More details on the new patterns later, but here’s a quick summary …

First, there’s a new demo – the Ajax Patterns Reader – the best version to try is at http://ajaxify.com/run/reader/logging/realService/. The reader grabs the AjaxPatterns.org content and presents them Ajax-style. You actually queue up patterns in a playlist and click “Next” to “play” them. Yeah, a bit contrived, but it helped illustrate quite a few patterns! If I have time, I’d like to enhance it into a proper reader, and also offer an easy interface to leave feedback, which would be automatically appended to the wiki’s Discussion tab for that pattern.

BTW This further refactoring of the Ajax Patterns Reader illustrates the Scriptaculous GhostTrain tool. If you haven’t seen GhostTrain, have a look – the Javascript will track your activity and build up a test case dynamically (covered in the new System Test pattern). All within the browser. I’ve been in contact with the developers (Thomas and Jon), and discovered it’s still proof-of-concept, but if they can tie it all together, it will be an excellent way to create a system/functional test.

Next, there’s four patterns on diagnosis:

• Logging Instrument your Javascript with log messages.
• Debugging Diagnose problems with a Javascript debugger.
• DOM Inspection Use a DOM Inspection Tool to explore the dynamic DOM state.
• Traffic Sniffing Diagnose problems by sniffing Web Remoting traffic.