Source: jQuery Site
Even if I am totally against using such plugins, which tries to replicate your browser's components, I'll try to give some hints.
I suppose you are using this scrollbars plugin. In this case you may want to reinitialize the scrollbars element, and there are many ways to do this. You could create the element again like in the following example
<div class="holder">
<div class="scrollme">
<img src="http://placekitten.com/g/400/300" />
</div>
</div>
.....
$('.scrollme').scrollbars();
...
fakedata = "<div class='scrollme'>Fake response from your server<br /><img src='http://placekitten.com/g/500/300' /></div>";
$.post('/echo/html/', function(response){
$('.holder').html(fakedata);
$('.scrollme').scrollbars();
});
If you want to update the contents of an already initialized widget instead, then things gets more complicated. Once your plugin initialize, it moves the content in some custom wrappers in order to do its 'magic', so make sure you update the correct element, then trigger the resize event on window, pray and hopefully your widget gets re-evaluated.
If it doesn't help, then try to come up with some more details about your HTML structure.
I want to thank everyone of you who took their time to answer me with this problem I have. However, the answer came to me after 4 days of struggle and "inventions" :), and it's not a JS or Jquery solution, but a simple logic in the file.
Originally, I call my functions and plugins at the beginning of the document in "head" tag, like any other programmer out here (there are exceptions also ).
Then my visitors open my blog read it and they want to post comments. But there are a lot of comments, and I don't want to scroll the entire page, or use the default scroll bars, simply because they're ugly and we don't have cross browser support to style that, just yet.
So I .post() the form with the comment, and simply reload the containing all of them. Naturally .scrollbars() plugin doesn't work. Here come the solution.
If I put this :
<script>$('.showcoment').scrollbars();</script>
in the beginning of my loaded document (with load() ), will not work, because is not HTML and it's getting removed automatically. BUT !!! If i do this:
<div><script>$('.showcoment').scrollbars();</script></div>
at the same beginning of loaded document, MAGIC .... it works. The logic that got me there I found it in the basics of javascript. If your script is inside an HTML element, it will be parsed without any problem.
Thank you all again, and I hope my experience will help others.
If I understand you correctly, try this:
var scrollelement = $('.myDiv').scrollbars();
var api = scrollelement.data('jsp');
$(function () {
$('#fotocoment').on('submit', function (e) {
$.post('submitfotocoment.php', $(this).serialize(), function (data) {
$(".coment").load("fotocomajax.php");
api.reinitialise();
}).error(function () {
});
e.preventDefault();
});
});
reinitialise - standart api function, updates scrolbars.

AJAX/PHP – callback after finished loading data

(Not sure if I missed an already similar answered question…)
On click of a button, I'm loading various images from a database via PHP/MySQL and appending it to the body (the actual images are of course not stored in the database, the correct selection of the images is based on a posted variable).
My goal is to display a loading indicator after pressing the button and hiding the indicator after all the image data has completely loaded and displayed. This may be an easy to solve callback issue but I'm just getting started with AJAX. :)
The following is the code I currently managed to come up with. I'm guessing the load() function is not really the right one here?
Thanks for your help!
$("#somebutton").click(function(){
alert("fetching…");
$.post('loadmore.php', {
somevariable: somevariable
},
function(data){
$("body").append(data);
$(window).load(function(){
alert("finished loading…");
});
});
});
The function you have with the finished loading... alert is a success callback, so it gets executed once the AJAX call has finished. This means you don't need to use $(window).load.
Also, you can use the html method on an element to change its contents and display a message.
Something like this would work fine:
$("#somebutton").click(function(){
$('#divID').html('Loading...');
$.post('loadmore.php', {
somevariable: somevariable
},
function(data){
$("body").append(data);
$('#divID').html('');
});
});
Read the docs http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajax/
Use the success callback to append the body and then the complete and error callbacks to clear things up correctly.
$("#somebutton").click(function(){
alert("fetching…");
$.post('loadmore.php', {
somevariable: somevariable
})
.success(function(data){$("body").append(data)})
.error(function(){alert("oh dear")})
.complete(function(){alert("finished loading…")});
});
Remember to always have a fallback for removing the loader - nothing worse than just having a loader and no way to remove it from the page and continue using the application / web site.
I managed to solve my problem by reading and tweaking the code in the following article.
The function load() with the equation containing the self-explanatory variables [imagesLoaded >= imageCount] did the trick.
Know when images are done loading in AJAX response

php ajax within ajax

I have some ajax that loads php script output into a div. I would like the user then to be able to click on links in the output and rewrite the div without reloading the whole page. Is this possible in principle? Imagine code would look like:
html
<div id="displayhere"></div>
php1 output
echo 'ChangeToNew';
JS
function reLoad(par1,par2,par3) {
...
document.getElementById("displayhere").innerHTML=xmlhttp.responseText;
xmlhttp.open("GET","php2.php?par1="+par1 etc.,true);
xmlhttp.send();
php2
$par1 = $_get['par1'];
change database
echo ''.$par1.'';
Could this in principle work or is the approach flawed?
Thanks.
What you describe is standard, everyday AJAX. The PHP is irrelevant to the equation; the JS will simply receive whatever the server sends it. It just happens that, in your case, the server response is being handled by PHP. The JS and PHP do not - cannot - have a direct relationship, however.
So the principle is fine. What you actually do with it, though, will of course impact on how well it works.
Things to consider:
what will the PHP be doing? This may affect the load times
what about caching responses, if this is applicable, so the PHP doesn't have to compute something it's previously generated?
the UI - will the user be made aware that content is being fetched?
Etc.
I'm used to using jQuery so will give examples using it.
If you create your links as
Click Me
You could then write your code as
<script>
$("#do_this").live('click', function(){
var link_url = $(this).attr('href');
$.ajax({
url: link_url,
success: function(data) {
$('#displayhere').html(data);
}
return false;
};
</script>
If you use jQuery, make sure you use the .live('click', function(){}) method versus the .click(function(){}) method, otherwise it won't recognize dynamically created elements. Also make sure you do a return false.

jQuery.get() - How do I use the entire result?

I read this question, and I'm pretty sure it's 90% of what I need, but I'm after something more than just this, and my success formulating my query in Google has been less than stellar.
What I'd like to do
I have a form on a site that, when submitted, needs to connect with a database, and then the user needs to be apprised of the result. I'm trying to get the result page to load in a modal jQuery dialog instead of forcing a full page reload. At present, I'm just trying to create a jQuery dialog that replaces the contents of a <div> with the product of a PHP file. I know I will get the PHP file's execution result this way. That's what I'm after, but it currently is not working.
My code currently looks like this:
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#dialog").get('include.php', function(data) {
$("div#dialog").html(data);
});
});
And include.php is simply:
<?
echo "<h1>Loaded</h1>";
?>
When I load the page, the original contents of #dialog are still there. I have a strong suspicion that what I'm failing to grasp isn't major, but I've had bad luck finding the fix. I'm a web dev newbie. How do I wwebsite as on the internet?
You are calling get on a jQuery result. That'a a different method than $.get, the one you should be using:
$(document).ready(function() {
$.get('include.php', function(data) {
$("div#dialog").html(data);
});
});
i have been using Ajax call for the same purpose. So try this :
$(document).ready(function() {
$.ajax('include.php',
success : function(data) {
$("#dialog").html(data);
});
});
If you want to replace the entire contents of the #dialog DOM object with the HTML you load, then you probably want to use .load():
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#dialog").load('include.php', function(data) {
// no need to set the html here as .load() already does that
});
});

jQuery AJAX timing issue

In my backend I'm using jquery 1.4.1 and the newest UI 1.8rc1. I defined a couple of buttons that do things... one is create a certain type of page using serialize functions calling a php file and then reloading the entire page. locally this always works like a charm! but as soon as i put it on my providers webserver, it only works in about 5% of times. Heres the code:
buttons: {
'Seite erstellen': function() {
$.post("webadmin/pages.create.serialize.php",$("#page-form").serialize());
$(this).dialog('close');
location.reload(true);
},
'Abbrechen': function() {
$(this).dialog('close');
}
},
Where it gets interesting is, when I put in an alert just before the location.reload part - it will always work. So there seems to be a timing issue that the serializing is executed but can't finish before the page reloads. i know the meaning of using the serialzing is not to have to reload the page, but i build a navigation etc. so i need to reload. (thinking about that now... i could really serialize everything... anyway) Is there a simple solution to this? is there something like a little timer i could build in to make it wait until the serialization is done? is this a normal behaviour?
You need to take advantage of the callback in the $.post() method:
$.post(
"webadmin/pages.create.serialize.php",
$("#page-form").serialize(),
function(data, textStatus, xhr) {
alert("I'm done loading now!");
}
);
Not exactly sure what "this" refers to inside of the callback function so I'll leave the implementation as an exercise to the reader. :-)

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