AJAX with script.aculo.us for Wordpress

Posted on | July 11, 2007 | No Comments

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I’ve been looking at script.aculo.us and prototype for making this site a bit more user friendly, and less static, with some simple effects. Using Wordpress this could mean having to alter in the current theme, which I’m not fond of since I would have to remember altering again in another theme if I decide to switch. For this reason I decided to have a look for a plugin, and found what I wanted from the Signified site, with both prototype and script.aculo.us plugins for Wordpress.

After activating both plugins (instead of writing in the theme or creating your own plugin), you simply create a block element which you want to apply the effect to, and then add a trigger for the effect. In my case, I created a div for this content looking like <p id="scrcontent" style="display:none">Text</p>
and a trigger anchor to show this div: <a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="new Effect.BlindDown('scrcontent');">Click</a> – it’s a simple thing to do, but be careful to not use too many effects, or it could scare away your visitors.

After installing the plugins (don’t forget that the prototype plugin is needed for the script.aculo.us plugin to work, if you want to try it yourself) it was a simple thing to add the functionality to the site – you can Click to see a description of how to do it.

In the near future I’ll explore other nice plugins and effects and show results here. Until then, have a happy playtime!