Creating Tools for AJAX Development
Google engEDU
1 hr – May 3, 2006

Google TechTalks
May 3, 2006

Javier Pedemonte, IBM
Adam Peller, IBM

ABSTRACT
Tools for building HTML/Javascript and so-called AJAX-style applications are sparse. Mozilla has traditionally had the best tools in Venkman and its DOM Inspector, but recently development has been stagnant and these tools do not offer integration with active code development.

Newer tools like Firebug offer more clever tools to inspect pages but still have no role in the rest of the development cycle.

The Eclipse AJAX Toolkit Framework brings these types of tools into the Eclipse IDE — making use of the Java XPCOM to Java bridge and leveraging the robust features of Eclipse, while leaving the environment pluggable for more enhancements. The current work will be demonstrated and the architecture will be discussed, with particular attention to the JavaScript debugger and embedding of xulrunner. Read the rest of this entry »

HTML forms Next Generation
Google engEDU
53 min – Mar 5, 2007

Google Tech Talks
March 5, 2007

ABSTRACT

Web-based replacements for spreadsheets and simple forms

By Dave Raggett, W3C Fellow and Principal Researcher at Volantis Systems.

The ability to collect data from users and to submit it to servers has become a very important part of the Web. Forms are often supplemented by Web page scripts that enable the data to be checked as the user is filling out the form and before sending it to the server. These scripts can get quite complicated to develop and to maintain, making it interesting to explore ideas for replacing such scripts by equivalent declarative approaches.

XForms-Tiny is an incremental extension of HTML4 forms that can be deployed on today’s Web browsers using an open source cross-browser JavaScript library that works on Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox 1.5 and 2, Opera 9, Konqueror 3.5, and Safari, When delivered via HTTP as a compressed file, the download size is only 6 Kilo Bytes.

XForms-Tiny provides authors with the means to use simple JavaScript expressions for validating field values and spreadsheet-like formulae for computed fields, but also the means to describe repeating groups of fields, e.g. for line items in a purchase order. XForms-Tiny further provides for suppression of irrelevant parts of forms and context dependent control over which fields must be filled out. All this is possible without the page author needing to write any lines of client-side script.

This talk will present XForms-Tiny and place it in the context of related work (Web Forms 2.0, XForms-Basic, and XForms full) as well as the challenges for dealing with the small displays on mobile devices.

You will also learn about new approaches for browser-based editors that avoid the pitfalls of designMode and which are paving the way for a replacement for spreadsheets, browser-based editing of slide presentations and much more.

If people are interested and there is time available, I could also give a brief summary of the impending W3C Ubiquitous Web Applications working group that applies markup and eventing to simplify the development of distributed applications across a wide variety of network appliances including desktop computers, office equipment, home media appliances, mobile devices (phones), physical sensors and effectors.

http://www.w3.org/2007/03/html-forms Read the rest of this entry »

Gears and the Mashup Problem
Google engEDU
44 min – Sep 20, 2007

Google Tech Talks
September, 20 2007

ABSTRACT

Mashups are the most interesting innovation in software development in decades. Unfortunately, the browser’s security model did not anticipate this development, so mashups are not safe if there is any confidential information in the page. Since virtually every page has at least some confidential information in it, this is a big problem. Google Gears may lead to the solution.

Speaker: Douglas Crockford
Douglas Crockford is the world’s foremost living authority on JavaScript. He is an architect with Yahoo’s Ajax Strike Force. He is the founder of two startups, and was Director of Technology at Lucasfilm Ltd., Director of New Media at
Paramount, and a researcher at Atari and SRI. Read the rest of this entry »

The <video> Element
Google engEDU
32 min – Mar 29, 2007

Google Tech Talks
March 29, 2007

ABSTRACT

Video is becoming increasingly important content type, and it’s time to make video a first-class citizen on the web. The element is, along with JavaScript bindings, proposed as a simple solution to encourage browsers to support video natively. Equally important is the choice of video format to be used with. I will argue that the success of the web is based on using open standards, and that video should be no exception. I will demo Opera showing Ogg Theora video clips natively.

A demonstration is available here:

http://people.opera.com/howcome/2007/video Read the rest of this entry »

RUBY: Competitious On Rails
Google engEDU
59 min – Mar 8, 2007

Google Tech Talks
March 1, 2007

ABSTRACT

Kris Rasmussen and Andy Holt from Competitious will be sharing their experience using RoR in a production environment in a new startup. In addition, they’ll explain some of the many advantages Rails has for companies like theirs and smaller teams, as well as some of the disadvantages and gotchas of production Rails apps. Finally, they’ll describe their architecture and cover some unique solutions to common problems, including squeezing extra performance out of AJAX with javascript templates and handling activity logging more elegantly. Read the rest of this entry »