The following is a mini tutorial about Drupal and Ajax. You can improve your site using ajax calls using the hook_module and jQuery load function.
Define a link to execute the Ajax call
This is very basic, you have to create a element to set the ajax call. For example:
<button type="button" class="my-button-class">Ajax test</button>Also you need an element to receive the Ajax callback:
<div class="my-div-class">Ajax result</div>Then, you need to set the event of the button and, of course, load the url of your content.
$('.my-button-class').on('click', function() {
$('.my-div-class').load('/ajax/get-user/');
});Using hook_menu
You note that the url /ajax/get-user/ does not exists in your Drupal site, you have to set this url in your custom module via hook_menu.
function your_module_name_menu() {
$items['ajax/get-user/'] = array(
'title' => 'Get current user'
'page callback' => 'your_module_name_ajax',
'type' => MENU_CALLBACK,
'access arguments' => array('access content')
); return $items;
}
Also you need to create your new function defined above:
function your_module_name_ajax() {
global $user;
$user_name = $user->name; drupal_json_output($user_name);
}
The your_module_name_ajax function gets the current username and print the name. It's very basic, but of course you can add your custom behavior.