JavaScript
Released this week: Eclipse PDT 1.0 and YUI 2.3.1
The PHP Developer Tools Project reached a major milestone this week with the version 1.0 release of PDT. I had recently installed the all-in-one Europa/PDT release and received errors when attempting to update via the Update Manager—something about being unable to unzip a package. Today, however, everything seems fine and when I reviewed Help -> Software Updates -> Manage Configuration -> PDT Feature, it showed version 1.0 as installed.
Add jQuery code assist to Eclipse WTP on Mac OS X
I'd recently run across a nifty patch for Eclipse WTP which adds jQuery code assist to WTP's stock JavaScript features. The installation instructions looked simple enough, back up the original WTP JavaScript jar file, download the jQueryWTP patch, run it, and voila, jQuery development gets a little faster in Eclipse. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy.
During my first attempts, the jQueryWTP patch installer wouldn't run on Mac OS X 10.4.11 at work. The patch wouldn't run on Leopard at home either. Neither the jQueryWTP project nor its SourceForge download page provide Java or WTP version requirements. All screenshots I've seen show installation on Windows. After a lot of flailing, I was eventually able to get the patch installed. Here is an archive of my trials and tribulations.
YUI Rollover Part 2: Improving JavaScript Performance and Scalability
In my previous article we traded in old school JavaScript habits for unobtrusive methods and the Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI). The YUI's Event and DOM extensions greatly simplify basic DOM scripting tasks. Let's build on this foundation and improve the rollover script's performance and scalability.
Introduction to Unobtrusive JavaScript, DOM Scripting, and the Yahoo! User Interface (YUI) Library
If you know JavaScript but have yet to make the leap to unobtrusive JavaScript, read on. I'll demonstrate how to upgrade a traditional DHTML rollover to an unobtrusive script and then to a script that leverages the Yahoo! User Interface Library's (YUI).
JavaScript widget bottlenecks and bugs beware
UPDATE: AHS has been updated to v0.3.9.7 to eliminate the YUI Event.addListener(window, 'resize', function) issue! Alex Iskold over at Read/Write Web posted a great article about JavaScript's performance impact on blog sites today. Like most blogs, this site relies on several single lines of JavaScript to power interface features, display widgets, and process data. This site, as well as all of the others that load things like Google Adsense, loads a little bit slower.