Ajax without JavaScript

Question

As JavaScript can be disabled in the browser by the user, I wonder if there is any way of developing an Application which uses Ajax but it doesn't use Javascript, so even if Javascript is disabled it goes on working. Is there any limitation?

Answer 1

AJAX isn't possible without Javascript, because it presupposes JS code running on the client. If JS is disabled, there's nothing that can execute in the browser and contact the server - only "dead" HTML and CSS.

Flash is an alternative, but then again it can be disabled too.

Answer 2

You should look into "graceful degradation". It won't give you the dynamic input/feedback that Ajax "gave the web", but that was how most of the web worked back in 2005 and before.

Other than that, your choices are Flash or Java but I wouldn't recommend that and I don't get the impression you were looking for such a recommendation either.

Answer 3

The limitation is the 'j' in Ajax. You need JavaScript to do Ajax - there's no way to update page content without it.

You should always try to design your Ajax applications so that links have a non-ajax fallback wherever possible. So if you have a link which updates a div with new data, when JavaScript is turned off that link will lead to a new page which has that div updated.