Ext JS: Simply the best Ajax and UI Components

I’ve been working with Ext JS for about 6 months now and have really grown to love it. Ext offers what must be the best UI components available today. No matter your preference for JavaScript library, Ext is for you. It offers full support for jQuery, Prototype and YUI.

News from Ajaxian is that Sanjiv Jivan has created a Google Web Toolkit wrapper. Here are links to the wrapper and his Feed Viewer sample application.

Other Ext news is that the Eclipse plugin, Spket IDE, now supports Ext. It now provides features like code completion, syntax highlighting and content outline. I downloaded the IDE yesterday, and the intellisense is really something! Visual Studio 2008 promises JavaScript intellisense but will need to go a long way to beat this. Simply point Spket IDE at the latest Ext source directory, and it does the rest.

Update:

Scott Guthrie from Microsoft has just posted a great article on JavaScript Intellisense in VS 2008.
It looks pretty awesome!
Link

If you keen to start learning Ext, be sure to check out the tutorials. The are currently over 10 which cover pretty much every aspect of Ext.

Best news is that Jack Slocum, the author of Ext, has released a glimpse of the future 2.0 release with the following samples:

1. Feed Reader
2. Ext Grid

JS Framework CSS Selector Speed Tests

Here is a link to a great test page, slickspeed,  that tests the CSS selector speeds and accuracy of the top JavaScript Frameworks.

The frameworks tested include:

1. prototype 1.5.1
2. jQuery 1.1.2dev
3. MooTools 1.2dev
4. ext 1.1b1
5. cssQuery

From my initial tests, prototype seems to be taking the lead. I ran my tests on Firefox 2.0. It will be interesting to see how IE7 and the new Safari for windows compares.

Big news for Ajax Developers

 From Ajaxian.com

Google has announced some big news for Ajax developers at Google Developer Day. The announcement is Google Gears, an open source runtime to allow you to build Offline Web applications.

The technology has already been built into Google Reader. Users now have the ability to view their 2000 most recent news items even when not connected to the internet.

Ajaxian interviewed Brad Neuberg on the new offering from Google and how Google Gears and Dojo Offline fit together.

Listen to the interview
Link to the Google Gears Blog

JQuery vs Prototype

Ajaxian has just posted two new posts adding fuel to the age old question of which Ajax framework to use in your web application. My current favorites are Prototype 1.51 and jQuery with jQuery currently winning by a nose.

1. The first is that John-David Dalton has created ProtoPacked 2.13 which has managed to compress both Prototype and Script.aculo.us to 32kb. By anyone’s standards, that is awesome. The download is available here
2. Second is Interface Elements which is to JQuery as Script.aculo.us is to Prototype. Interface Elements is a collection of rich interface components which utilizes the lightweight library jQuery. The collection includes all the goodies you’d expect including animation, drag and drop, tooltips, sliders etc.

   You can play with the impressive demos here.

Awesome Personal Portfolio Site

Props have to be given to people that find time to develop personal portfolio sites. The following site is one of the best I’ve seen. It was developed using OpenLaszlo. Bret Victor’s website is truly awesome!

Link

Is JQuery getting the upper hand?

The current state of available JavaScript frameworks is a healthy one. The new Prototype 1.51 looks impressive and introduces loads of cool new features and improvements. Some of them include:

- Selector speedup and full CSS3 support
- Full JSON encoding and decoding
- Various String method enhancements and fixes
- Link to full changelog

I’ve only recently been introduced to JQuery via ExtJS and I’m really impressed with the punch it packs in such a small package (19kb).

News today is that the latest version of WordPress (2.2) has opted for JQuery over Prototype. WordPress used to include Prototype in version 2.1. The decision goes back to December 28, 2006 when Matt posted critical look at Prototype Js.

I’ve used both versions in production applications and have recently tried the latest Prototype version 1.51. To be honest, I’ve personally opted for JQuery after a rather simple CSS selector failed to work for me. Perhaps I was a little to quick to judge, but so far, I’m really happy with the move.

The author of JQuery, John Resig, recently described the role of JavaScript libraries in the world of frontend engineering over at YUI Theater. This is highly recommended for any JavaScript developer.

Remix in South Africa

From Ahmed’s blog

Remix in South Africa

Earlier this month we did MIX in Las Vegas and the feedback from the event was very positive. The good news is that we will be doing a lightweight version called Remix in Johannesburg – for free. There will be speakers coming out from Europe for this event.

The event is intended not just for developers but also designers and dev managers.

The tentative topics look like this. Note that the topics can change. In some cases there is some overlap with Devdays (done on purpose as Remix is in Johannesburg only) so you might want to look at what sessions you attend at Devdays if you intend going to both events.

Developer Track:

1. Understand the future of web development
2. Gain insight into how Visual studio “Orcas” will enable you to efficiently build AJAX applications
3. Go deep with Silverlight
4. Understand how to implement rich UI for web applications
5. Learn how to mash-up Windows Live capabilities into your own applications.

Designer Track:

1. Go deep on Expression Studio,
2. Look at Windows Presentation Foundation in detail
3. Understand how to design for Silverlight
4. See how rich media can be used to optimise search engine results
5. Understand how to work with video production,
6. See real world examples of WPF in action.

Dates & Venues

Johannesburg: Monte Casino, (Johannesburg), 26th June 2007
To Register, click, Remix ‘07

Prototype 1.5.0 RC2 Developer Notes Update

Awesome news is that Sergio Pereira has updated the famous developer notes for the Prototype Ajax library.

This is a must for any Ajax developer.

Link

ASP.NET Ajax Beta Released

There are some significant changes including:

• $()
  is now $get(): This means that you can play nice with libraries such as
  prototype. It is really interesting that Microsoft took this step
  instead of saying “screw it. why should we change because of you” and
  instead decided to play really nice. If you do not care about prototype
  and co, you may prefer the simplicity of $()
• Performance:
  “We have spent time optimizing the network traffic size of client
  JavaScript callbacks to the server. Controls like the UpdatePanel,
  UpdateProgress, and Control Toolkit controls no longer emit xml-script
  by default, and instead just emit 1-2 lines of JavaScript (which can
  help significantly reduce the network traffic size on the wire). We
  have also moved from using JavaScript closure-based classes to using
  prototype-defined classes in the core type system, which we’ve found
  reduces memory usage for most common application scenarios.”
• File size:
  They took time to modularize the JavaScript, and you can download
  various parts and pieces instead of just the kitchen sink. I wonder if
  VisualStudio will be smart and auto include what you really need?
• Browser Support: Safari is now officially support, with Opera in the works
• Better Debugging Experience:
  They did a couple of things to help with the hell that can be
  JavaScript debugging: “1) By moving our JavaScript class definitions
  from being closure-based to prototype-based, you can now use the
  existing Visual Studio 2005 script debugger (and/or other existing
  JavaScript debuggers) to better inspect and step through JavaScript
  objects. Closures previously hid a lot of inspection information.2) We invested a lot of time putting together an automated
  JavaScript build environment that enables us to produce two versions of
  all of our JavaScript files: a retail version that is optimized for
  performance and download size, and a fully instrumented debug version
  that is optimized for helping you catch issues with your code during
  development. Every function within the debug version of our script
  files now includes parameter and argument validation code that verifies
  that the function is being passed the correct arguments before running,
  and that will assert with stack trace information if not. This can help
  to more easily pinpoint errors with your JavaScript code early, and
  hopefully significantly improve JavaScript debugging.”
• Lots of Improvements in the Client Script Library Stack:
  “a) Simpler client JavaScript event model. It is now easier to define
  and attach events on the client. Object events are also now created on
  demand to reduce startup time and the size of the working set. b)
  Simpler Component, Behavior, and Control types. APIs can now be used
  without first needing to instantiate their related objects, and
  on-demand semantics have been added to improve performance. c) Client
  networking improvements. Default callback functions and method-name
  semantics provide a much easier way to perform common asynchronous
  callbacks. d) Membership and Profile APIs. Simpler APIs for interacting
  with the Membership and Profile APIs from client-side JavaScript are
  now supported.”

Link

Yahoo to release Mail Source

From BetaNews

Yahoo said over the weekend that it was opening up its market-leading mail service technology in order to allow developers to innovate on top of the service and build new applications. The move is called one of the largest code giveaways ever.

What is being given way is the browser-based authentication scheme for Yahoo Mail. This would allow developers to build new user interfaces or methods to display a user’s incoming mail. Yahoo says it cannot create all the applications users want; thus, opening up the code was a logical move.

Link