Saturday, February 2nd, 2008
Ajaxian Roundup for January, 2008: JavaScript Turtles and IE 8
Category: Roundup
JavaScript continues to thrive and move throughout the stack. First we had the news of Aptana Jaxer, which allows you to write your Ajax code and have it run on the server. This even means munging with the DOM and having it all work and spit out HTML. This isn’t your old ASP JScript.
I also had the pleasure of chatting with Steve Yegge on Rhino on Rails: JavaScript MVC on the server where we discussed the implications of having a Rails port in JavaScript.
The browsers keep getting better, and we saw real support for Cross-Site XMLHttpRequest in Firefox 3 and the like. I have been talking over Google Gears future APIs that may be in early stage work, or just ideas in my head. I think that we are getting the word out about Gears not being just about Offline, but a tool to upgrade the Web on the fly.
We are seeing more of the social networks getting into the mix. Facebook released an Animation library and then followed that up with a full JavaScript Client Library.
And then Google just released the Social Graph API.
A great month, and here is to the next one:
JavaScript
- Aptana releases Jaxer, Ajax server built on Mozilla
- Rhino on Rails: JavaScript MVC on the server
- Secure String Interpolation in JavaScript
- DomAPI 4.5: New, improved, and more free
- Favicon access via JavaScript
- Graceful Degradation of Firebug Console Object
- Eloquent JavaScript
- Making Ajax Applications Scream on the Client
- Ajax.NET: Move to ASP.NET Ajax with PageMethods
- Dean Edwards IE7.js 2.0 Release
- Autotesting JavaScript in Rails
- Apache CouchDB: Congrats to IBM and Damian Katz
- JavaScript: It’s Just Not Validation!
- window.onload: another solution to get it going
- EditArea: Rich Sourcecode Editor
- Survey on Ajax IDEs and development
- Beyond DOM
- Cross-Site XMLHttpRequest in Firefox 3
- XUL Templates
- Accessible Google Charts
- Highslide JS: JavaScript Thumbnail Viewer
- PBwiki JavaScript Testing
- Qooxdoo 0.7.3 Release
- Eclipse RAP Demonstration
- Debug apps with Drosera for Windows
- MooTools 1.2 Beta 2 Released, Adds New Element Storage
- The Art and Science of JavaScript Games
- Sexy JavaScript?
- Library Agnostic LightBox
- Facebook releases Animation library
- Facebook releases JavaScript Client Library
- Lily, JavaScript Visual Programming Tool
- Dreamweaver Users Rejoice! Support for JS Libs Now Available.
Prototype
- Prototype 1.6.0.2 security and performance improvements
- Prototype: new cheat sheet and in place editor
- Do you have a pretty date?
Dojo
Ext
- Lipsiadmin: Rails 2.0 Ext Admin
- Ext 2.0.1 Released, Community Projects Continue to Grow
- Ext Scaffold Generator Plugin for Rails
- Ext 2.0 and ColdFusion
- Simplicity: PHP Ajax Framework using Ext
- ExtTLD: Create Ext components with XML
jQuery
GWT
YUI
DWR
Gears
Flash / AIR
JSON
- JSON 2.0: Libraries and browser support
- JsonSQL: JSON parser, SQL style
- JSONLib: JSON Extensions a la E4X
Browsers / HTML Standards
- IE8 Compatibility with X-UA-Compatible
- How IE Mangles The Design Of JavaScript Libraries
- The IE7 auto-rollout: fact and fiction
- John Lilly, CEO of Mozilla, Interviewed
- Mozilla hires Aza Raskin and other Humanized folk
- Full Page Zoom Is For Sissies
- Sub pixel fun with browsers
- HTML 5 Public Working Draft Released
- Getting HTML 5 styles in IE 7+
- Animated PNG in Firefox 3
- Microsoft JavaScript Memory Leak Detector
CSS / Design
- Javascript CSS Selector Engine Timeline
- Acid 3 and the future of memory leaks
- Effect.wobble and Effect.illuminate: iPhone effects in the browser
Comet
Security
- Is using a JS packer a security threat?
- Book recommendation: Ajax Security by Hoffman and Sullivan
- XSS: Flash and Rails
- Dangers of Remote Scripting
Editorial
- Zed Shaw interview on Rails community, enterprise, Ajax, patents, and a whole lot more
- How widgets go viral
- A Study of Ajax Performance Issues
- You Used JavaScript to Write WHAT?
- Most Relevant Browsers of 2009
Showcase
- Triggit: WYSIWYG Content Insertion Tool and Platform
- Drinking offline at the Happy Hour while being openly social
- Tastebook: Rails Ajax Cookbook App
- Dominos: Changing the feedback model
- Protagonize: Choose your own Web 2.0 Adventure
- Mibbit: Ajax-based IRC Client
- iDesktop: YouTube Viewer
- Photophlow: Interactive Community Flickr
- CNN Politics Election Center
- AjaxSwing 2.0: AJAX front end for Swing applications
- AjaxRain.com Gets a Facelift
- Flemish Politics Election Center
- HTML Purifier 3.0
- Winter Holiday Christmas Lights
- Amaltas SVG Drawing Tool
- CuePrompter: Javascript Teleprompter
- Roxer: Simple web page creation and editing
- New Twist on Date Pickers
- Audience Measurement Demo
- O’Reilly Maker
- Less maintenance code tutorials with Ajax Code Display
Related Content:
Dion,
As always, thanks for this month-at-a-glance! It’s a nice refresh of what’s just gone by and I wish more news-oriented sites and blogs did this.
With that said, many casual readers here may not follow your employment too closely. The statement “I think that we are getting the word out about Gears not being just about Offline, but a tool to upgrade the Web on the fly” gave me a little pause, wondering if “we” in this context was Ajaxian, or Google. Since you are the sole author credited for this post, I’m sure you can appreciate that it is tricky for someone (like myself!) to distinguish between Ajaxian’s interest in GWT, and your interest in GWT (as a member of Google’s Developer Programs group).
I’m not sure of your exact position, so please correct me if I’m mistaken, but, at least from a distance, it seems to be somewhat marketing or advocacy related. Is that fair?
I think this has become a really important and useful forum. I’m a huge fan guys! And Dion, I think your disclosure has, generally, been excellent and appropriate — with your regular readers well-apprised. But with all of the above said, should we expect your two roles to remain separate? Or should we expect some overlap?
I imagine, personally, I would fine the former difficult, but would appreciate your comments.
Thank you,
– Matt
ps – In my own full disclosure, I’m am not, nor is my employer, a competitor to GWT. I’m certainly making this comment on my own accord. Professionally, as a consultant, I am a user/consumer of tools like GWT and a reader of Ajaxian.com. Cheers!
Well said MattC, there seems to have been a shift in the neutrality of this blog. There’s some extra GWT promotion going on but that’s life (there’s always some bias somewhere). Still enjoy very much reading the news here.
Apologies, in my above post I typed began typing “GWT” about halfway through, in place of Gears. I meant Gears.