Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) is a very cool technology for placing dynamic content on static websites.

The basics of the technology is that you use javascript to fetch XML data from your server and then display that data on the page. It allows you to query your server and update a page without requiring users to reload the page.

I’ve written two Ajax plugins for movable type tonight. The first one was a simple plugin which checks to see if the user can login to the movable type interface. If the check it successful, it shows additional content, like links to junk and edit comments. This plugin will only be apparant to myself, since I am the only person who can login. The second plugin is available to regular readers. It provides a way to automatically reply to comments. Simply click the “(q)” link beside a comment and your browser will query my server for the text of the comment and then place that text in the comment box, wrapping it inside a quote box.

Try it out.