What is Ajax and how does WordPress use it?

Monday, December 6th, 2010 at 6:54 am

ajax

When I talked about the new beta release of WordPress 3.1 and listed features I got this comment. Time to answer up.

Mike, can you spend a moment some time talking about Ajax. I use it to scour my sink. Not sure I understand its internet applications.

Ajax is not a cleanser at least as it is used in relation to WordPress although I have visited a couple blogs over the years that could use a good scrubbing.

Ajax stands for “Asynchronous JavaScript And XML”. Now let me see if I can put that into something understandable. That mouthful obviously isn’t. At least for old bald guys.

It is a scripting language that will let you change pages using javascript with out reloading the page. Makes for faster refreshes on the page as you are doing things.

WordPress uses it primarily in the dashboard and allows things like drag and drop widgets.

It allows you to have faster page loads on things like moderating comments, adding or removing things from lists like your blogroll, your categories and those types of things.

Now some themes are starting to incorporate and use it. Plugin developers can use it for similar things where the plugin uses lists of various types.

More and more places will be using it and it is a big help for making your admin pages load quicker.

Hope this helps and like a lot of changes in the various versions the Ajax changes will not necessarily be visible but will make it easier to use the dashboard and save you time.

Your questions and comments are always welcomed.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.

After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.

If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.