Scand Unveils dhtmlxCombo – Ajax Combobox with Autocomplete

Scand continues to provide developers with flexible and versatile client-side components for building rich and interactive Ajax-enabled web interfaces. This time the company released a new JavaScript combobox with autocomplete capabilities dhtmlxCombo v1.0.

Research from ShmooCon: JavaScript flaws peril Web

JavaScript coding errors and Web developers who are inexperienced at working with emerging programming techniques represent serious threats to the security of many Internet sites and the people who visit them, according to malware researchers.

Flex Tips: grab URL content and display in text box

ActionScript code snippet bellow shows basic example of how to retrieve content of remote URL and display it in text box. This example uses HttpService functionality.

import mx.rpc.events.FaultEvent;
import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
import mx.rpc.http.mxml.HTTPService;

public function HttpGetUrl(url:String):void
{
var hs:HTTPService = new HTTPService();
hs.showBusyCursor = true;
hs.method = "GET";
hs.url = url;
hs.resultFormat = "text";
hs.useProxy = false;
hs.send(null);

hs.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT,serviceResult);
hs.addEventListener(FaultEvent.FAULT,serviceFail);
}

public function serviceResult(event:ResultEvent):void
{
txtSource.text = event.result.toString();
}

public function serviceFail(event:FaultEvent):void
{
txtSource.text = event.fault.faultString;
}

HP to buy Web-to-print software company Tabblo

Hewlett-Packard Co. has agreed to acquire Tabblo Inc., a developer of Web-based printing software, the company said Thursday.

Will PHP Bring Simplicity to AJAX

PHP is one of the most widely used languages on the Web today. Yet despite that fact there is no 'P' in AJAX , Zend co-founder Andi Gutmans believes that PHP could be the glue that makes AJAX work better...

Adobe Flex Componetns and Widgets

Below you can find list of resources where you can grab nice components and widgets for Adobe Flex:

• Adobe Flex Exchange
  http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?view=sn610
• RiaForge
  http://www.riaforge.org/index.cfm?event=page.category&id=3
  
• FlexBox
  http://flexbox.mrinalwadhwa.com/
  
• FlexLib
  http://code.google.com/p/flexlib/
• Yahoo AS3 Libraries
  http://developer.yahoo.com/flash/as3_api_libraries.html
  
• Brightworks
  http://www.brightworks.com/technology/adobe_flex/components_widgets_etc.html
• XMPP support. Looking for something to Jabber-enable your application? Try this lib: http://www.velloff.com/?p=17

• Zip archive parsing can be handled with FZip lib: http://codeazur.com.br/lab/fzip/

Morfik 07 - Released With Zero-Deployment-Cost Perpetual License

This morning Morfik announces the public release of Morfik 07, otherwise known as WebOS AppsBuilder Release 1. You can read the media release which was issued today at MorfikWiki.

You can download Morfik 07 from the Morfik website. Please log in to your Pioneer account and download from Dev2Dev and not from the Main page which is for the general public. Please READ THE RELEASE NOTES.

The significant new features in this release are:
· All Morfik project source files are XML format now.
· Morfik debugger has been modified to enable it to debug Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) created applications. What this means is that FPC is now the default backend compiler for Morfik.
· AppsBuilder Framework has been updated to work with the Salesforce.com API v8
· All languages (C#, JAVA, BASIC, Object Pascal) are now pretty close to being on par with each other

Morfik are also trialing a new feature to convert projects from one language to another, which is available under ‘Project Menu’ item. This feature is currently being used as an in-house tool for converting all the Morfik Labs sample projects, for which we have source code, to C#, Java and Basic languages. Let Morfik guys know what you think of it, but make sure you read the release notes which are provided before trialing it.

FABridge Usage tip

You might have some problems with using Adobe FABridge if you going to follow steps explained.

First of all note for SWFObject object users, SWFObject works with FABridge just fine. Below is the sample of how you can add your Flex application SWF on page to make it working:

var so = new SWFObject("flex_bin/jetstream.swf", "flexApp", "300", "250", "9", "transparent");
so.addParam("flashvars", "bridgeName=mxapp");
so.write('mxContainer');

Please don't forget to pass flashvars parameter with bridgeName=mxapp, mxapp in my case is the name of the bridged application instance. You name it from here, no need to do anything within your Flex application.

Will have a look into this issue for details later, but for the moment, - not working, dammit.

Ok. Now about actually FABridge. When you look at Adobe's Wiki post on http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Flex_Framework:FABridge it says what to do step-by-step, but, it wouldn't be a fun if stuff will just work. Unfortunately it does not.

So, i will skip all this blah-blah-blah crap and tell you what to do.

Unpack the archive u downloaded from Adobe's website with FABridge content. Find the FABridge.as in somehwere /src folder. Now go to your Flex Builder, in folder where u have sources, your *.mxml files, make a /bridge folder, put there this FABridge.as file.

Now in your application, add this line:
<fab:fabridge fab="bridge.*"/>

Build it now. Now you got it at least your SWF compiled with FABridge.

Now, you need to handle JavaScript side. Simple enough but still with some annoyances (later about them).

In your HTML page, include Flash object as it says in all these manuals u can find around you. After all you just can use Dreamweaver and it will do the job, if you have problems to make it on your own. Easiest way, indeed, to use SWFObject JavaScript library.

After you added your Flex application on page, you can do some JavaScripting:

function foo()
{
var flexApp = FABridge.mxapp.root();
flexApp.receiveModel('');
}

mxapp is the name you sent via with flashvars:
param name='flashvars' value='bridgeName=mxapp'

That's the way to tell Flex the name of your bridge, so you can refer to it later.

You see, now you can access your functions you made in your Flex application right in JavaScript (flexApp.receiveModel) - where receiveModel in my case is function in my Flex application.

hope this helps ;) any comments welcome

Backbase courts small Ajax development shops

Ajax development tool vendor Backbase has unveiled a new licensing programme designed to appeal to smaller software development shops.

Backbase has been focusing on selling its Asynchronous JavaScript and XML development framework to enterprises such as Bank of America, Canon and Motorola.

Flex: get url content

Example below shows quickie way to retrieve content over HTTP from specified location by using HttpService in Flex:

import mx.rpc.events.FaultEvent;
import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
import mx.rpc.http.mxml.HTTPService;

public function HttpGetUrl(url:String):void
{
var hs:HTTPService = new HTTPService();
hs.showBusyCursor = true;
hs.method = "GET";
hs.url = url;
hs.resultFormat = "text";
hs.useProxy = false;
hs.send(null);

hs.addEventListener(ResultEvent.RESULT,serviceResult);
hs.addEventListener(FaultEvent.FAULT,serviceFail);
}

public function serviceResult(event:ResultEvent):void
{
txtSource.text = event.result.toString();
}

public function serviceFail(event:FaultEvent):void
{
txtSource.text = event.fault.faultString;
}

"Laszlo Webtop" To Be Unveiled at AJAXWorld 2007 East in New York City

Attendees at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2007 East will be able to experience a live demo of Laszlo Webtop, a new framework from Laszlo Systems for delivering multiple applications inside an advanced framework and window management system. The demo will be given next week (March 20) by Robb Beal, Principal Systems Engineer at Laszlo.

Is Ajax to Serve as Spear Carrier for Next Generation Web Technology?

Around the time MP3 became the most widely searched term on the Internet, Michael Robertson’s MP3.com brought him into the light as a trend spotter.

Desktop Java faces off against AJAX

In a world where Web-based applications have dominated the discourse lately, does the desktop still matter?

Babble Soft and Cressanda Solutions Develop Baby Manager Web and Mobile Applications

Babble Soft, a leading supplier of software solutions in the baby market, has partnered with software development company Cressanda for the creation and deployment of Baby Manager Web and Mobile applications.

Presenting ThinWire AJAX

ThinWire® is an LGPL open source, free for commercial use, development framework that allows you to easily build applications for the web that have responsive, expressive & interactive user interfaces without the complexity of the alternatives. While virtually any web application can be built with ThinWire®, when it comes to enterprise applications, the framework excels with its highly interactive and rich user interface components. Use ThinWire® to handle the view-layer of your Java EE (J2EE) application and you'll be able to provide an unparalleled user experience, while at the same time completing your project faster than ever.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

The 50 Most Important People on the Web

Here's who's shaping what you read, watch, hear, write, buy, sell, befriend, flame, and otherwise do online.

Software AG's Web 2.0 Development Tool Now Available at no Cost

Software AG today announced the availability of a free community edition of Crossvision Application Designer. Crossvision Application Designer is a state-of-the-art Web 2.0 application design and runtime environment. It allows for quick and easy implementation of new applications, combining existing in-house applications and Web applications.

Adobe to Launch Apollo Beta

Adobe Systems Inc. later this month plans to launch the beta of a new runtime that will allow rich Web-based applications to run offline, technology that could threaten the popularity of programming platforms such as Java and Microsoft Corp.'s.NET.

Amiga Emulated in JavaScript

by Ajaxian.com

When was the last time that you played Shadow of the Beast? or launched Eyes?

Well, the beauty of the internet, and a bunch of time, has enabled an JavaScript emulation engine of the Amiga.

That has more “Wow” than Vista.

Adobe to take Photoshop online

Adobe has announced it will release a web edition of Photoshop. Yes, it will almost certainly be Flash based, not pure Ajax (technology aside, it’s the logical choice for the owner of the Flash platform!). Still, it’s big news for anyone involved in rich web apps…it wasn’t long ago when people would cite graphical editors as a typical example of what not to webify. Today, we already have several web-based image editors in production, and today’s news means we will soon have an official web edition of the best known desktop image editor.