AJAX » E-mail Client

For our AJAX assignment we had to work in pairs to create a working e-mail client (minus most validation, unless you wanted it realistic enough). It was to allow users to register, sign in, read their mail unique to them and also send mail to registered users. This assignment brief was to help our understanding of the use of DHTML and javascript. It also taught us how to call out PHP scripts and link an HTML page to a working database using MySQL.

I completed this project with my partner within a few days which I was rather impressed of. We would have done it early but were swamped with assignments and plus my original partner ditched me… At least I found one in the end and completed the assignment!

I’ve named this e-mail client Strawberry Ice (kinda feminine…). This was because I felt like in the mood for food and strawberry was related to the email address I constantly use.
We’ve used different div layers which are hidden once certain buttons are pressed; done using CSS and javascript. This allows the user to see certain items on the page whilst other unnecessary forms are hidden. It also allows the functions in the javascript to extract certain information entered to be sent to the server. This is due to the fact that everything for this e-mail client was done on one page to make life easier, but isn’t secure. Therefore private information shouldn’t be entered as it may leak out. Due to the time limit I had, there isn’t much validation implemented into the client. So users are able to sign up by just providing 2 passwords as they aren’t required to fill out all the fields. The rest of the client features work and meet the requirements of the assignment brief.

There are a couple of problems with the code which I did not notice before submitting the assignment in.

1. When the user rolls over the subject link to read the mail the alert box containing “Your browser does not support AJAX!” appears. However it still lets you read the mail after…
2. When a user presses the “compose mail” button and then returns back to the inbox after mailling or cancelling the page, they are not able to refresh the inbox to retrieve mail.

Please find the link to the working assignment below.

Link to Strawberry Ice E-mail Client: Strawberry Ice
Please Note: If you want to use an existing user with mail to read etc. Please feel free to use the following,

User: Hiya   Pass: Hiya