10.5. Summary

In this chapter's use case, we looked at how you can use the subpage AJAX pattern to improve the performance of displaying data. This AJAX pattern breaks up large pages and lets you update one section of the page at a time. It can greatly improve the user experience by increasing the efficiency of the site and reducing the time users spend waiting for content to load. This pattern will be used over and over in your AJAX implementations, because it represents basic AJAX functionality, updating one part of a page without affecting the rest. The major points we can take from experience are as follows:

• Browsers handle slow-loading images poorly.

• JavaScript can be used to add nice image-loading effects.

• Sectioning pages can reduce overall loading times by allowing fast-loading content to be updated without affecting slow-loading content.

• Loading page sections with AJAX is a reusable pattern that is useful in many situations.

In the next use case, we will reuse much of what we learned here; however, instead of focusing on improving performance, we will look at how you use AJAX to add new features without a major application redesign.