AJAX - Browser Support
All the available browsers cannot support AJAX. Here is a list of major browsers that support AJAX.- Mozilla Firefox 1.0 and above.
- Netscape version 7.1 and above.
- Apple Safari 1.2 and above.
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 and above.
- Konqueror.
- Opera 7.6 and above.
NOTE − When we say that a browser does not support AJAX, it simply means that the browser does not support the creation of Javascript object – XMLHttpRequest object.
Writing Browser Specific Code
The simplest way to make your source code compatible with a browser is to use try...catch blocks in your JavaScript.<html>In the above JavaScript code, we try three times to make our XMLHttpRequest object. Our first attempt −
<body>
<script language = "javascript" type = "text/javascript">
<!--
//Browser Support Code
function ajaxFunction() {
var ajaxRequest; // The variable that makes Ajax possible!
try {
// Opera 8.0+, Firefox, Safari
ajaxRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
} catch (e) {
// Internet Explorer Browsers
try {
ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
} catch (e) {
try {
ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
} catch (e) {
// Something went wrong
alert("Your browser broke!");
return false;
}
}
}
}
//-->
</script>
<form name = 'myForm'>
Name: <input type = 'text' name = 'username' /> <br />
Time: <input type = 'text' name = 'time' />
</form>
</body>
</html>
- ajaxRequest = new XMLHttpRequest();
- ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
- ajaxRequest = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
Most likely though, our variable ajaxRequest will now be set to whatever XMLHttpRequest standard the browser uses and we can start sending data to the server. The step-wise AJAX workflow is explained in the next chapter.
