Simon Willison’s Weblog

Dojo 0.9 Update. Big changes are under way in the Dojo camp.

# 29th April 2007, 8:18 pm / dojo, javascript, libraries, alex-russell

The sliding scale. Jeremy’s write-up of my panel at the Web 2.0 Expo, with illustrative photograph.

# 25th April 2007, 7:09 pm / web2expo, javascript, ajax, jeremy-keith, speaking

Seven JavaScript Techniques You Should Be Using Today (via) Sound advice from Dustin Diaz, who is now a Googler.

# 24th April 2007, 8:20 am / google, dustin-diaz, javascript

The website to web application gradient. Jeremy snapped this cunning illustration at my JavaScript Libraries panel at the Web 2.0 Expo.

# 20th April 2007, 12:30 am / web2expo, web2expo07, jeremy-keith, dojo, yui, gwt, jquery, john-resig, alex-russell, bret-taylor, matt-sweeney, javascript, flickr

Death and Taxes (via) Beautiful massive zoomable/pannable infographic of the 2008 Federal Discretionary Budget.

# 19th April 2007, 2:37 am / infographic, politics, ajax, javascript

Google AJAX Feed API (via) Simple cross-domain proxy to allow JavaScript to access any publically addressable syndication feed, with the same logic as Google Reader providing normalisation.

# 18th April 2007, 5:29 pm / google-reader, ajax, javascript, crossdomain, google, rss, feed, atom, syndication

SoundManager 2. JavaScript sound API, using a bridge to Flash.

# 16th April 2007, 4:47 pm / flash, javascript, sound, scott-schiller

Disabling keyboard controls in the Yahoo! Maps Ajax API. map.disableKeyControls() is the incantation—without it, the map will pan when you use the keyboard to scroll up and down the containing page.

# 11th April 2007, 1:47 pm / javascript, yahoomaps

Fortify JavaScript Hijacking FUD. Bob Ippolito points out the flaws in the recent widely disseminated JavaScript Hijacking paper. While the paper does miss some important details, it’s good that more people are now aware of the security implications involved in serving JSON up wrapped in an array.

# 5th April 2007, 10:51 pm / json, bobippolito, javascript, security

Ext JS. Jack Slocum is building a business around his excellent Ext JavaScript library (which can now run on top of YUI, jQuery or Prototype). The library itself is LGPL, but you can pay for a commercial license and support.

# 3rd April 2007, 10:11 pm / jack-slocum, javascript, yui, yuiext, jquery, prototype

Metaprogramming JavaScript Presentation. Adam McCrea demonstrates some incredibly elegant DSL -style JavaScript based on chaining method calls together.

# 26th March 2007, 7:45 pm / dsl, javascript, metaprogramming, adam-mccrea

base2. Dean Edwards’ new JavaScript library which adds useful cross-browser features based on upcoming DOM standards (the Selectors API, DOMContentLoaded, addEventListener and more).

# 23rd March 2007, 5:59 pm / deanedwards, javascript, base2, libraries, domcontentloaded, selectors, addeventlistener

Rules For JavaScript Library Authors. The guiding principles behind Dean Edwards’ base2 library, entirely applicable to every JavaScript developer.

# 23rd March 2007, 5:53 pm / javascript, deanedwards, base2, libraries

JavaScript/CSS Font Detector (via) Really clever trick: detects the fonts that you have installed by writing out some text and measuring its dimensions.

# 20th March 2007, 11:20 pm / javascript, css, fonts

DED|Chain JavaScript Library (via) Dustin’s new JavaScript library, which puts a JQuery style chained API on top of YUI.

# 20th March 2007, 10:36 am / jquery, yui, dustin-diaz, dedchain, javascript

A Zoned Defense. Using JavaScript’s date.getTimezoneOffset() to detect the user’s timezone and stash it in a cookie.

# 20th March 2007, 9:51 am / timezones, javascript

wii.js (via) A JavaScript library that lets you detect the Wii browser, and provides easy hooks for reacting to keys pressed on the Wiimote.

# 12th March 2007, 10:23 pm / wii, javascript, opera

Ajax3d Demo. Really impressive Virus clone, using the canvas element.

# 9th March 2007, 7 pm / canvas, ajax, 3d, ajax3d, javascript

Dashcode review. “Dashcode is quite possibly the best non-Firebug Javascript environment I’ve ever used.” High praise indeed.

# 5th March 2007, 9:06 pm / dashcode, firebug, widgets, javascript

swf Image Replacement. Really neat idea: unobtrusively replace an inline image with a SWF, then apply effects like rotation, rounded corners and drop-shadowns. Shame it suffers from Flash-Of-Unstyled-Content.

# 27th February 2007, 7:51 pm / fouc, flash, swfir, javascript, unobtrusive

Serving YUI Files from Yahoo! Servers (via) If everyone who uses YUI links to the same set of files, your users will already have the YUI code cached in their browser when they arrive on your site.

# 23rd February 2007, 6:45 pm / yui, javascript, yahoo

John Resig: Thoughts on OpenAjax. I hadn’t looked in to OpenAjax—from John’s analysis it seems like they need to make it easier for open-source projects to participate and do a bunch of work to modernise their core library.

# 22nd February 2007, 10:20 pm / openajax, ajax, javascript, john-resig, jquery

parseDateString function in dateparse.js return wrong date for ’2006-12-31’. I didn’t realise that you have to initialise a JavaScript Date object in a certain order; if you don’t weird bugs can result.

# 17th February 2007, 7:04 pm / javascript, date

Neighbourhood Fix-It. Report problems to your council across the UK. The most detailed Ordinance Survey maps anywhere online, and a superb example of progressive enhancement in action—the maps work without JavaScript, and the site even works without images!

# 17th February 2007, 5:05 pm / matthew-somerville, barcamplondon2, progressive-enhancement, maps, javascript, mysociety

The Zimki Plan. Zimki is a hosted JavaScript application server by Fotango. The idea is to open source it, then build a component so developers can seamlessly switch to hosting on Fotango’s server farm if they need to handle a spike in traffic.

# 16th February 2007, 3:50 pm / zimki, fotango, utilitycomputing, javascript

Sumo! A Generic Microformats Parser For JavaScript. Dan Webb’s BarCamp talk on Metaprogramming JavaScript will be a must-see.

# 9th February 2007, 10:57 am / dan-webb, microformats, sumo, javascript, barcamp

Live DOM Viewer (via) Neat tool from Hixie that provides an insight in to what browsers are actually thinking.

# 6th February 2007, 1:12 am / browsers, javascript, dom, ian-hickson

The window.onload problem (still). Peter Michaux offers the most comprehensive overview of this important topic to date.

# 5th February 2007, 8:13 pm / onload, javascript

Fork JavaScript. A great name for Yet Another JavaScript Library. This one tries to combine the best bits from YUI and Prototype.

# 20th January 2007, 11:39 pm / forkjavascript, javascript, yui, prototype