Difference between #9 and #10 of Reliable Alternative For Yii::app()->request->isAjaxRequest AND Adding Data To Ajax Form With JS

In this How-To I'll show you:

1.) A reliable alternative to Yii::app()->request->isAjaxRequest (because
it doesn't work for everybody and it's not reliable)

2.) How to add extra data to an ajax-requesta form without
setting a hiddenField in your form,hiddenField, only using
javascript, before sending the form.

Here you can read more about why 'isAjaxRequest' isn't reliable:
[http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/index.php?/topic/4945-yiiapp-request-isajaxrequest/](http://www.yiiframework.com/forum/index.php?/topic/4945-yiiapp-request-isajaxrequest/
"yii app request isAjaxRequest")

The main idea is adding a parameter to our request which tells us if the current
request is an ajax-request or not. So if you work with an ajax form, you would
for example add a hiddenField named 'isAjaxRequest' and set the value to '1'.
But this won't work, if you have a form which can be sent with both, ajax- and
usual post-request for users having disabled javascript.
So the solution is adding a parameter 'isAjaxRequest' to our form with
javascript, before sending it, instead of adding a hiddenField.

After building our form, we add a submitButton like this (in this case for
searching users):

~~~
[php]
<?php 
// Sorry for bad shifting, it's not my fault ...

echo CHtml::ajaxSubmitButton('Search',
CHtml::normalizeUrl(array('user/search')), 
     array(
      
'data'=>'js:jQuery(this).parents("form").serialize()+"&isAjaxRequest=1"',
              
       'success'=>
                  'function(data){
                        $("#searchResult").html(data);
                        $("#searchResult").show();
                        return false;
                   }'    
                                                                                
           
     ), 
     array(
        'id'=>'ajaxSubmit', 
        'name'=>'ajaxSubmit'
     )); 
?>  

~~~

jQuery(this).parents("form").serialize() is what Yii's
ajaxSubmitButton would usually do, if you had not set the 'data' parameter.
Now we add +"&isAjaxRequest=1" to set a parameter 'isAjaxRequest'
with value '1' to our ajax-request.
So this is how to add parameters to ajax-request with javascript. You can add as
many parameters as you want like this.
js:jQuery(this).parents("form").serialize()+"&isAjaxRequest=1&parameter1=value1&parameter2=value2"

By setting the parameter 'isAjaxRequest' we can filter our ajax request in our
controller-action like follows:


~~~
[php]

public function actionSearch() {
      if($_POST['isAjaxRequest']=='1') {
        // your business logic for ajax-request
        // usually with renderPartial at the end, in order to render a partial
view
        $this->renderPartial('ajaxSearchResult',
array('param1'=>'value1'), false, true);
      }
      else {
	 // your business logic for non-ajax-request
         // usually with render at the end, in order to render a whole view with
your layout
         $this->render('searchResult',array(
		'param1'=>'value1',
	 ));
      }
  }

~~~

Very simple, but works ...