Desiderata Software Introduces Jaxcent: AJAX in Java

March 19, 2007; 07:42 AM
Well, OK, AJAX does stand for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML"!

But it has really come to mean in-place browser updates. So in keeping with that usage, Desiderata Software is pleased to introduce a "No JavaScript, just Java" version of AJAX.

Jaxcent is a Java API for Internet Explorer that exposes the DOM model in Java. HTML elements can be controlled, event listeners can be added, pages can be navigated, HTML can be parsed, colors can be changed, elements can be inserted, removed, or changed, things can be hidden/shown, image sources can be played with, sizes can be changed ... you get the idea. All from Java.

Of course, naturally, this is not the kindergarten playtime "sandbox" version of Java. So Jaxcent is not really suitable for general-purpose web sites where anybody can wander in and browse.

On the other hand, for trusted environments where Jaxcent is suitable, it gives you full control and power over Internet Explorer, entirely in Java without any need to resort to JavaScript.

You can use any data retrieval technique to populate elements of your web page. Your Java program could be generating the data (as the clock samples in the evaluation kit show), or it could be going to a web site to refresh the data. You can use Jaxcent APIs to fetch data as text or as another DOM tree, or you can integrate Jaxcent with other tools such as databases or XML parsers for fetching your data.

To download a free evaluation kit, please visit http://www.jaxcent.com/.

For your convenience, Javadoc is available right from the website.

Don't forget to run the samples provided in the evaluation kit!