Doesn't sound like AJAX to me. I think he just needs to "hide" some parts of the page (DOM Manipulation or just plain CSS). jQuery is definitely a good suggestion for js framework, but stay away from the AJAX stuff as it will just confuse what you are trying to do.
You probably can achieve what you describe with a simple jquery click event handler ( or whatever event you are going to capture ) and a few lines of javascript and css.
Example:
If your markup is as follows, obviously greatly simplified:
Code:
Code:
...
[URL=]Click Me[/URL]
...
For a click event you would just have a short snippet of jQuery code. This should hide the header and footer.
Code:
Didn't test this code, and you will probably have to modify it some to get where you want, but should be a good start point. If you give us some better description of what you are doing, may be able to help more.
BTW, don't forget to include the jQuery library before using any of the js code here.