Django JavaScript Integration: AJAX and jQuery

In DetailYou want to create an AJAX application. Why would you use Django? Why would you use jQuery? Why would you use both together? Enter Django JavaScript Integration: AJAX and jQuery – your comprehensive answer to all these questions and the only extensive, practical, and hands-on guide to developing any AJAX application with Django and jQuery.
Gone are the days when you used to lament over the lack of official documentation on AJAX with Django. This book will teach you exactly why Django is called «The web framework for perfectionists with deadlines“, how jQuery – the «write less do more» JavaScript library – is practically a virtual higher-level language, and why they both deserve to be integrated with AJAX.
This hands-on-guide shows you how to put Django and jQuery together in the process of creating an AJAX application. In this book, they are brought together in a real-world scenario, with attention to usability, to build and develop an AJAX application.
The first two chapters provide a short and necessary introduction to the world of Django, jQuery, and AJAX; and the remaining chapters are based on a case study that will make you realize the immense potential and benefits of integrating Django and jQuery with your AJAX application.
By the time you are done with this book, you'll be developing your AJAX applications with Django and jQuery in less time than you can say “integrate”.
You will cover the basics of AJAX; use jQuery, the commonest JavaScript library, on the client side, and learn form validation with an eye to usability, build things with Django on the server-side, handle login and authentication via Django-based AJAX, and then dip into the rich jQuery plugin ecosystem to build in-place editing into your pages. You will add auto-complete functionality courtesy of jQuery UI, easily build forms with Django ModelForm, and then look at a client-side search implementation that can look things up without network access after initial download. You will learn to Implement a simple, expandable undo system, and offer more full-blooded account management, tinker, fix some bugs, offer a more usable way to handle password input, add local time support for people who are not in your time zone, look at usability, and finally take a look at debugging.
After working through this book, you will have both an AJAX application and a deep understanding that you can use to customize, extend, and further develop it in your organization.
This book has been written and tested for Django v 1.2.3 and jQuery v 1.4.4.
ApproachThis book will teach you how to enrich your AJAX applications with Django and jQuery in a practical manner with minimum fuss. It introduces AJAX basics, gets a little deeper, and then goes chapter-by-chapter through a carefully chosen case study. It demonstrates how different pieces of a Django AJAX application work in themselves and are put together and specifically leads you through building an intranet employee photo directory with social networking features.
Who this book is forThis book is for people looking to integrate AJAX / JavaScript functionality into their web applications. It is for Django users who are looking to easily integrate AJAX features into their applications. Conversely, it will also be a priceless companion for users familiar with Django and jQuery who are and looking to integrate them in their AJAX applications. A working knowledge of Django and basic familiarity with AJAX and jQuery are assumed.