Ajaxus place on the net

After releasing Prototype 1.6.0, yesturday Juriy Zaytsev & Maxim Chernyak officially launched Scripteka.com, the Prototype extensions repository and library. The intention is to provide a central place to organize plugins for the Prototype community.

With Scripteka you can:

* 1) View an extensive library of useful (or useless) prototype based extensions
* 2) Rate and use rating to find the coolest scripts out there
* 3) Submit your own creations and get community feedback
* 4) Subscribe to the newest additions to the library

This is big news for Prototype fans. The latest release is online, but its not a single piece of joy. You have also new script.aculo.us and awesome book.

The final versions of Prototype 1.6.0, script.aculo.us 1.8.0, and the Prototype & script.aculo.us book are now available. Prototype 1.6.0 is the most significant update to the framework since its inception over two years ago. We’re very excited about the changes in this release, and what better way to celebrate than with an update to script.aculo.us and a book covering all the new goodness?

Prototype 1.6.0 released

This version of Prototype brings a number of major enhancements to the core APIs as well as the usual slew of bug fixes and performance optimizations. For the full story, see the CHANGELOG and the release notes for 1.6.0_rc0 and 1.6.0_rc1. API highlights include:

* Ajax transport objects are now automatically wrapped in an Ajax.Response object.
* Ajax.Response includes support for accessing JSON response bodies as JavaScript objects via the responseJSON property.
* The class API now includes full support for inheritance and superclass method calls. (See Mislav’s tutorial for more info.)
* Class objects now have an addMethods method for adding instance methods after creation.
* Elements can be created easily with the new Element(…) syntax.
* Element#insert provides a unified API to DOM element and HTML fragment insertion.
* Element#select is an alias for getElementsBySelector and is now the preferred way to find elements by class name.
* Element#wrap lets you easily wrap an element inside another element in place.
* Enumerable methods on Array are now backed by native Array#forEach implementations when possible.
* Enumerable now has aliases for equivalent JavaScript 1.6 Array methods, and support for JavaScript 1.6’s context parameter for automatic callback binding.
* Enumerable#grep now calls the match method on its first argument, so you can use it to e.g. filter an array of DOM nodes by CSS selector.
* Event objects are now automatically extended with instance methods, so you can write e.g. event.stop() instead of Event.stop(event).
* Prototype’s event API now supports firing DOM-based custom events with Element#fire.
* The new dom:loaded custom event fires when the entire document has loaded and is ready for manipulation.
* Function#curry allows for partial application of function arguments.
* Function#wrap facilitates simple aspect-oriented programming and provides the basis for Prototype’s superclass method call mechanism.
* Function#delay delays invocation of the function by the given number of seconds.
* Function#defer schedules the function to run as soon as the interpreter is idle.
* The Hash API has changed, and you must now use Hash#get and Hash#set instead of directly accessing properties on Hash instances.
* String#interpolate is a shortcut for instantiating a Template from the string and calling evaluate on it.
* Object properties can now be used in template replacement strings.

script.aculo.us 1.8.0 released

script.aculo.us 1.8.0 is fully compatible with Prototype 1.6.0 and includes several improvements since the last version; see the announcement on Thomas’ blog for more details. Here’s what’s new:

* Complete rewrite of the in-place editing controls.
* Full CSS inheritance support for Effect.Morph.
* Support for tweening between two values of an element property or method call with Effect.Tween.
* A new sound API for playing interface sound effect MP3s.
* Numerous bug fixes and performance improvements.

Download Prototype 1.6.0

Today, during the keynote address at Microsoft TechEd Developers 2007, S. “Soma” Somasegar, corporate vice president of the Developer Division at Microsoft Corp., announced that Microsoft will release Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 by the end of November 2007. Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5 enable developers at all levels to rapidly create connected applications that offer compelling user experiences for Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, the 2007 Microsoft Office system, mobile devices and the Web. Soma also unveiled plans to open new opportunities for Visual Studio partners, as well as to deliver new tools and resources for developers, including a first Community Technology Preview (CTP) of the Microsoft Sync Framework and new capabilities for Popfly Explorer.

“The highly social and visual nature of the Web has fundamentally changed what users expect from all applications they interact with, regardless of whether it’s on a customer-facing Web site or Windows rich client application, or a desktop business application built using Microsoft Office,” said Somasegar. “Traditionally, organizations have been hard pressed to deliver the richer, more connected applications and services they need to boost productivity, drive revenue and stay ahead of the competition. With Visual Studio 2008 and the .NET Framework 3.5, it is easy for developers to use the skills they already have to build compelling applications that take advantage of the latest platforms.”

press release

Yes, its true - Dojo 1.0 is avilable now! Here is what the package offers:

Dojo 1.0 includes:

* Accessibility including keyboard navigation, low vision support, and ARIA markup for assistive technologies
* High performance grid widget supporting 100,000+ rows of data
* Browser-native 2-D and 3-D charting
* A full library of easy-to-use, attractive UI controls
* Universal data access for simple and fast data-driven widget development
* Internationalization with localizations provided for 13 major languages
* CSS-driven themes to make customization and extension simple
* Dojo Offline, based on Google Gears, which makes offline applications easy to build
* Support for the OpenAjax Alliance Hub 1.0 to guarantee interoperability with other toolkits
* Native 2-D and 3-D vector graphics drawing
* Access to many more widgets and extensions through the Dojo package system

Check out their demo page

The guys at Aptana Labs have done great job again. They finally released stable version of Aptana. Here is part from their message to all of us:

We are very proud to release Aptana Studio 1.0 (formerly Aptana IDE). After over two years of non-stop development and over a million downloads, we have finally reached “1.0″. Along with the release of 1.0, we have also created two editions of the product: Community and Professional. The Community Edition is the keystone of the Studio product, where all core features and capabilities are developed. The Professional Edition brings additional features and services beyond the free Community edition.

Some of the new features we’ve added to Aptana Studio 1.0 Community Edition:

* CSS Preview
* HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Formatting
* Code drag and drop
* Visual ScriptDoc Explorer
* Enhanced Dynamic Help System
* Tons of User Interface Polish

Some of the extra features we’ve added to Aptana Studio 1.0 Professional:

* JSON Editor
* Internet Explorer Debugging
* Remote Project Creation
* FTPS and SFTP Support
* Reporting Engine

Besides new features, the Professional Edition also includes priority support and access to the latest nightly and prereleased features across all of our development, including RadRails, PHP, Adobe AIR, and iPhone support.
Aptana Studio isn’t the only product we’re working on, and you’ll see more from us soon. In the mean time, if you are using Aptana Studio professionally, support our efforts by ‘going Pro’. Whichever edition you chose to use, Community or Professional, we look forward to your feedback, feature requests, and comments. It is our community that helps us build a better product — a product that ultimately is for you.

Get started by visiting their home page and read all about it!