Server command via AJAX interface

Question

Hi

I'm new on AJAX. Just for fun I'm trying to control my sever via an AJAX interface. It's quite easy, for instance in PHP, to send a command to the server by the system() function and just a text field and a submit button.

The thing I'd like to do is to control in realtime some action, for example controlling music volume by a web interface, with a simple slide without any submit button.

Don't care about the way to control volume, is just a piece of example, imagine it like a php system() function.

WELL the question is: How can I implement such a remote control system**?** (The server is the machine that in this single case hosts the webserver).

Answer 1

Have you already tried to do the control with a PHP only webinterface (e.g. reading requests like http://server/control.php?volume=10 or http://server/control.php?jumpToPercent=30)?

From there you can Ajaxify it partially e.g. by sending your form submits asynchronously via Ajax (recommending the jQuery form plugin). If you want to use a slider you could use the jQuery UI slider, which sends a request like

$.getJSON('http://server/control.php', { jumpToPercent : $(slider).percentValue() },
    function(data) { $(slider).value(data.value); }, 'json');

whenever it is changed (read the documentation for the correct events and invocations) and your PHP script changes the position and returns e.g.

{ "value" : 50 }

which is the new actual position of the slider.