It’s already everywhere that Google is releasing a set of API”s for building applications and integrations with social networking sites (Linked in & Orkut  have alraedy signed on).  Most interesting fro those of you reading this blog is perhaps the fact that they will be entirely javascript & html based (No server side coding).  This could make hte entire process faster sand smoother for all of us.

We’ll know more tomorrow when the API is released at:

http://code.google.com/apis/opensocial

One of the most powerful jQuery plugins is dimension.  Using dimension you can obtain the position, height & width of just about any element on the page and the window itself.

Uses:

• Determine dimensions of document
• Determine dimensions of window
• Determine scroll offsets of containers
• Set scroll offsets of containers
• Determine dimensions of container contents
• Determine absolute position of elements
• Determine dimensions & offsets of parent elements.

Find Plugin & API Documentation here:

 http://brandonaaron.net/docs/dimensions/

If you’re looking for a fast and easy way to add tabs to your next project.  It doesn’t get simpler than Mootabs: a lightweight tab widget in mootools.

Key Features:

• Able to retrieve tab contents via AJAX
• CSS Styling
• Transition effects
• Simplified Markup

I’ve noticed the transitions can be a bit coarse and distracting so I recomend using mootabs without strong transitions if possible.

Get Mootabs Here: http://www.silverscripting.com/mootabs/

As of 1.2, the Mootools Hash plugin has been promoted to a Native type.  Basically, a Hash is a wrapper for native Javascript objects (keeping things OO all the way & preventing attacks on the Object Prototype). 

What it does:

• Provides a wrapper for associative arrays.
• Works just like a traditional Mootools Array (Each is your friend)
• Supports Generics.

Read more about Hashes in Mootools 1.2 here:

http://blog.mootools.net/2007/10/8/what-s-new-in-1-2-the-hash

Perhaps the strongest widget in the Ext toolbox is the powerful grid tool.  In 2.0 it gets even stronger.

Some of the new features:

• Ability to collapse entire grid pane
• Ability to hide and display columns from within the interface
• Support for totals, averages and other summary columns
• Group rows by sort.

ExtJS 2.0 is already in beta & ready for preliminary development today and the production release is just around the corner.  Check it out here:

http://extjs.com/

Aptana 1.0 has landed, sports loads of new features and the inevitable release of a Pro version.

Some of the New Features

• CSS Preview
• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Formatting
• Code drag and drop
• Visual ScriptDoc Explorer
• Improved Help
• Loads of Polish

What’s with the new name?

The Aptana IDE has been rebranded Aptana Studio, likely to reflect the upcoming spectrum of products from the company.

What’s with the pro version?

So Aptana has released a Pro version of the studio.  The Pro version includes several features intended to streamline development and hopefully justify the new $99 price tag (expect the price to go up to $199 in the future).

The new pro features:

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

You can find more information on the Aptana Blog

http://www.aptana.com/blog/?p=200?diff=y 

You can download the software here:

http://aptana.com/download/ 

My apologies everyone.  We’ve been having some strange intermittent server issues for the past 24 hours.  I’m working with my hosting provider to get them resolved.  If you have any problems reaching AjaxBestiary, please try again in a few minutes.

Yesterday I brought you Jeditable a simple plugin to handle edit in place Ajax events.  Today I bring you an Autocompleting, Inplace edit based on Jeditable by Ritesh Arawal.

This plugin extends Jeditiable with a simple AJAX call to retrieve an array of possible values based on user input. 

What it ads:

• url: location to send autocomplete request
• minChars: minimum number of chars to include in autocomplete request
• formatItem: format string to improve display of server response
• inputSeparator: allows you to add multiple input strings (ie tags).

Check it out online at http://php.scripts.psu.edu/rja171/widgets/autocomplete.php

Niall Doherty has released version 1.1 of the powerful CodaSlider AJAX widget. This upgrade takes an excellent widget and makes it even better.

Some highlights:

• Widget Upgraded to Use jQuery 1.2
• Improved Accessibility, all content housed within the slider is now accessible via a scrollable panel.
• YouTube videos now display properly within slider.
• Improved Polish & Pre-loading.
• Cross-Linking Support

Check It Out on Niall’s Blog

http://www.ndoherty.com/blog/2007/10/29/coda-slider-11/

Mozilla has just released a prototype application called Prism.  It streamlines the creation of a Webrunner app through a simple wizard.  Great for getting your feet wet with Webrunner development or exploring the concept of offline use.  You’ll still need to write a custom webapp to deploy however.

Prism is currently Windows only, but a mac version seems to be in the works.

Find More Information

http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/