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Prototype: Easing AJAX's Pain

April 05, 2006

This article describes Prototype, an open source JavaScript library to create an object for an AJAX application. I explain how to use Prototype by describing an environmentally oriented web application that displays an annual atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) level. First, I will discuss Prototype's benefits and describe how to set up Prototype in your application. Second, I will delve into the nitty-gritty of how this application puts the library to good practical use.

Why Prototype?

Why didn't I just create a plain old JavaScript object (POJO) for my application, instead of introducing an open source library? For one, Prototype includes a nifty collection of JavaScript shortcuts that reduce typing and help avoid the reinvention of the wheel. The commonly touted shortcut is $("mydiv"), which is a Prototype function that returns a Document Object Model (DOM) Element associated with the HTML tag with id "mydiv". That sort of concision alone is probably worth the cost of setting up Prototype. It's the equivalent of:


Another useful Prototype shortcut is $F("mySelect"), for returning the value of an HTML form element on a web page, such as a selection list. Once you get used to Prototype's austere, Perlish syntax, you will use these shortcuts all the time. Prototype also contains numerous custom objects, methods, and extensions to built-in JavaScript objects, such as the Enumeration and Hash objects (which I discuss below).

Finally, Prototype also wraps the functionality of XMLHttpRequest with its own Ajax.Request and related objects, so that you don't have to bother with writing code for instantiating this object for various browsers.

Setting Up

So how do you set up Prototype? First, download it from prototype.conio.net. Prototype is open source and available under an MIT-style license. The download includes a file named prototype.js. This is a JavaScript file that defines the various functions and objects your application will use. Add the prototype.js file to your application by using a script tag in the HTML code.

<script src="js/prototype.js" type="text/javascript">
<script src="js/co2.js" type="text/javascript">
<script src="js/eevpapp.js" type="text/javascript">

The same directory that holds this application's HTML file contains a directory named js. This js directory contains prototype.js, an object definition in the file co2.js, which this article describes, as well as the rest of the application's client-side code in another file: eevapp.js.

Since the application imports the Prototype file, the JavaScript code in the other imported .js files can use Prototype's objects and extensions as if they were declared and defined locally. JavaScript does not require statements such as import or require to use objects from other JavaScript files that the browser commonly imports.

Climate Change

How is Prototype going to help with our application's requirements? What are the requirements?

The User Interface is a web browser, such as Safari 1.3, Firefox 1.5, Opera 8.5, or Internet Explorer 6. The application is designed to display a small data set of annual atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels. This is a number, like 377, that represents the parts-per-million CO2 level in the air for a specific year. I decided to store these years and numbers in a JavaScript object that the browser downloads with the application. It is not necessary to use a database to store this data, which is small in size and needs neither security nor authentication. The data is designed for consumption by the interested public. The application does, however, give this JavaScript object the ability to add new data on the fly when necessary.

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