jQuery

jQuery, the excellent open source javascript library (think scriptaculous) has just gone through a pretty major overhaul:

jQuery UI is a set of themable widgets and interactions, built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library, that you can use to build highly interactive web applications.

The core of the library revolves around different mouse interactions, namely drag and dropping, sorting, selecting, and resizing.

On top of the core interactions are built a number of reusable widgets, including accordions, date pickers, dialogs, sliders, table sorters, and tabs.

Finally, the library is finished off with a few effects that you can use to liven up your site, specifically magnifier and shadow.

In a crowded space jQuery really shines as the most simple & powerful library available. Take a look.

AJAX Patterns

I’ve recently been fumbling around with AJAX and ASP.NET and came across this handy Ajax Patterns repository.

A few of the patterns which immediately stood out to me as the most useful and applicable in my scenario:

Cross-Domain Proxy
Can perform cross-site scripting access (traditionally disabled in most browsers) by mediating through the server.

Submission Throttling
Used to control the amount of requests sent to the server. Rather than responding to every javascript event a local buffer is held and requests are processed at say a 200ms interval.

Take a look…