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/ 

Although there are some comments that it may not be ready for Prime Time.  Fireclipse may be the tool you need to supercharge your development cycle.

 What it is

An Eclipse Plugin & Expanded version of Firebug.

The Expanded Firebug provides an Eclipse Tab within the browser environment.  The Eclipse plugin integrates the Firebug console into eclipse.

Get it Online Here: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/u/bartonjj/fireclipse/index.html 

What is WebRunner:

WebRunner is a simple XULRunner based browser that hosts web applications without the normal web browser user interface. WebRunner is based on a concept called Site Specific Browsers (SSB). An SSB is an application with an embedded browser designed to work exclusively with a single web application. It doesn’t have the menus, toolbars and accoutrement’s of a normal web browser. Some people have called it a “distraction free browser” because none of the typical browser chrome is used. An SSB also has a tighter integration with the OS and desktop than a typical web application running through a web browser. (From Wiki.Mozilla.Org )

What This Means For You

A webapp packaged with WebRunner looks and acts more like a native desktop application than a traditional web application. It provides a streamlined deployment environment and allows you to dramatically reduce the visual noise a browser provides.

Low Cost of Entry

At a bare minimum, a WebRunner app is simply a file that describes the url of your web application and a few basic settings. Your existing apps will port to the WebRunner environment without any changes at the server.

Added Functionality

Since a WebRunner app is executing in a known browser environment. Many additional capabilities are available. Using the XUL & XBL capabilities of firefox, Applications can take advantage of the OS native widget set. Firefox’s excellent native SVG support can be harnessed for powerful visuals & the relaxed security environment can allow for greater integration between the web application and client desktop.

Read More:

• LifeHacker Article
  
• WebRunner + Google Gears

What is it:

Crosscheck is an open source testing framework for verifying your in-browser javascript. It helps you ensure that your code will run in many different browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox, but without needing installations of those browsers. The only thing you need is a Java Virtual Machine.

How it works:

It executes javascript in a browserless environment & records the results.  It is capable of testing against both IE and Firefox on any computer.

It’s limitations: 

For many of us, fine grained javascript unit testing doesn’t make the most sense.  An automated environment can’t tell you if something looks right or if the drag is actually dragging, but it can verify that defined functions & ajax calls are performing as expected.

It’s free, open source & worth investigating for your next project.

Find Crosscheck online at www.thefrontside.net/crosscheck
Learn more about using crosscheck from Jason Harwig’s Blog 

Sébastien Gruhier has released a powerful new layout engine to facilitate the construction of ajax applications in prototype. Here’s a shot of it in action:

The system is based on CSS classes applied to individual divs (lm_top, lm_bottom, lm_left, lm_right, lm_center. Div’s can also be nested if needed to produce complex layouts.

Elements can be added simply with a call to the LayoutManager object.
layoutManager.add('your_element_id');

One caveat: the script requires protoype 1.6. Scriptaculous hasn’t caught up with prototype 1.6 at this time.

Find it Online Here:

http://blog.xilinus.com/2007/10/3/simple-layout-manager-with-prototype-1-6 

Fat Free Cart’s got a lot going for it. It’s a quick & easy way to add a cart without any real server support. It’s free & remotely hosted to boot.

Some Features:

1. Handles shipping, handling, tax.
2. Handles up-to 3 option variables.
3. Can handle all currencies supported by PayPal (16) and Google Checkout (2).
4. Passed your site’s Google Analytics data to Google Checkout
5. Simply set the product price to 0.00 to let buyer enter her own amount!

This is obviously a tool designed to encourage you to upgrade to the premium version, but It’s a pretty impressive and straightforward tool to start with.

Sprinkle JS, is a handly little js tool that allows you to add “src” attributes to divs.  Any div can then derive its content from another html file on the web.

More info at http://www.sprinklejs.com

Spket is a handy commercial IDE for developing Rich Internet Applications.

Key Features:

• PHP Support
• Javascript Library Support for:
  • ExtJS
  • jQuery
  • YUI
• Xul/XBL
• SVG
• Laszlo
• Silverlight / XAML
• Yahoo Widgets

Spket is free for commercial use or $29.00 for an individual license.  Bulk licensing & free licenses via an affiliate program are also available.

You can get Spket Here

I’ve begun using a set of visual guides to streamline my blueprint development process.  They are simple png files that I drop into photoshop, illustrator & indesign as layers and then dial down the transparency / set fill color to something visible but not distracting.  I plan on integrating them into the next release of the blueprint layout tool as well.

• Blueprint Layout template with baseline.
• Blueprint Layout Template Without Baseline

I’ve put together a drag & drop layout builder for the Blueprint CSS framework. It’s still pretty rough around the edges but it is usable for quickly putting together layouts.

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

Deep thanks goes to the YUI & Blueprint teams for developing such robust tools & to Dav Glass who created both the inspiration for the toolkit & several solutions needed to put this together.

Please let me know what you think!