Contents tagged with AJAX
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Seadragon & Deep Zoom
I stumbled upon this today and definitely want to play with this further when I have time....
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Link Love: 09/21/2007
I havent been blogging much over the past several months. The main reason is time, or the lack thereof. Since I dont have time to write a "proper" blog post, I'm just going to start sharing some link love...
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Google Reader Updated
Last year, Google Reader was released by Google Labs, and it looked intriguing, so I imported my OPML and started adding feeds.
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Time to learn Atlas...
Its been a while since I really felt like I total noob on some technology, but with all of the advances in development over the past few years, I seemed to have missed the Ajax boat. Back in the IE4/IE5 days, I did some fairly advanced stuff with DHTML/Javascript, Html Behaviors (HTCs), with liberal usage of XmlHttp. Sadly, I really just didnt revist this stuff once that DotCom was absorbed/relocated to L.A.and I took a "Corporate Development" gig for the next 5 years.
Okay, enough excuses - now its time to get back my thin-client scripting skils, so what do I need to learn?
Hmm...I have heard a bit about Microsoft's answer to Ajax, the Atlas project, so I'll go see what they are doing...- Navigated to www.atlas.com & www.atlas.net... Oops! not what i'm looking for... I sure wish they would name these projects better!
- Nagivated to msdn.microsoft.com... Hmm..no mention of Atlas there either...
- Entered "Atlas" in search box...found lots of misc articles, but nothing really for a beginner...
- Googled Atlas and found "atlas.asp.net" Woohoo!
er...whats this? Okay, so this is some kind of "Download Blog"...luckily the latest post is called "Atlas Setup - July CTP"...I'm sure that will start the download! Wait! Now I'm back at a microsoft.com download page. Hmm, wonder why this didnt show up in Microsoft's search results....
(fast forward after downloading the Atlas July CTP, and various related files that looked interesting)
Okay, so it installed a Microsoft.Web.Atlas.dll, some Visual Studio project templates for Atlas...but where are the JavaScript files?
Oh, there are some in the install folder at:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft ASP.NET\Atlas\v2.0.50727\Atlas\ScriptLibrary
(peruses Atlas.js, et al)
Wow! There is some really crazy JavaScript here!! Huh!? what is this....What the....oh my gosh...how are they doing.....Hey is this OOP with java?!?!
(12 hours later)
Ahhhhhhhh! So, you can treat a Function like a class!! Eureka! Oh wow...then they extend the base Function object so that all classes have some basic services...then they built a bunch of base types, interfaces, and higher level classes on top of this. Hey! This is starting to look a lot like the .NET Framework - yet in JavaScript!
(Brain is melting, so I decide to call it a day and start fresh tomorrow)
Okay, I get the gist now, so lets move on...I'll create a new project using the Atlas Project Template. Ah, I see said the bind man....They monkeyed-up the whole ASP.NET stack with new httpModules, httpHandlers, some converters for popular data containers....not sure what much of this stuff is, but I'll figure that out when I need it.
Wait! Dont I need to copy these Atlas JavaScript files into my web project somewhere? No? Well, the project template only has the Ajax DLL, so there must be some global ClientScripts folder somewhere that is setup by aspnet_regiis.exe.
(checking Web root for scripts)
Hmm...nothing there....(checks .NET Framework install folders) not there either....WTH!?!
Okay, I'll just "assume" they know what they are doing and move along....so lets find a tutorial on how to get started with this stuff...
(Flips back to browser pointed at Atlas.asp.net site)
Okay, so lets see whats on this "Get Started" tab...
Doh! I should have started there in the first place... Guess next time I'm a noob, I'll RTFM... :)
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Wanna trade your old CD's? LaLa to the rescue!
Lala is a recently launched service to help individuals list their music CD library to enable them to trade them with other users.
The website is a nice AJAX mash-up with what is essentially just a db of CD covers and users who either own or want them.
How does this work? The site is free to register, but they make their money by charging a transaction fee. Each trade costs each user $1.49 (1$ fee + $.49 shipping) and there is no middleman.
What makes me sad is that I had come up with a strikingly similar concept several years ago with a coworker, but we could not get it past the prototype stage due to lack of time to work on it....sigh chalk that up with yet another lost opportunity...but great work by LaLa!