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Ajax and the Ken Burns Effect

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fun-with-code dept.

An anonymous reader writes "IBM DeveloperWorks has an interesting project posted that shows how to design a client-side slide show using the 'Ken Burns Effect.' From the article: 'If the Web 2.0 revolution has one buzzword, it's Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax). [...] Here, you discover how to build XML data sources for Ajax, request XML data from the client, and then dynamically create and animate HTML elements with that XML.'"

8 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. This is detailed Ajax, Ken Burns style... by crazyjeremy · · Score: 5, Informative
    Ken Burns effect from wikipedia:

    "In his documentaries, Burns often gives life to still photographs by slowly zooming-in on subjects of interest and panning from one subject to another. For example, in a photograph of a baseball team, he might slowly pan across the faces of the players and come to a rest on the player the narrator is discussing. ... This technique came to be known as the Ken Burns Effect, even though he did not originate the technique, and has become a staple of documentaries, slide shows, presentations, and even screen savers."

    Ken Burns effect in Ajax: Use good ole DHTML and XML to whip stuff around on your screen. Or as the link says "I animate the images with random slow moves, zooms, and fades to give a pleasing version of the Ken Burns Effect without having to download Macromedia® Flash or any other heavyweight animation tools."

    --
    Funnypics
    1. Re:This is detailed Ajax, Ken Burns style... by lysergic.acid · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The point of the article isn't to entertain you with a slideshow. It's an intro guide/tutorial to AJAX for developers interested in the technique. Personally, I found the article to be very informative, and a good exercise for learning the basics of AJAX. Now I can go on and implement AJAX in the interface of my real web applications, which are much more complex and have a purpose other than to simply demonstrate how AJAX works.

      It's kinda like when you first start programming you might begin with a simple "hello world" program. That doesn't mean C/Perl/whatever language you're learning is useless just because the hello world application was designed as a simple programming exercise.

      So you can stop complaining everytime AJAX is mentioned. If you're not a web developer, then it might not interest you, but that doesn't make it pointless; you just don't have any use for it. Instead of looking for stupid things to complain about, just skip the article and go read your books or something.

  2. Ajax and the Mr. Burns effect.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's Exxxcellent.

  3. The Headline Says "Ken Burns Effect" by klenwell · · Score: 5, Funny

    Where are the sepia tones, jazz soundtrack, and pedantic voiceover?

    Tom

    --
    Innovation makes enemies of all those who prospered under the old regime... -- Machiavelli
  4. Ken Burns effect? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Ken Burns effect? What, it takes 10 hours to get through the thing?

  5. Re:First Post by alanwj · · Score: 5, Funny
    First post :)

    This is poor advice. First you GET. Did you even look at the article?

    Alan
  6. Coolest Ajax UI Ever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    Client-side slide shows are nothing. This is the coolest Ajax UI ever. This simple yet Ajax intuitive UI:

    • was built with off-the-shelf, re-usable components
    • was assembled in minutes and required no debugging
    • has a scalable architecture
    • uses well-defined interfaces to separate objects
    • is inherently cross-browser compatible
    • runs on Windows, Linux, and OS X
  7. Re:WHERE'S THE DEMO??? by Toveling · · Score: 5, Informative

    On my home server (may be a tad slow), http://toveling.dyndns.org/kenburns/