Simple Ajax for Designers ...

I just stumbled on this great website which has very useful and simple jquery ajax applications. I will review each here in a simple way so you can see all of the useful information. This website shows a video tutorial, a text tutorial and a demo for each of the ajax applications.

Please keep in mind that you should use these design elements sparingly and tastefully. Using too many effects in your webdesign can be tacky and detract from the overall design.

To begin, here is the website: http://jqueryfordesigners.com/
Ajax image carousel

This creates an endless carousel with an html list. It also displays a very smooth scrolling effect. This is very simple to set up and uses jquery. Here is an image showing the carousel. View the code and tutorial here.

Ajax smooth slidedown
This shows you how to make a smooth div slidedown effect without the initial jump. This can be used for many cool ajax effects. View the code and tutorial here.

Ajax smooth data changer
This creates a panel that automatically switches out a list of divs. A very nice effect for blog or website sidebars that want to show rotating pieces of information in an attractive way. View the code and tutorial here.

Ajax Smooth Image Fade
I myself have always wondered how to do the smooth image crossover fade and this tells you how to do it. The effect is very nice on buttons, menus and even images on display. View the code and tutorial here.

Ajax Sliding Tab Effect
This is a great effect for teb boxes. I see it cropping up all over the web now days. Use it for tabbed browing of information or even arrow based browsing (arrows on the left and right). View the code and tutorial here.

Very Sleek Tooltip Bubble
Very nice use of the JQuery puff effect. This shows an informational popup over the area you want when the user mouses over the area specified. Good for tooltips, information divs and any other popup application. View the code and tutorial here.

Loading a Large Image with Ajax
You have seen progress indicating gifs show up while a large image is being loaded. Ever wonder how to do this? This tutorial tells you how to do this and have complete control over how the image loads. I do not have a picture of this as this tells you how to load any image with ajax. View the code and tutorial here.
Slideout Side Menu Effect
If you have been to the Apple website recently you might have seen this in action. This gives you an interactive side menu. When a user hovers over one of the menu dividers — that menu shows up. Very nice effect (play around with the demo). View the code and tutorial here.

Ajax for Instant & Server Side Form Validation
Most of the new “Web 2.0″ websites have very fluid forms. This is because of the fact that you can lose user’s interest in registering or even buying if it is too hard to fill out the form. I myself have left websites because I found it very hard to get the form to validate. This tutorial shows you how to make a form that validates on the fly, including doing server side calls for user names and such. Quite useful for streamlined user registration. View the code and tutorial here.

There more tutorials and demos on this site regarding Ajax and JQuery. The ones selected here were selected because I thought they could be very easy and useful for web designers who want to have a design edge without haveing to spend too much time coding ajax effects.

 Original Source:
http://www.techassistnow.com/2009/06/simple-ajax-for-designers.html