How do you make a web page change without reloading the page?

Question

What should I look into to accomplish this.

When you select an input field some text to the right shows up.

For example: https://twitter.com/signup

Anyway i need something like that works with PHP. What should I look in to?

And also How can you query the database and not have to reload the page to see result? For example i have seen on many sites registration you can check if the a username is used without the page reloading. Dont know how to explain better.

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to use JavaScript, look at this source for instance, for some beginner tutorials.

Answer 2

I'd look into Ajax using jQuery. I had done some things with ajax before trying jQuery but jQuery made it so easy that I found it enjoyable to keep implementing things using it.

Answer 3

Like Arkain said, they are making the text appear with JavaScript. PHP is server-side only, meaning it can't make any changes to the page once it has loaded.

You can however, call a PHP script dynamically (to check if a username is registered) using a technique called AJAX.

Answer 4

I've found that ExtJS is a great Ajax framework, though it comes with a steep learning curve.