Ajax Tutorial : Ajax Help and Tutorials

Scott Guthrie, from Microsoft, has wrote about the new intellisense support for the jQuery library. jQuery support is now found in both Visual Studio 2008 and Visual Web Developer 2008 Express (free).

There are a few steps involved in getting this new support - just the usually steps you would expect from Microsoft though, nothing major.

jQuery also announced recently that Nokia would soon have jQuery running in their adopted mobile phone browser (WebKit using the Web Run-Time).

Javascript, as you may know, has not changed very much since it first appeared back in the 90’s. Over the past couple of years, however, many people have been pushing to give the language an overhaul. It could take another couple of years before these new additions are in place in all major browsers (who knows), but things WILL change - and hopefully for the better. The next version of JavaScript should be JavaScript 2.

JavaScript started off pretty popular, it kicked Vbscript out of the game (not long after Microsoft introduced it). But after a while it also gained a lot of critics (all languages do!). One reason (in my view) is because many people coded poorly in JavaScript, and spat out horrible looking code. Another is because the Browser DOM API which JavaScript was used with was poor (it is still not great, but work is being done here too). JavaScript was the only real option available (and it still is). However, over the past few years, many serious programmers introduced new ways of using JavaScript - ways which are much more pretty, and powerful. In fact, these new ways have made it clearer what was actually missing from the language to start with, what was already there but overlooked by many, and what would make it better for the future.

The founder of JavaScript, Brendan Eich, still appears to be one of the major forces in the future of the Language. You can keep up-to-date by reading his blog over at weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/.

Anyway, on to the main purposed of this post. I found an excellent Advanced JavaScript presentation which John Resig has made public (he actually presented this at a recent Web 2.0 expo, in New York). In my opinion, this presentation is first class.

The presentation aims to teach you how to understand the following code from the Prototype Library:

// The .bind method from Prototype.js
Function.prototype.bind = function(){
  var fn = this, args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments), object = args.shift();
  return function(){
    return fn.apply(object,
      args.concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)));
  };
};

Have fun, I did!

Adobe AIR introduces a whole new subject when talking about Ajax. I’ve decided to create an new website dedicated to developing Adobe AIR applications, by way of Air Tutorials. It’ll cover both HTML with JavScript and Flex (mxml and ActionScript). Snippet manager is the first sample application available, which was built using Flex. There will be a range of tutorials showing how this application was built.

At the time of writing this, the site has very little content. But I am working on it. Please send in your ideas. You can find out more at: www.air-tutorial.com

The site will introduce a balanced opinion of Adobe AIR, it is not affiliated with Adobe in any form.

Update: The first tutorial is available - it covers the installation and configuration of the Air Sdk.

Yes, it has been a very long time since I’ve posted on here. I’m having one of those ‘man, I really should update my blog’ moments, and write this with my very best intentions. Over the next few weeks I HOPE to create many new posts. Much has happened since my last posts, and I hope I’ve gained a little more wisdom (hmm?). Anyway, I have much to talk about.

Until my next posts - keep ajaxing and stay secure!!

Ext JS, the JavaScript framework with Ajax and UI Components

Ext JS is a JavaScript Library/Framework which works in conjunction with Prototype, YahooUI and jQuery. It’s probably the most exciting toolkit available for building web 2.0 websites right now. It’s jam packed with features, and is designed to make life much easier for building great UI in JavaScript.

I’ll not dig to deep right now, I suggest you check out the example and demos first to see what you think.

Below is a the script used to grab XML data via Ajax and populate a grid (sortable table like object):

/*
 * Ext JS Library 1.0.1
 * Copyright(c) 2006-2007, Ext JS, LLC.
 * licensing@extjs.com
 *
 * http://www.extjs.com/license
 */

Ext.onReady(function(){

    // create the Data Store
    var ds = new Ext.data.Store({
        // load using HTTP
        proxy: new Ext.data.HttpProxy({url: 'sheldon.xml'}),

        // the return will be XML, so lets set up a reader
        reader: new Ext.data.XmlReader({
               // records will have an "Item" tag
               record: 'Item',
               id: 'ASIN',
               totalRecords: '@total'
           }, [
               // set up the fields mapping into the xml doc
               // The first needs mapping, the others are very basic
               {name: 'Author', mapping: 'ItemAttributes > Author'},
               'Title', 'Manufacturer', 'ProductGroup'
           ])
    });

    var cm = new Ext.grid.ColumnModel([
	    {header: "Author", width: 120, dataIndex: 'Author'},
		{header: "Title", width: 180, dataIndex: 'Title'},
		{header: "Manufacturer", width: 115, dataIndex: 'Manufacturer'},
		{header: "Product Group", width: 100, dataIndex: 'ProductGroup'}
	]);
    cm.defaultSortable = true;

    // create the grid
    var grid = new Ext.grid.Grid('example-grid', {
        ds: ds,
        cm: cm
    });
    grid.render();

    ds.load();
});

Take a look at the JavaScript generated grid here.

Hopefully this short intro will wet your appetite, more to come soon.

Great work Jack (and the rest of the Ext JS team) for this superb library, can’t wait to see more!!