Prototype 1.6 is fast approaching and we’re already seeing loads of developers adopting the update in projects.  As this tutorial shows, The improvements to Class & inheritance in are truly compelling reasons to jump.

Prototype 1.6 Inheritance tutorial via Ajaxian

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 

From Thinkweb2.com comes Proto.Menu.  A fast and simple context menu based on javascript

Features:

• Lightweight: ~2 KB (~1.5 KB minified)
• Unobtrusive: Plays nice with JS turned off, uses its own namespace
• Cross-browser: Full A-Graded browsers support (Opera is supported through Ctrl + Left Click)
• Fully customizable: Menu styling can (and is intended to) be easily defined in external stylesheet
• Fast: Menu container is rendered on page load, and only changes position on click

Proto.Menu 

Created By: kangax

Name: ext Javascript Library
URL: http://extjs.com
Native Server Environment: None
Included Widgets: Grids, Layouts, Panels, Menus, Buttons, Form, Tree, ComboBox, Dialog, Tab Panel
Download Size: VariableOriginally developed as an add on library for the YUI toolkit, ext has emerged as a powerful and capable toolkit in its own right. Ext has a powerful focus on widgets and application construction similar to Dojo’s dijit system. It’s biggest strength, however, is the fact that it can float on top of just about any underlying AJAX library or stand on its own.

Some Highlights

• Powerful animation & effect tools
• Excellent editable grid widget
• Compatible with several major AJAX libraries
  • YUI
  • Scriptaculous / Prototype
  • jQuery
• Powerful Skinning System

Some Drawbacks

• A bit of a learning curve
• Demo’s & tutorials may not work due because they were coded for different underlying library
• Depends on underlying library for many key functions, some features don’t work well with all libraries.
• Focus on XML or JSON for some tasks & in documentation