Mozilla Prism

I just found out about this project on the Mozilla labs site.

What is this project all about? Well it can create a desktop application from basically any web application. I just moved my Gmail onto my desktop. That’s quite something.

Their next step will be to integrate Prism with Firefox (3.0?)and then the user will be able to just go into the menu and choose “Convert into application”.

Right now this is just a demo, a project, a showcase of the XUL platform, but interesting things are foreseeable in the future.

Some good thoughts about this project can be found on Mike Chambers blog.

JSEclipse 1.5 is out"> JSEclipse 1.5 is out

Its benefits are visible from the simplest tasks like editing small sections of code for your site to the more complex ones like working with the next big AJAX library or developing plugins for a product that embeds JavaScript like Dreamweaver or Photoshop.

JSEclipse :: Features

Code Completion

• Contextual code completion
• Support for major JavaScript libraries
• Code completion uses Rhino for better accuracy
• Use of JSDoc and inline parameter comments to detect parameter type
• Suggest parameters to be filled
• Project dependent code completion
• Reads all classes in current project
• Reads classes in currently opened files
• Scan current file for words
• Reads XML files for class definitions
• Add your own XML with class definitions

Productivity

• Content Outline
• Code templates
• Syntax Highlighting
• Syntax based code folding
• Open declaration
• Occurence marker
• Integration with ATF
• Error reporting
• Reference library

Editing assistance

• Code editing helpers
• Edit in JSEclipse
• Word Wrap
• JavaDoc, multiline comments

AJAX tools and toolkits – must have

As the AJAX is the buzz word of the day more and more developers are looking for a good tool for developing an AJAX application. But what are the tool’s features to be considered an AJAX development tool.

First let see an “AJAX ready” tools’ list, in no particular order:

• Open AJAX group backed by BEA, IBM, Google, Oracle, Mozilla, Red Hat, Eclipse, and more. This is actually not a tool yet, is only an initiative but is worth keeping an eye on it.
• Sun Studio Creator 2
• MyEclipse 4.1 was released with Ajax support
• IntelliJ IDEA
• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 – they are planing an add-on layer to ASP.NET but only for Atlas.
• Eclipse WTP
• JSEclipse from InterAKT

As we can see from the list, anyone that has a name in a WEB development related bussiness has jumped into the wagon.

From all this major players you may be wandering why I have included JSEclipse. Will see about that later.

What have come to my attention is that all this tools are AJAX ready because all have a JavaScript editor. There are too few other features to make one tool better in the AJAX development (I will not include here Visual Studio as I did not tested it yet).

Sun Studio Creator comes with AJAX JSF Components a library of AJAX components. This seems to be a nice addition.

So, with respect to JavaScript editing, JSEclipse seems to be a very good tool:

http://www.andrewwooldridge.com/blog/2006/02/jseclipse-powerful-javascript-editor.html
http://ajaxian.com/archives/jseclipse-javascript-editor-with-code-completion

Right now the AJAX tools market is new and while developers are still trying to figure out what web 2.0 is and how AJAX can help them to implement a web 2.0 application, the tool developers are also in a foggy place (just have come out of the dark) trying to understand the needs of their clients. What is certain is that AJAX means JavaScript and XML and while the XML will be generated by the server, the JavaScript must be written by somebody and that somebody will need a good JavaScript editor. That is how far the tool makers have gone. It is also sure that they will not stay here. This is only a transit station and the first one to arrive at destination will write history (aka “MAKE THE BIG BUCKS”).

Creating a beta testing group – JSEclipse"> Creating a beta testing group – JSEclipse

I’d just had the opportunity to create my first beta testing group.

For JSEclipse 1.5 release InterAKT opened on it’s site a new beta testing program to let JavaScript developers have an early preview on the next version and let the actual users become involved in shaping a great product.

JSEclipse 1.2 is out"> JSEclipse 1.2 is out

A new version of Interakt’s Eclipse JavaScript editor is out. There were some twiks made and it’s better then ever.

New features:

• match brackets
• go to matching bracket Ctrl+B
• select to matching bracket Ctrl+G
• replace tabs with spaces (Preferences)
• disable error reporting (Preferences)
• more DOM static code completion libraries

JSEclipse gets momentum

Almost a week has passed since the release and JSEclipse gets good reviews on the web.

The creator of DWR – Direct Web Remoting, Joe Walker, speaks nicely on he’s blog about JSEclipse: The best Javascript editor so far.

A new Eclipse JavaScript Editor – JSEclipse"> A new Eclipse JavaScript Editor – JSEclipse

This editor is a continuation for NRG JavaScript Editor. But there are a lot of differences between them:

• Better code completion – the editor proposes completions from all the JavaScript files inside the current Eclipse project and proposes element IDs from the HTMLs that include the current .js file when calling a getElementById() function.
• Go to declaration – if a class method call is recognized by the editor ( it’s not an exact science as JavaScript is a week typed language and only part of the information are available at coding time) then when pressing F3 the file in which that method is defined is opened and the cursor is placed at the method declaration.

This are only two of the realy great features of this product. You can find out more on the InterAKT‘s site.