Thursday, July 13th, 2006
Firefox Extensions and Ajax
Category: Articles
Dietrich Kappe has written about the hybrid world of browser extensions and Ajax.
As writting extensions gets easier (e.g. GreaseMonkey, or the extensions themselves) Ajax applications can potentially benefit from a tighter integration model with the browser.
Dietriche uses MyStickies as an example:
Another example of this curious Firefox Extension/AJAX hybrid caught my eye the other day: MyStickies. This extension will allow you to insert AJAX-DIV stickies onto any web page. The extension handles this insertion and also includes a Javascript library via a Javascript file from mystickies.com and another via chrome://mystickies/ for the behavior.
The sticky location is persisted to the mystickies site where you can also use a webapp to search, manage, etc., your stickies. It’s a direct manipulation bookmark that doesn’t reside just on your local computer.
Now I happen to think mystickies is pretty cool, especially if they implement some of the features on their roadmaps, like sticky sharing (how web2.0!). But what interests me here is the application architecture.
ajax代ç 顶级网站收è—
ajax代ç 顶级网站收è—（aboard）
Yup. Great ideea. Could someone explain bielfy how exactly does it work? And … depending on the architecture of this app, maybe we could think about scalability on this one.
Regards,
Horia
It’s definitely a cool idea. I remember a few years back somebody came up with something similar - they were using a frameset or something like that that allowed a user to view a web site in one frame and other visitors’ notes about the site in another frame. But just when it was about to take off, they got sued due to IP issues. I never heard of what happened afterwards. Probably got shutdown. Hopefully mystickies will survive.
I have tried to install under Firefox. It makes RSS of Backbase (http://www.backbase.com/demos/RSS) doesn’t work. Haven’t tested that with other ajax frameworks
I have tried to install under Firefox. It makes RSS of Backbase (http://www.backbase.com/demos/RSS) doesn’t work. Haven’t tested that with other ajax frameworks.
And security always is an issue with plugin. Will anymore install a plug-in from unkown-developer.
Also have a look at Web-Marker which attempts to bridge the guide between AJAX and Firefox Extensions : https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2679/
Horia,
I have a simple example of how to do BJAX with Greasemonkey. Nothing fancy or too robust, but it should give you an idea of how it’s done.