Design Notes \ Why Javascript is needed?
December 2006
Since we don't use a real database to store the information about tutorials and the wallpapers, we used our Research & Development in Javascript to simulate a database so that development time could be cut down. Don't get confused when you see something like this.
The main two sections that make use of javascripts are the tutorials and wallpapers in downloads. The tutorials section stores the information on all the tutorials provided in a single javascript file stored on the tutorials root. It contains the absolute path to all the tutorial file, type and section information. This file along with a Javscript Library are included in all those pages to read the data from the simulated database file to display the contents. So when we do a new tutorial, all we have to do is to add the details of that file to the simulated database file and it will be displayed in the correct section and also in the random tutorials.
Secondly the wallpapers section in downloads. It also uses a similar feature. We wanted to provide a single interface from which to display the image. So we use a page called show_image . It is passed the name of the image. So all the wallpapers and images are displayed there. The main R & D behind the wallpapers section was dynamically generating tables and populating it with thumbnail links to the wallpaper file. It uses a simulated database for holding the paths of the wallpaper thumbnails.
Using this simulated database has saved us enormous amount of develoment time and provides a base for the future growth of this site. Anyone can use this simulated database application as we provide this as part of our solutions. Check out our solutions page for more information.
The Research and Development on the simulated javascript were done by Centrum inc Software Solutions. We are currently doing research to further improve this scheme.
Done at AE Labs.
