Using the Spry Framework
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Acknowledgments
Project Management: Charles Nadeau
Writing: Jon Michael Varese
Production Management: Adam Barnett
Media Design and Production: Adam Barnett, Masayo Noda
First Edition: January 2006
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3
Contents
Using the Spry framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
About AJAX and the Spry framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
About AJAX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
About the Spry framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
How Spry pages work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Anatomy of the Spry data set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Anatomy of the Spry dynamic region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9
Anatomy of the Spry basic master/detail dynamic region . . . . . . . . .11
Anatomy of master/detail dynamic regions that depend on
more than one data set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Building Spry pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
To prepare your files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
To create a Spry data set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
To display data from a Spry data set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Sample code: Spry data set and dynamic region . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
To sort a Spry data set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Numerical sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
To create basic master/detail dynamic regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
To create master/detail dynamic regions that rely on
more than one data set. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
4Contents
5
Using the Spry framework
This help, which outlines how to use the Spry framework, contains the following topics:
About AJAX and the Spry framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
How Spry pages work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Building Spry pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .17
About AJAX and the Spry framework
This section contains the following topics:
■ “About AJAX” on page 5
■ “About the Spry framework” on page 6
About AJAX
Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, or AJAX, is a concept for how Web developers can use
various techniques to update web pages without requiring visible refreshes and without the
need for browser add-on technologies like Flash, Java, or ActiveX. AJAX is not a product,
company, or trademark.
Implementing AJAX features often requires knowledge of JavaScript, XML, and the
Document Object Model (DOM). Spry provides a light-weight, HTML-centric framework
that makes the task simpler.
For more information about AJAX, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX.
