It’s official, ExtJS 2.0 has landed.  ExtJS is one of the best toolkits out there for achieving ajax applications that rival desktop applications in interface richness.  Some of the new features in 2.0.

•  Grouping & Group Summary fields: Allows you to group related grid items and create summary rows.  Data sorts within each group set instead of across the grid.
• Scrolling tabs: You can now optimize screen Real Estate by allowing tabs to scroll off the tab par (Ala firefox)
• Anchor Layouts: Tack the dimensions of form elements to their parent container.
• Column Tree: The best of both worlds, integrate the powerful extjs grid & tree widgets

I should also point out that ExtJS continues its tradition of excellent documentation with a new API documentation center and rich set of demo applications to work from.   Check out ExtJS 2.0 here:http://extjs.com/blog/2007/12/04/ext-20-final-released/

I’ve posted a bug fix release to the Layout Tool.

Changes:

• Dramatic improvements to selecting
• Fixed script error for IE 7.

Known Issues:

There are still major issues with IE 7 and it doesn’t work well in IE 6 yet.  If anyone has a clue why the color of the div gets progressively darker in IE 7, I’d appreciate it.

You can testdrive the new version at:

http://www.ajaxbestiary.com/Labs/BLT2/index.htm

Mootoos 1.2 Beta has landed and if you plan on using it soon, you need to get cracking porting & learning the new API.

Some of the changes:

• Test Suite Integration
• Fx.Tween & Fx.Morph to Fx.Style
• Hashables
• Sortables (brand  new version)
• Number Math integration
• Improved object inheritance with Extend & Implement

Read all about it here:
http://blog.mootools.net/2007/11/14/mootools-1-2-beta-1

via Clientside

The SmartClient library is based on databinding & presentation widgets (Similar to Spry).  And is being released as an OpenSource LGPL product. 

The LGPL Version is feature complete for client side development but lacks the presentation server & visual IDE included in the full premium version.

Check it out online  here:

http://www.smartclient.com/product/download.jsp

Prototype 1.6 has landed and is available here Prototype 1.6 final

Scriptaculous 1.8 (based on prototype 1.6) is available here script.aculo.us 1.8 final

Both releases help to dramatically simplify the task of writing AJAX applications.

For those of you who don’t know, Rocket GWT is an excellent library for use with the Google Web Toolkit.  It provides a dramatically expanded widget library as well as Drag & Drop and Enhanced Event support.

Today marks the .38 maintainence release.  I encourage anyone using this framework in the projects to upgrade for the performance enhancements alone.

Find out more about the release here:

http://rocket-gwt.blogspot.com/2007/11/rocket-038-release-mostly-assortment-of.html 

I try not to get too excited about Beta & RC releases around here, but Dojo 1.0 RC 1 is a big deal.

Many, groundbreaking changes have gone into the Dojo .9 & 1.0 release cycle ranging from complete reorganization of the toolkit & major performance increases to innovative new ways to approach AJAX programming itself.

It’s still an RC and not fully ready for prime time, but I plan on taking it out for a spin.

http://dojotoolkit.org/2007/11/02/dojo-1-0-release-candidate-1 

Hi everyone,  Today marks the 3 Month Anniversary of Ajax Bestiary.

With over 100 posts I think its time to solicit some feedback from you.

What would you like to see change about Ajax Bestiary?

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

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/