Using AJAX with WebSphere Commerce

Level: Intermediate

Marco Deluca (madeluca@ca.ibm.com), Solution Architect, IBM Canada
Frances Mullally (mullally@ca.ibm.com), Information Developer, IBM Canada

12 Jul 2006

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This tutorial provides a quick series of tasks to use AJAX technology with WebSphere® Commerce. It also provides instructions on how to enable dynamic caching with AJAX using the full test environment.

Objectives

• Understand the process of implementing AJAX with WebSphere Commerce by following three real world scenarios.
  
  
• Acquire the skills necessary to create your own AJAX and WebSphere Commerce implementations.
  

Prerequisites

This tutorial is for WebSphere Commerce developers with Java™, JSTL, JavaScript, and HTML knowledge.

System requirements

Before beginning this tutorial, ensure that:

1. You are using the WebSphere Commerce development environment.
2. You have your WebSphere Commerce development environment configured to use DB2®.
3. You have the ConsumerDirect starter store published.

Note: This tutorial will guide you to enable dynamic caching with AJAX using the full test environment. If you do not want to enable caching for this tutorial, you can use the Cloudscape database provided with WebSphere Commerce Developer.

Duration

This tutorial takes about two hours to complete.

Formats

Summary

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) is a group of technologies used together as a Web development technique for creating interactive Web applications. With AJAX, instead of loading a Web page, a browser loads an AJAX engine (written in JavaScript), which displays the page the user sees, and then communicates with the server. The AJAX engine allows a user's interaction with the application to happen simultaneously, irregardless of the actions of the server.

When used with WebSphere Commerce, AJAX eliminates the time customers spend staring at a browser window and an hourglass icon, waiting for the server to do something. A customer makes their request through the browser and the AJAX engine responds and gets the information from the WebSphere Commerce Server. This tutorial provides widgets developers can use to enhance the functionality of their WebSphere Commerce v5.6.1 application. The tutorial provides instructions on how to enable dynamic caching with AJAX using the full test environment.

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