Dynamically loading content onto a page?

[thetechgeek]

hey all,
I'm a bit new to AJAX, and I was wondering how I could dynamically load content onto a page to prevent the user from having to reload the entire page, they'd just have to load the main content section that they want. Here's a page that I got my inspiration for this from: http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/02048/. Try clicking on one of the tabs above the main content. You'll see a loading screen come up for a second, and then the new content will pop up. I was wondering if I could perhaps do this through frames? Is this the reccomended way to do this?
Just wanting some opinions. (and perhaps some help with AJAX once I get started on this)

Thanks.

[rnd me]

you can use frames. you could also load the content to a script variable and then inject it into page using .innerHTML.

function IOStr(U){
X=((!window.XMLHttpRequest)?new ActiveXObject('Microsoft.XMLHTTP'):new XMLHttpRequest);
X.open('GET',U,!!0);
X.send('');	
return X.responseText;
}

function el(tid) {
    return document.getElementById(tid);
}

using above functions as a code bank, inject "myDetails. htm" into a <div> tag with an id of details.

el("details").innerHTML=IOstr('myDetails.htm');

[thetechgeek]

Ah, ok.
Hmm... It would be useful if I could display "loading... " while the content is being loaded. How would this be possible?

Thanks.

[acoder]

Use a span/div which contains the loading text and keep it hidden (style="display :none" or style="visibili ty:hidden") and then display before making the Ajax call (divElem.style. display = 'block') and then hide it again once complete.