Where can I get advice on how to build completely ajax web apps?

I am building a completely ajax web app (this is the first web app I have ever created). I am not exactly sure if I am going about it the right way. Any suggestions or places where I can go to find suggestions?

Update:

I currently am using jQuery. I am working on fully learning that. I have designed a UI almost completely. I am struggling in some parts tryin开发者_C百科g to balance a good UX, good design and fitting all the options I want to fit in it.

I have started with the design. I am currently struggling with whether to use absolute positioning or not and if not how do I use float etc. to do the same type of thing. I am trying to make it have a liquid layout (I hate fixed-layout pages) and am trying to figure out what I should use to make it look the same in most screen sizes.

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1. Understand JavaScript. Know what a closure is, how JavaScript's event handling works, how JavaScript interacts with the DOM (beyond simply using jQuery), prototypal inheritance, and other things. It will help you when your code doesn't work and you need to fix it.

2. Maintain usability. All the AJAX magic you add is useless if users cannot figure out how to use it. Keep things simple, don't overload the user by giving him information he doesn't need to know (hide less important information, allowing the user to click a link to show it), and if possible, test your app with actual users to make sure that the interface is intuitive to them.

3. Code securely. Do not allow your server to get hacked. There are many different types of security flaws in web apps, including cross-site scripting (XSS), cross-site request forgery (CSRF), and SQL injection. You need to be well aware of these and other pitfalls and how to avoid them.

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One starting point is to look at the Javascript Libraries and decide which one to use:

http://code.google.com/apis/libraries/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_JavaScript_frameworks

You probably don't want to do raw Javascript code without any library. Once you decide on a library to use, then you can look at its documentations online or the books about using them. jQuery does have pretty good documentation.

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Define "right way." There are many "right ways" to code an app.

Things to keep in mind are trying to design a nice interface. The interface can make or break an application and studies show that it can even make it seem faster if you do it right. jQuery is good for this.

Another thing to consider going in is what browsers do you want to support? Firefox is really doing well and Google Chrome's market share is growing so you will want so support those for sure. IE is a tough one as it doesn't have the best support for standards, but if you are selling a product you will really want this.

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One of the best articles that I've ever come across about the structure of an ajax web application is this one. A little outdated because it refers to XML as the primary data-interchange format, now JSON. jQuery, a javascript framework, contains excellent functionality for both DOM manipulation and AJAX calls. Both are a must in any AJAX-driven web app.