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Overview

Glow.net gives you the ability to send and receive data from the server. Interacting with XML and JSON from the server, you can create highly interactive applications.

A very basic example involves downloading and alerting the values from a dat file:

The example is made from the code below:

Message.dat

MESSAGE FROM THE SERVER

HTML

<input type="button" id="demo1" value="Simple Demo" />

JavaScript

glow.events.addListener("input#demo1", "click", function(event) {
	var request = glow.net.get("/glow/docs/1.7/furtherinfo/net/message.dat", {
		onLoad: function(response) {
			alert(response.text());
		}
	});
});

Interacting with JSON

You can easily download and process a JSON object:

The example is made from the code below:

programinfo.json

{
	program : {
		name : "Newswipe",
		season : "01",
		episode : "06",
		nextShowing : {
			channel : "´óÏó´«Ã½ Four",
			dateTime : "2009-04-30 22:30"
		},
		description : "Charlie Brooker is back, this time he's got his sights 
		firmly set on news and current affairs",
		categories : [
			"satirical",
			"current affairs",
			"factual"
		]
	}

}

HTML

<input type="button" id="demo2" value="JSON Demo" />

JavaScript

glow.events.addListener("input#demo2", "click", function(event) {
	var request = glow.net.get("/glow/docs/1.7/furtherinfo/net/programinfo.json", {
		onLoad: function(response) {
			var program = response.json().program;
			alert("program " + program.name + "\nseason " + program.season + 
			", episode " + program.episode);
		}
	});
});

Interacting with XML

XML is easy to work with:

The example is made from the code below:

programinfo.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<program>
	<name>Newswipe</name>
	<season>01</season>
	<episode>06</episode>
	<nextShowing>
		<channel>´óÏó´«Ã½ Four</channel>
		<dateTime>2009-04-30 22:30</dateTime>
	</nextShowing>
	<description>Charlie Brooker is back, this time he's got his sights firmly set on news and 
	current affairs</description>
	<categories>
		<category>satirical</category>
		<category>current affairs</category>
		<category>factual</category>
	</categories>
</program>

HTML

<input type="button" id="demo3" value="XML Demo" />

JavaScript

glow.events.addListener("input#demo3", "click", function(event) {
	var request = glow.net.get("/glow/docs/1.7/furtherinfo/net/programinfo.xml", {
		onLoad: function(response) {
			var program = response.xml();
			alert(
				"program " + glow.dom.get(program).get("name").text() + 
				"\nseason " + glow.dom.get(program).get("season").text() + 
				", episode " + glow.dom.get(program).get("episode").text()
			);
		}
	});
});

Interacting with other domains

You can access data from other domains using glow.net.loadScript. Again this is relatively easy, the following code...

HTML

<input type="button" id="demo4" value="Search News Google for 'charlie brooker newswipe'" />

JavaScript

glow.events.addListener("input#demo4", "click", function(event) {
	glow.net.loadScript(
		"http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/search/news?v=1.0&rsz=large&callback
		={callback}&start=1&q=charlie%20brooker%20newswipe", 
		{
			onLoad: function(data) {
				var results = data.responseData.results;
				var output = "Google News Search Results for 'charlie brooker newswipe'\n\n";
				for (i in results) {
					output += (parseInt(i)+1) + ": " + results[i].titleNoFormatting + "\n";
				}
				alert(output);
			}
		}
	);
});

... produces this example that interacts with Google's search API:

It is important to note that the object returned in the onload function is not a glow.net.response object, but an object defined by the domain that you sent the request to.