Software As She’s Developed

Mahemoff’s Podcast/Blog – Web, Programming, Usability from the Author of ‘Ajax Design Patterns’ (AjaxPatterns.org)

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Entries Tagged as 'Links'

The Javascript Grid

April 10th, 2008 · 3 Comments · SoftwareDev

Google App Engine launched this week and one controversial aspect was that it only works for Python. It wasn’t a big deal to me. Firstly, it’s a good way for Google to limit the initial market. Secondly, Google specialises in Python and not Ruby – quoth Yegge: “One of the fences in this big playground [...]

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Cross-Domain Communication with IFrames

March 31st, 2008 · 81 Comments · Links, SoftwareDev

This article explains iframe-to-iframe communication, when the iframes come from different domains. That you can do this effectively is only now becoming apparent to the community, and is now used in production by Google, Facebook, and others, and has powerful implications for the future of Ajax, mashups, and widgets/gadgets. I’ve been investigating the technique and [...]

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Shindig Architecture: Java Gadget Server 2 – Servlets

February 26th, 2008 · No Comments · Links, SoftwareDev

More raw Shindig notes. This time, looking at org.apache.shindig.gadgets.http. See Shindigging tag. I'll structure them just a little more this time.

Main Servlet

BasicHttpContext.java - data struct for country/language/locale

GadgetRenderingServlet.java - The servlet that accepts gadget spec URL and prefs, and outputs the gadget content (typically in an iframe). Delegates heavily to GadgetServer, in order to get a [...]

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Shindig Architecture: Java Gadget Classes

February 25th, 2008 · 1 Comment · Links, SoftwareDev

This is the first of an open series on the architecture of Shindig, the new open-source gadget/widget framework project. As mentioned here earlier, this project is building something similar to iGoogle, i.e. an environment for serving gadgets, a run-time environment for the gadgets to operate in, and a gadget container (as well as OpenSocial support).

I'm [...]

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Dual-Side Templating

February 14th, 2008 · 11 Comments · Links, SoftwareDev

Ajax, Ajax Patterns, Javascript, Server-Side Javascript

As server-side Javascript continues to gather momentum, patterns will start to emerge. Dual-side templating, which I'll explain below, is a pattern I've been harping on about for a while because you can kinda sorta use it already with a product like Rails. It will be a lot more powerful with [...]

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BlingText and Banner

February 12th, 2008 · No Comments · HumansAndTech, Links, SoftwareDev

Ajax, AjaxPatterns

As foretweeted last week, I created a little Ajax app called BlingText.

As you can see, it takes a message and provides some ASCII renderings. In particular, it includes a port of the old UNIX/C Banner utility.

If I do more work on it, the main improvements will be:

Options. Let the user specify, for [...]

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Widget/Gadget Containers: What are they good for?

February 4th, 2008 · 3 Comments · SoftwareDev

Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Gadgets, OpenSocial, Shindig, Web, Web 2.0, Widgets

Background

Widgets are small "mini websites", typically self-contained blocks of content, on a larger web page (with Ajax Design Patterns, I referred to them by the nom du jour Portlets). They are used in a couple of ways:

Embedded in a normal web page. For example, my [...]

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Where Do Widgets Come From? A Look at Widget/Gadget Content Types

February 1st, 2008 · 1 Comment · Links, SoftwareDev

Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Gadgets, Google, Web, Web 2.0, Widgets

Background

A while back, I walked through a Google Gadget I made called Digg Roundup, which simply shows Digg headlines and can be customised on topic and popularity. In my quest for an uber-simple tutorial, one thing I skipped on was content type, the subject of the present muttering. [...]

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Dynamic Favicon Library Updated

January 31st, 2008 · 5 Comments · SoftwareDev

Ajax, AjaxPatterns, Favicon, HTML, Javascript, Web, Web 2.0

I updated the favicon library a while ago, for a couple of projects I haven't released for various reasons. Anyway, Phil asked me about it, so I thought it's a good time to package it up and release it properly. And in the process wrote up Taking Browser [...]

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Taking Browser Tabs Seriously

January 31st, 2008 · 15 Comments · General, HumansAndTech, Links, SoftwareDev

I've just updated my favicon library, which I first wrote about here. I'll explain more about the update in a separate post. For now, I want to talk about browser tabs.

Browser tabs were introduced by Opera. Then Firefox adopted them a few years later, as did Safari. Then Microsoft stepped into the '90s with their [...]

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