Yes, any of us could write the basics of this in an afternoon, and spend the rest of the week killing ourselves to make sure it works in as many platforms as possible.

Or we can shell out a measly $40 and let Jake and company worry about it. Nice job fellas.

These kind of tools throw down the gauntlet to the open-source libraries. Here’s where the bar is set for wide-spread commercial adoption – you should be able to download a 10-20k script and drop in a tag or 2. Where the libraries have the edge is when you need to add other functionality to a page, have a customer who wants to resell your stuff, or any number of other complications which make you wish you’d used an open-source framework in the first place. But who can fault spending a few bucks to get a slick version 1.0 out of the door?

http://www.webalon.com/topgear/index.php

Still only a proof concept, so Firefox, Safari and Opera for best results.

AJK47

It’s good to see a lively debate going on :)

Most of you reading the Ajaxian blog are skilled JavaScript developers. You are able to write complex scripts. But the majority of people don’t have the experience to create scripts at this level and these people appreciate our tools.

Regarding the price… all our tools are free for non-profit sites. If the site generates income, then we charge a small license fee. The price of a license is the same price as most web developers charge for just one hour of their time. Weeks of work go into each script and we provide free updates with new features. That’s good value for money!

Then there are the finer details… Clean code – the HTML is just an img with a link wrapped around it. Fast speed – each script is lightweight at only 10kb to 20kb. Accessible – each tool works with screen readers and degrades gracefully without JavaScript. Free support – all customers get 30 minutes of free support (if they need it).

All these things add value and that’s why we feel there is a need for paid solutions as well as free ones.

Seriously, this stuff was done sooooooo long ago. I don’t think I’m mistaken when I say that Macromedia had image zooming demos in its original docs for Flash. Using the word “free” and one of “zoom, magnify, expand” along with “image” and perhaps one of “flash” or “javascript” in google should not only get you free, open source tools of this sort, but can give you a bit of a historical walk through the tools developed for image viewing over the last 10 years.

I suppose one should praise the coders, but one should also encourage them to do something new. And for god’s sake, don’t charge for it.

“Magic Magnify”, was impressive, until I realized it actually used flash.

BTW, they did a good job, and more power to them if people buy their stuff.

Maybe a bit too much advertising for Ajaxian :D . How many people would pay for ReMooz? Maybe I do something wrong with my free scripts.

It’s free for personal use, $39 for commercial sites.