[geeklog-devel] AJAX and Javascript Libraries - request for comments

[Euan McKay]

First off, I agree with Blaine that a good JS library that is well
integrated would be a good thing. I have no real preference, but I've
always used Prototype and Scriptaculous. Both are easy to use, and
reasonably documented (but not great - YUI documentation seems much,
much better at a glance). They are also pretty easy to implement, with
enough examples out there if you google.

http://www.prototypejs.org/
http://script.aculo.us/

One example: when looking for a tree implementation a couple of years
ago, Prototype was the best at the time. A tree with draggable items
is now possible with YUI
(http://andrewroth.ca/others/treeview_dragdrop/), but appears to be a
little more complicated than Protoype, where you just set a "tree"
flag to a sortable item. (Unfortunately, the Scriptaculous example in
their wiki is not working right now - which may be indicative.)

I'm not sure how much javascript you end up writing for YUI, but for
Prototype/Scriptaculous, it really isn't a lot - perhaps the greatest
benefit.

Having several libraries would cover the problem of needing to stick
to just one, but how would that affect the way it is integrated into
Geeklog? Sounds like extra work creating another interface to me.

Euan.


On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 09:18, Blaine Lang <devel at portalparts.com> wrote:
> Dirk is in the process of moving the Wiki and had been waiting to start this
> on the Wiki but in light of some recent other discussions, I will start that
> discussion here on the DEV list. For some time (ok, a couple years), I have
> wanted to add a more comprehensive Javascript library with AJAX capabilities
> to the core GL framework.
>
> Although, the initial focus is on adding a JS libray to make it easier to
> add AJAX, there is clearly a need for a JS library to made it easier to code
> the functions and UI components to handle and enrich the user interface.
> AJAX enabled forms or screens can all be coded in plan Javascript but the
> optimizations and proven library functions can not only make the coding
> easier, faster and cleaner but we easier to develop common methods and
> reference code. Thats without leveraging some of the sophisticated widgets,
> plugins these libraries can offer.
>
> This thread is then to ask for suggestions on the JS Library to use and why.
> We may need to setup prototyped code for comparison.
>
> I will start with my preference and reasons - let the debate begin ....
> ------
>
> As part of our Nextide projects, we have been doing AJAX powered Geeklog
> plugins for a few years. Many of the nexpro plugins like nexFlow, nexList
> are good examples but that code was done a few years ago. Since then we have
> further optimized the coding style of using YUI and our latest projects (not
> public releases) are much cleaner.
>
> There are probably 100 AJAX libraries that could work with PHP and I started
> into this a few years ago rolling my own to better understand the issues.
> After looking at and trying a few, I settled on YUI because about 2+ years
> ago, it was developing a strong community and had a big name behind it.
> JQuery and others like qooxdoo,MooTools, Prototype,Dojo where also starting
> out.
>
> YUI's AJAX has some nice features like automatic linking to a target form
> and posting the form fields with no additional Javascript and can easily
> handle files. The library supports both POST and GET and easily used in
> non-form applications like links where you still want to use AJAX. The
> library has configurable timeout plus support for success and error handlers
> as well as custom event handlers. I've been using it with the YUI JSON
> library this past few months and it's been working nicely and easy to code.
>
> The YUI library is quite extensive now, but we only need to use Connection
> Manager Library which needs the minimum version of theirYahoo-Core and Event
> libraries. Additionally, they have the JSON library which is optional but
> highly recommended that we standardize on with any AJAX returning data.
>
> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui - main site, with links to their blog,
> examples, documentation and community forum.
> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/connection/  - the AJAX connection library
>
> YUI has a very complete documented API, plus examples, tutorials and active
> development community.
> YUI 3.0 is in Pre-Release and shows that this library has a forward looking
> roadmap.
> http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/3/
>
> Using YUI and JQuery for some of JQuery's nice UI and DOM manipulation is
> very doable and I have recently started to use JQuery for a new project. I
> really like the way JQuery has fostered active development and extensions
> and don't see any reason why we can't use both JQuery and YUI where they fit
> best. In both cases, minified and CDN hosted libraries are available.
>
> - Blaine
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