Andre’s Blog

October 17th, 2006

If you follow my blog you probably know I’m far from a one technology zealot and like to see complimentary technologies playing together for a better end user experience.   We started working on the integration of Ajax vs and Flex a few months back when Adobe first released the FABridge.

Well we’re at it again:)  Dave just put this up:

A Flex/Ajax dashboard to show how Flex and Ajax can work together to make a very compelling user-interface for something like a corporate information dashboard. You can check it out the demo here and an article about the demo here.

Using the FABridge along with the Nitobi Ajax Grid and Adobe Flex Charting, we have created a scenario where one can view monthly sales data and then see the sales details for the month in both a tabular format in a grid and visually represented in a Flex chart.

Hint: Try editing the price data in the right hand grid and watch the chart auto-magically update on the page withough a refresh!

So as you can see in this demo we’ve clearly hit that wall with Ajax, we just couldn’t do that dynamic visualization of data in Ajax.  And as Ryan Stewart points out:

It’s one thing to build part of your application in Ajax, but trying to
present data graphically can be a nightmare. This not only presents it
graphically, but in a way that Ajax users should appreciate – with
transitions and animations that add subtle enhancements to the
application.

Now based on my initial comment about Flex/Flash playing with Ajax you may want to bark up and say: “Hey! Now that you have Flash 9 on the client why no go all the way Flex?”.  Simple, I’m too damn lazy!  I have hundreds if not thousands of existing web app screens built in HTML (ASP, JSP, CFM, PHP, etc) that I’m trying incrementally improve the user experience on using Ajax, and in fact of some of it was already Ajax.  Also, I may even be a bit to lazy to learn Flex, MXML and AS3 although it’s quite user friendly and powerful within Flex Builder.  I’m sure I’m not alone in having these massive “legacy” web apps that I can’t just re-write from scratch just because Flex is more powerful for RIA development.  Why not? Because that would take a long time cost a lot of money and my boss just won’t let me;-)  But now that I have my users happy using Flash 9 maybe I can think about using Flex when we do re-write, but that might not be for another 10 yrs:P  Maybe I’ll have another project sooner that I can use Flex on, who knows?  So whether you’re pro Flex or not we can start see some incremental usage and wider adoption this way, which is great IMO.

Technorati Tags: ajax, flex, fabridge, dashboard, demo, nitobi, adobe, davejohnosn, ryanstewart, ria, flexchart

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October 17th, 2006

The team here at Nitobi has been working super hard over the last couple of weeks to get out some point releases of Grid and Combo. Thanks for all your hard work everyone!

Updates to Nitobi Ajax Grid:

Nitobi Grid V3.23 (October 13, 2006)

• Coldfusion MX Edition released.
• WAR file in J2EE version http://www.nitobi.com/news/?a=41fixed.
• Added Value attribute to the columndefinition.
• Added onCellUpdateEvent to Column.
• Added ImageUrl to Image Editor
• Improved overall rendering speed.
• Reduced the total JavaScript file size.
• CssStyle and Value attributes support binding expressions.
• attachEvents and detachEvents methods made public.
• Fixed slow editing in Internet Explorer.
• getHandler can now be set on the lookup editor.
• Mousewheel support added for scrolling.
• Asynchronous property changed to “async” for HttpRequest class.
• Improved instantiation speed.
• The block selection now collapses when clicked on.
• Block selection speed improved.
• Selection release fixed in Firefox.
• Repaired some problems in Classic ASP samples

Updates in Ajax ComboBox 3.5:

Nitobi ComboBox V3.5 (October 13, 2006)

• Coldfusion MX edition added
• ASP.NET 2.0 Support added
  • VB.NET 2.0 Support
  • C# 2.0 Support
• Visual Studio 2005 Support added
• New samples for all platforms.
• Listbox can appear above or below the textbox depending on screen position.
• Support for % width textbox and listboxes
• Various rendering glitches in Firefox and Internet Explorer resolved
• Support for menu objects in the dropdown (see new sample)
• Added support for horizontal scrolling when many columns are present.
• When no dataisland is supplied in the page, and an initial search value is defined, the combo only does one AJAX call to the server.
• Width of textbox, combo, and list can be specified as %.
• List columns can be specified as % and the wildcard asterisk (*) can be used (derived from HTML table syntax and behaviour).
• If there is no space to the left or bottom of the combo, the list will move to one or both of the top, or the left to ensure the list stays in view.
• HTTP Request method can no be specified as either POST or GET.
• Better fuzzy matching introduced. The server can send back any data that may not necessarily match on the client. This allows for more custom, fuzzy matching using the backend.
• Better control of horizontal scrollbar. Content in the list can scroll or clip
• Paging functionality added to the Smartsearch and Freeform modes in a similar fashion to how it currently works in the Classic mode.
• Better support for ASHX. Ability to serve data from ASHX pages for improved performance.
• Documentation is now online.
• Absolute control of the list x andy coordinates.
• Bug Fixes:

• When TypeAhead matches a search item and the user loses focus by clicking the mouse elsewhere, the item is considered selected. If TypeAhead makes no match, then no row is selected, and the custom text can be retrieved.
• Fixed memory leaks relating to searching and paging.
• If initial search finds no match, the initial search text is left in the textbox.
• Fixed 404 errors resulting from javascript:void images.
• TextBox can be disabled in Firefox.
• Horizontal scrollbar fixed in Firefox. The scrollbar is on the inside of the container now (ensures that the width of the list is always maintained).
• Compatibility with other components fixed.
• Numerous other minor bugfixes.

Technorati Tags: ajax, nitobi, grid, datagrid, combobox, autocomplete, autosuggest, release

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October 3rd, 2006

Dave and I just got to our _lovely_ hotel room in Silicon Valley/Santa Clara for the AjaxWorld Conference & Expo. We’re pretty exhausted, but managed to get some Pizza which ate while watching oh so uplifting news:S

Anyway, Dave’s talking about “Ajax Debugging and Quality Assurance” at 11:30, once you’ve moved passed the Ajax 101 which you should’ve by now you’ll need to know about the tools and techniques that he’ll be discussing. Some of the tools of particular interest include: FireBug, JSUnit, Selenium and CruiseControl.

I’m leading a BOF about Usability at some point…but I’m not entirely sure when. I’ll post again as soon as I know.

Birds of a Feather Sessions:And then, for good measure, AJAXWorld 2006 also offers a welter of BOFs led by some of the industry’s biggest names:
Usability BOF – Andre Charland
JSON BOF – Douglas Crockford
Dojo BOF – Dylan Scheimann
Open AJAX BOF – Jon Ferraiolo
jMaki BOF – Greg Murray
Ruby on Rails BOF- Thomas Fucchs
Rico BOF – Bill Scott

AJAX World Conference & Expo Speakers and Agenda Announced @ AJAXWORLD MAGAZINE

Dave and I will try to get a podcast in while we’re down here, so stay tuned. I’m down in Santa Clara after this for the Open Ajax Alliance meetings until Saturday morning. If you’re around drop me an email or give me a ring.

technorati tags:ajaxworld, ajaxworld2006, ajaxworld06, davejohnson, andrecharland, usability, debugging, ajax, qa, performance, jsunit, selenium, firebug, bof, presentation, santaclara, siliconvalley, nitobi

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September 27th, 2006

So first off we launched our site (www.openajax.org) last week! Which we’re all very excited about:) Right now we have over 50 member companies, and this is growing substantially. Jon Ferraiolo told us today that he’s received more than 50 emails in the last business days since the new site went live. A good sign. With the new site we also received a donation, the domain OpenAjax.org which is much cleaner and easier to remember than www.openajaxalliance.org, yah! It was pretty loose to joing at first, all you had to do was email and Jon, have a chat and he’d determine if it made sense. Now you have sign an agreement that mostly has to do with IPR issues and the steeting committee has to approve you, so we’re getting serious.

Microsoft still hasn’t joined, maybe they never will:( One can imagine they have some reservations abuut jumping with IBM and a bunch of open source projects with out considering it carefully. Mind you Atlas has a kind of interesting license, from an MS perspective anyway. Still I think it’s important for them and the rest of the group that they get on board, come we’re all grown ups!

We’ve also published an Ajax white paper which is a great semi technical resource to get up to speed on what Ajax is, what it can do for you and how to go about doing it. Check it out here or download the PDF here.

The white paper is nice but it’s mostly a marketing piece and something for the media and analysts to grab onto. The actual work product is the OpenAjax Hub which is an open source project, that will facilitate different Ajax frameworks, JavaScript libraries and components to work together in the same app or on the same page. Of the 50 some companies involved in the effort there’s only a handful of people writing code, but I’m sure this will change with the first check-ins to SourceForge. The goal is to have something usable by early 2007!

So what is Nitobi’s involvement? Well, I’m on the marketing committee with Alexei, Dave’s working with Declarative Markup and James is working on interoperability stuff. Unfortunately none of us have all the time we’d like to have to devote to this valuable industry effort…but that’s what the way things roll sometimes. So what do we do? Well for staters we have conference calls every 2 weeks, where we discuss what we do and what we have to. They’re pretty typical committee conference calls, you never get as much done as you want to or think you could but things are moving along. The tech committees actually write code and discuss interop and architecture issues, the maketing folks have come up with website, white paper and press releases. So not bad. But we are not a standards body so don’t expect any;-)

We’re having our second face-to-face meeting next week at the Sun offices in Santa Clara, right after AjaxWorld. This will be my first and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone in person.

Just wanted to give a special mention to Jon from IBM, as I think he’s done a tremendous job getting things done and managing the whole committee process. Neither of which are small feats!

technorati tags:openajax, openajaxalliance, ajax, nitobi

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September 21st, 2006

Alright it only took a couple all nighters, a few pizzas, some sushi, a bunch of beer, focus, a blog fight with some analysts, lots of espresso, muffins and a weekend marathon but the long awaited Grid 3.2 is ready to roll:

Nitobi Grid V3.2 (September 20, 2006)

• Separated data sources from rendering, creating 6 distinct modes of operation:

• LiveScrolling Ajax
• LiveScrolling Local
• Paging Ajax
• Paging Local
• ShowAll Ajax
• ShowAll Local

Added ShowAll mode – Perform a single get on the data and render it all at once. Useful if all the the data is needed at once for JavaScript operations.

Improved loadtime performance ~100%. Grids appear more quickly on the screen.

Added new editors: Image, checkbox, link, password

Improved CSS styles for less parent-style intrusion. * Nitobi namespace replaces deprecated Nitobi one. “Nitobi” becomes “NTB”.

Added static databinding features

• Client-side sorting
• In-document xml data islands

Extended the Nitobi Framework The Nitobi Framework is the underlying toolkit that supports our components. It will soon be available as a standalone component, but can be accessed now when using the Grid. Some of the components which have been added to the API documentation are:

• Event Manager – Standardizes cross-browser DOM events. Provides a simple JavaScript publish/subscribe event pattern that can be used for general event notifications.
• Data Table – A complete client-side dataset object alowing easy synchronizing between client-side and remote datasets.
• Callback – Developers can now use the native Grid cross-browser transport method to perform their own Ajax callbacks. Its no longer necessary to use a 3rd party Ajax frameworks to do Ajax transport when using Grid.
• Cross-browser XML/XSLT Libraries – Perform XSL transforms on xml documents with full cross-browser support using the Grid’s native xml library.
• Documentation – Added the framework to the public documentation so the component methods can be used by developers in their own applications external to Grid.
• Cross-browser DOM Toolkit – Access the native Grid DOM library. Supports things like outerHTML, dimensional positioning.

Nitobi Knowledgebase – Whats New in Grid V3

Alexei really busted his ass to build 9 new Ajax samples with code and explanations to help develoers get started:

• Basic Grid Demo
• Live Scrolling Mode
• Paging Mode
• ShowAll Mode
• Remote Data
• Static Data
• Master – Detail
• Editors
• Copy and Paste

Ok enough with the blogging, go download it! Please send me any feedback you have!

Thanks again for your patience, understanding and support! I’ll put a screencast highlighting the new features up soon…

technorati tags:ajax, ajaxgrid, nitobi, nitobigrid, nitobitgrid3.2, aspgrid, phpgrid, jspgrid, javascriptgrid, javascript

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September 16th, 2006

I gave Dave and Alexei a ride home shortly before midnight. We’ve been working very hard to get Grid 3.2 out this week. We’re looking promising for Thursday, but after a few late nights even an all nighter by Whitehawk himself we’re getting very close. In fact it’s just couple tweaks, some docs and website updates tomorrow and the launch email will be off. Seems no matter what you do launches are always a heroic effort in the end, but we’re getting better that’s for sure! Stay tuned…

And to the Nitobi crew, keep up the good work!

technorati tags:nitobi, ajaxgrid, nitobigrid, launch, version, pointrelease

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September 2nd, 2006

We’re making progess on our roadmap towards better support for Java and J2EE developers in our Ajax components. Last week Dave Johnson did a webinar about Nitobi’s JSF Ajax Grid for Java Studio Creator (JSC). Our intern Agus, the “Ajax Padawan”, was a huge help in making this happen and he put together this screencast that shows you how to implement a grid in a page, most of the configuration is done in the design view without much writing code! You can drag the grid onto the design canvas, bind it to a data source and drag columns into the grid. You can also adjust certain properties in the property editor. Now Sun just has to let us get our components into the JSC update center;-) We have a special Grid JSC / JSF Download here. We’re making plans to support JSP and Struts in the near future as well. Of greater interest overall here is the ability to design and develop Java Ajax apps in a visual environment. Tooling for Java and Ajax is definitely getting better, but still has a ways to go. However, tools like JSC and frameworks like JSF are really going to help developer create great user interfaces faster, with less low-level coding and messing around. I’m really optimistic about this development and it’s continued growth once JSC is baked right into NetBeans.

Screenshot of the Nitobi Grid rendered in the JSC design view.

As always feedback is greatly appreciated! Just email me.

technorati tags:ajax, grid, datagrid, jsc, javastudiocreator, jsf, ajaxtools, ide, screencast, javaserverfaces

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August 29th, 2006

I thinkby most accounts BarCamp Vancouver was great success! About 120 attendees, dozens of great sessions, a pre-bbq, great location, great coffee, decent wifi, a photo walk, dj and turn tables, break-even, great organizers and 2 kegs of free beer.

Big thanks to all the organizers, Bill and WorkSpace!

I managed to catch a bunch of different sessions, Jason Billingsley of ElasticPath had an interesting talk on SEO and the longtail. I took some kind of random notes here:

• Many want to be number for one”digital camera”
• but there’s a lot of money to be made for “sony 5mp digital slr”
• it’s very hard to become number for digital camera
• if you put together a 4 keyphrase you’re further along the buying process
• dig throough your logs to come up with the long tail list
• keyword generation tool Jason will post this on his blog
• they compete against IBM, MS, Oracle, but they are very slow to move on keywords so they got lucky
• EP has baked alot of this baked into their platform
• CSS vs Tables…CSS is better because:

• spiders get to content quicker
• your keywords are higher in the page
• this creates better content to code ratio

More in Jason’s blog post.

Dave and I talked about Ajax, I showed a bunch of cool demos including dave’s infamous Google maps/Ajax Grid/Excel Mashup. And then dave went off discussing some Advanced topics in JavaScript such as aspect oriented programming and inheritance. If you want Dave’s slide deck (you’re either David Gratton or Brian Leroux) email me;-)

technorati tags:barcamp, barcampvan, barcampvancouver, workspace, ajax, seo, longtail, jasonbillingsley, elasticpath, marketing, workspace, barcampearth

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August 22nd, 2006

[Update] Please add/suggestion sessison here http://barcamp.org/BarcampTopics so people can start to collaborate.

Just a quick note from the BarCamp organizers to pass on some plans and news about the upcoming event. We’re all very psyched to be part of the first BarCamp Vancouver, and hope you are too.

*** If You Can’t Come, Please Remove Your Name From the List ***

There are currently about 12 people on the waitlist. If you can’t make it:

1. Visit http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouverRegistry and take yourself off
the list.
2. Move the next person from the waitlist on to the list.
3. If they left an email address, send them a quick email letting them know
that they’re in.

A waitlisted person will be very appreciative.

*** BarCamp Costs and T-Shirts ***

Technically speaking, BarCamp Vancouver is free. However, we’ve got plenty of costs to cover (see our budget: http://barcamp.org/BarCampVancouverPlanning), so we’re requesting a donation of $20. Everybody who makes such a donation gets a groovy BarCamp Vancouver t-shirt (you can view a PDF of the design here: http://tinyurl.com/osh68).

We’ve only got 120 t-shirts, so if you’re picky about size, register promptly on Friday night.

*** Schedule ***

The schedule, such as it is, looks like this:

Friday Night, 6:00pm – Registration and Rooftop Barbeque at the Bryght
offices
Friday Night, Later – Camping out at WorkSpace
Saturday, 8:30am – Breakfast
Saturday, 9:00am – Scheduling the day’s sessions
Saturday, 10:00am – Sessions begin
Saturday, 6:00pm – Sessions end

A note on scheduling: We’ve done the math, and we’re pretty sure that all 120 of us won’t be able to present in 8 hours. So, if you’re not so keen on presenting, don’t feel obligated to do so. Try to pitch in in other ways: contribute to discussions, help clean up, ask an organizer if there’s an errand that needs running, and so forth. If you’re sort of keen on presenting, check the list to see if there’s somebody you can co-present with.
There may be some preliminary scheduling on Friday night, but if you’re keen to present, show up at 9:00am on Saturday morning and participate in the scheduling round-up.

*** Locations ***

The main venue for BarCamp has been generously donated by WorkSpace (http://www.abetterplacetowork.com/). That’s suite 400 – 21 Water Street in the heart of Vancouver’s Gastown. Here’s a map: http://tinyurl.com/qoha6.
The Friday night BBQ will be at Bryght’s offices, which are literally a half-block away at suite 400 – 1 Alexander St. You actually enter around the side of the building off Carall St. Here’s a map: http://tinyurl.com/mwsbm.

The Bryght offices are not wheelchair accessible (there’s a flight of stairs between the 3rd floor elevator and the 4th floor office). If you require special access, please contact us via the BarCamp Google Group and we’ll see about arranging access.

*** Food ***

Friday Night BBQ – We’ll be providing some weiners and such to roast, plus veggie options for the non-meat eaters. If you’re not keen on those options, you’re welcome to bring real or faux beast flesh of your choosing. Beer will be provided courtesy of AdHack.

Saturday breakfast – There will be a ‘continental breakfast’ starting at 8:30am

Saturday lunch – We’re ordering pizza
Other snacks include cookies from Midnight Kitchen, iced tea and sodas from Jones Sodas, bottled water and whatever else we can scare up.

*** Sponsors ***

This event is so cheap because of our fantastic sponsors. They are:

Uniserve
Business Objects
Belkin
Nitobi
ElasticPath Software
Bryght
Raincity Studios
EQO Communications
WorkSpace
Capulet Communications
Midnight Kitchen
AdHack
Sxip
Jones Sodas
T-shirt.ca

That’s it. Any questions, hit up the Google group at http://groups.google.com/group/barcampvancouver. Otherwise, we’ll see you on Friday!

Technorati Tags: barcampvancouver,barcamp, barcampearth

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August 21st, 2006

Dave Johnson of Nitobi and Sharat Chander of Sun put together a Webinar on using Java Studio Creator and our Nitobi Ajax Grid. It’s pretty cool to see the drag and drop visual development that JSF and JCS allow. More info from Sun:

Attend this Webinar and learn how to utilize the Nitobi Grid V3 component in Java Studio Creator. With the Ajax-powered Nitobi Grid V3, developers can display and edit tabular data in various web browsers. The grid delivers responsive, interactive data editing in a spreadsheet like user-interface with minimal coding. Access this on-demand webinar now through September 1, 2006. https://sun.webex.com/sun/onstage/onstage/framesets/
viewrecording1.php?EventID=346934662The webinar will be followed by an “Ask the Expert” session, giving you the opportunity to get all your questions answered. Presenters and engineers from both eBusiness Applications Nitobi and Sun will be available to answer your questions.
Submit your question here: http://java.sun.com/developer/community/askxprt/

Can’t wait until JSC is part of NetBeans so that adoption really takes off. I think that it will really help our enterprise customers make the jump to Ajax and JSF, as we all know tooling in this space is lacking. I’m also really looking forward to doing more work with the team at Sun, they really have been great to work with so far.

The actual download will be available by the 28th as that’s when Sun is promoting the webcast.

Technorati Tags: jsf, ajax, nitobi, nitobigrid, javastudiocreator, jsc, netbeans, sun, java

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