From the jQuery documentation: you specify the asynchronous option to be false to get a synchronous Ajax request. Then your callback can set some data before your mother function proceeds.
Here's what your code would look like if changed as suggested:
beforecreate: function (node, targetNode, type, to) {
jQuery.ajax({
url: 'http://example.com/catalog/create/' + targetNode.id + '?name=' + encode(to.inp[0].value),
success: function (result) {
if (result.isOk == false) alert(result.message);
},
async: false
});
}
With HTML5 you can make file uploads with Ajax and jQuery. Not only that, you can do file validations (name, size, and MIME type) or handle the progress event with the HTML5 progress tag (or a div). Recently I had to make a file uploader, but I didn't want to use Flash nor Iframes or plugins and after some research I came up with the solution.
The HTML:
<form enctype="multipart/form-data">
<input name="file" type="file" />
<input type="button" value="Upload" />
</form>
<progress></progress>
First, you can do some validation if you want. For example, in the .on('change') event of the file:
$(':file').on('change', function () {
var file = this.files[0];
if (file.size > 1024) {
alert('max upload size is 1k');
}
// Also see .name, .type
});
Now the $.ajax() submit with the button's click:
$(':button').on('click', function () {
$.ajax({
// Your server script to process the upload
url: 'upload.php',
type: 'POST',
// Form data
data: new FormData($('form')[0]),
// Tell jQuery not to process data or worry about content-type
// You *must* include these options!
cache: false,
contentType: false,
processData: false,
// Custom XMLHttpRequest
xhr: function () {
var myXhr = $.ajaxSettings.xhr();
if (myXhr.upload) {
// For handling the progress of the upload
myXhr.upload.addEventListener('progress', function (e) {
if (e.lengthComputable) {
$('progress').attr({
value: e.loaded,
max: e.total,
});
}
}, false);
}
return myXhr;
}
});
});
As you can see, with HTML5 (and some research) file uploading not only becomes possible but super easy. Try it with Google Chrome as some of the HTML5 components of the examples aren't available in every browser.
Best Solution
Overview:
All screen scraping first requires manual review of the page you want to extract resources from. When dealing with AJAX you usually just need to analyze a bit more than just simply the HTML.
When dealing with AJAX this just means that the value you want is not in the initial HTML document that you requested, but that javascript will be exectued which asks the server for the extra information you want.
You can therefore usually simply analyze the javascript and see which request the javascript makes and just call this URL instead from the start.
Example:
Take this as an example, assume the page you want to scrape from has the following script:
Then all you need to do is instead do an HTTP request to time.asp of the same server instead. Example from w3schools.
Advanced scraping with C++:
For complex usage, and if you're using C++ you could also consider using the firefox javascript engine SpiderMonkey to execute the javascript on a page.
Advanced scraping with Java:
For complex usage, and if you're using Java you could also consider using the firefox javascript engine for Java Rhino
Advanced scraping with .NET:
For complex usage, and if you're using .Net you could also consider using the Microsoft.vsa assembly. Recently replaced with ICodeCompiler/CodeDOM.