Hi All,

I posted this to the PHP list and got some great response, but thought I get some fellow PLUG thoughts as well.  Hopefully not too many people will be upset with my cross post. :)

I have a fairly large PHP application that I've built and have been maintaining for several years now.  It's in current production and working quite well. However, it was built before the era of Ajax functionality and I'd like to add some of these type of features to make the application more streamlined and easier to use. Our main customer base are research engineers so, usability and efficiency are paramount, while looks are secondary. Of course, if I could update the looks that would be nice too.

I'm not even sure if the term "Ajax" is right, but some of the things I'd like to do:
1) When a list of manuscripts is presented, I'd like a link beside each entry for the chairperson to add that manuscript to a lecture session and the entire page isn't posted. Currently, there's a bunch of check boxes and he must check one or more boxes and click submit.

2) Instead of having a separate, small browser window pop up to perform some action, I'd like a small screen to display for the user to enter the needed data while the main browser window goes gray. Basically the user must complete the box to proceed.

I've been doing some reading on script libraries (jQuery, Scriptaculus), but wanted to get the groups thought and what others have found to be the best script library as far as feature set, ease of implementation and most importantly longevity. I'd definitely want something that is current, well maintained and well documented. If I spend a lot of time revamping the site I want to use a library that'll be around a few years.

I'm sure you guys get the idea of what I'm looking for.

Any thoughts would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter