Ajax for Web Application Developers

Creating the Accordion Object

The first object that needs to be created for the accordion component is the Accordion object. The Accordion object will handle parsing the XML as well as creating and controlling a variable number of panel objects. Accordions consist of multiple panels that stack on top of each other and expand and collapse to reveal hidden content. We will create a panel object that uses the prototype structure we discussed in Chapter 5, “Object-Oriented JavaScript.” This will allow us to create multiple panel objects. Before we move onto the details of creating the panels, however, we will finish creating the Accordion object. Creating the Accordion object and initializing the properties is trivial, but there is an important sequence ...