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lib/CGI/Application/Demo/Ajax.pm  view on Meta::CPAN

This module is available as a Unix-style distro (*.tgz).

See http://savage.net.au/Perl-modules/html/installing-a-module.html for
help on unpacking and installing distros.

=head1 Installation

All these assume your doc root is /var/www.

=head2 Install YUI

Browse to http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/, download, and unzip into htdocs:

	shell>cd /var/www
	shell>sudo unzip ~/Desktop/yui_2.7.0b.zip

This creates /var/www/yui, and yui_url in .htajax.conf must match.

=head2 Install the module

Install this as you would for any C<Perl> module:

Unpack the distro, and then either:

	perl Build.PL
	./Build
	./Build test
	sudo ./Build install

or:

	perl Makefile.PL
	make (or dmake)
	make test
	make install

=head2 Install the C<HTML::Template> files.

	shell>cd /var/www
	shell>sudo mkdir -p assets/templates/cgi/application/demo/ajax
	shell>cp distro's/htdocs/*.tmpl to assets/templates/cgi/application/demo/ajax

Alternately, edit the now installed .htajax.conf, to adjust tmpl_path.

=head2 Install the trivial instance script

	shell>cp distro's/htdocs/ajax.cgi to /usr/lib/cgi-bin
	shell>sudo chmod 755 /usr/lib/cgi-bin/ajax.cgi

=head2 Install the fancy instance script

	shell>cd /var/www
	shell>sudo mkdir local
	shell>cp distro's/htdocs/ajax to local
	shell>sudo chmod 755 local/ajax

=head2 Configure C<Apache> to use local/ajax

If in fancy mode, add these to httpd.conf:

	LoadModule fcgid_module modules/mod_fcgid.so

and:

	<Location /local>
		SetHandler fcgid-script
		Options ExecCGI
		Order deny,allow
		Deny from all
		Allow from 127.0.0.1
	</Location>

And restart C<Apache>.

=head2 Start searching

Point your broswer at http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/ajax.cgi (trivial script), or
http://127.0.0.1/local/ajax (fancy script, nice-and-clean URL).

=head1 The Flow of Control

Here's a step-by-step description of what's happening:

=over 4

=item You initialize the process

Point your web client at http://127.0.0.1/cgi-bin/ajax.cgi or http://127.0.0.1/local/ajax.

This is equivalent to C<< CGI::Application::Demo::Ajax -> new() -> run() >>.

Since there is no run mode input, the code defaults to Ajax.pm's sub initialize(). See sub setup() for details.

=item The code assembles the default web page

The work is done in Ajax.pm's sub initialize().

This page is sent from the server to the client.

It contains the contents of web.page.tmpl, with both search.js and search.tmpl embedded therein.

Of course, it also contains a minimal set of YUI Javascript files.

=item The client accepts the response

The default web page is displayed.

=item You input a search term

The C<CGI> form in search.tmpl is set to not submit, but rather to call the Javascript function search_onsubmit(),
which lives in search.js.

It's actually the copy of this code, now inside web.page.tmpl, now inside your client, which gets executed.

=item The C<CGI> form is submitted

Here, Javascript does the submit, in such a way as to also specify a call-back (Javascript) function, search_callback(),
which will handle the response from the server.

This function also lives in search.js.

=item Ajax.pm runs again

This time a run mode was submitted, either as form data or as path info data.

And this means that when using the fancy script, you don't need the line in search.tmp referring to the hidden form