Yahoo! Releases OSS Ajax and Design Tools 164
Cocteaustin writes "Today Yahoo! released the Yahoo! User Interface Library. This library is comprised of a number of dynamic HTML utilities and controls for building rich web UIs and Ajax applications. They are made available under an open-source license. In addition, Yahoo! released the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library. This collection of design patterns for Web interaction is intended to provide Web designers prescriptive guidance to help solve common design problems on the Web. Both are free in both senses of the word."
I for one find that... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I for one find that... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I for one find that... (Score:5, Informative)
The list of components is:
* Calendar
* Slider
* TreeView
That's a pretty small list, and all are components that are fairly common in AJAX circles.
The core utilities portion of the library is just Yahoo's convenience methods that help abstract away browser differences. Nice if you don't have wrappers like these already, but not very useful if you do. Many AJAX programmers will probably choose to stick with their own libraries.
A few things that come to mind that are missing from this library are:
* A text editor components
* DataGrid/Spreadsheet component
* Scrolling viewports
* Feature-rich DHTML replacements for buttons, lists, radio buttons, and other common controls.
* Application layout engine
I'm pretty sure that Yahoo! has these types of components, but isn't going to share as long as there is more value in keeping them secret.
All in all, it's a nice gesture by Yahoo!. Just don't expect a complete library.
Re:I for one find that... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:I for one find that... (Score:1)
Re:I for one find that... (Score:2)
That said, I think it's positively wonderful! The hard part of web design isn't usually the design, but convincing the clients that a certain technology is OK to use. It's even harder when you're working in Microsoft land, and everyone knows you're
this is not a widget library (Score:5, Informative)
The animation systems are actually pretty awesome [dotgnu.info]. The cacheTween() functionality in there takes it very close to what I've been doing with flash previously.
Morover, Y! has been using these for the past 6 months on different browsers before they open sourced. That part is really what most people look at.
Re:this is not a widget library (Score:2)
This is about the ygPos,ygAnim and ygDom libraries which are invaluable to most people (at least me).
This is what I love about doing DHTML/AJAX. People are so easily impressed.
Re:this is not a widget library (Score:1)
Yahoo's stuff looks pretty weak in comparison... not to mention that VisualEffects uses much more clean implementation with prototype.js
Re:I for one find that... (Score:2)
You don't write much AJAX/DHTML, do you?
* A standard way to do Ajax.
More standard than the DOM? There is no "standard" here or there. There's an API and suggested design methods. That and 50 cents will buy you a cup of coffee.
* A way to have your own events.
Your own events? You mean, pass the function handle to a given object, then wait for it to call you back with an event object? This is basic JavaScript.
* A way to do positioning. (moving objects)
It's called CSS.
Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:5, Informative)
Check them out here [yahoo.net]
Their stated goal is to have startups use their APIs as the foundation for new sites/tech.
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:2)
That was interesting. Thanks for the link. It looks like yahoo is using [yahoo.net] JSON [json.org] for their wire protocol. I find that to be interesting for two reasons. The first is that it is not an XML based protocol. The second reason is that JSON is also the wire protocol for the ironically named AJAX.NET [schwarz-interactive.de].
I wonder who else is developing JSON based APIs and if that is going to be the next big thing?
Not all their APIs are the best (Score:3, Insightful)
Not really. Have you ever looked at their ads API [yahoo.com]? It can't even bgein to compare to what Google offers [google.com].
It takes about 90 seconds to sign up and start getting access to advertising data via Google's API. It's SOAP, so pretty much every programming language besides BASIC and Forth are supported. Google has loads of documentation online regarding their ad API program. And it's free. You get to do what you want with the data that you g
Re:Not all their APIs are the best (Score:2)
Re:Not all their APIs are the best (Score:2)
I guess it depends on what's important from a developer/business point of view. A lot of money can be managed via an ads API. Having one vs. not having one can make a huge difference in ad spending for some organizations (SEMs, especially). But if you're a web developer lo
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:3)
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:2)
J
Re:Yahoo is the new Google? (Score:2)
Hahahahaha. And google does precisely the same thing, as you'd see if you read a couple of paragraphs into the article you link to.
People are worried about Google's response to the government subpoena for info, but seem to turn a blind eye to Yahoo! complicity.
Worried? I see more mindless admiration "OMG they're so awesome for trying to fight this in court". And IIRC Yahoo made it clear everything was anonymise
Really good stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Really good stuff (Score:1, Offtopic)
Really good stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, well. Slashdot is based in what people thinks it's informative or not, but if people can't tell if something is informative or not, then moderation isn't useful.
show me the money (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:show me the money (Score:4, Insightful)
Google's acts of "driving people to its site" do nothing for Google's bottom line. Google, like Yahoo!, is an advertising company which makes the vast majority of its income from other web sites besides their search engines / portals.
Re:show me the money (Score:3, Informative)
When people questioned seriousness of that OS, you could (and still) say "Yahoo runs on it". Conversation is over.
I have no idea why Google is "good guy" and Yahoo gets amazing misinformed comments on each story. They even called Yahoo "wannabe" when they advertised (existing for years) http://search.yahoo.com/ [yahoo.com]
(robots.txt exclusion, it exists at least since 1999 if you look to archive.org)
Re:show me the money (Score:2)
You contradicted yourself. Driving people to their site is how Google generates advertising revenue (maybe not all of it, but enough to impact thier "bottom line"). You didn't think all those ads on the right of your search results were free, did you?
Re:show me the money (Score:2)
Re:show me the money (Score:2)
Congratulations on your release, and thank you for continuing to do amazingly cool stuff. Oh, and make sure you continue to keep your marketing droids in check, mmkay?
Very nice - great little library (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that any of this is ground-breaking, but it is a nice little package.
Makes Google's download package from last month look pretty lame.
Re:Very nice - great little library (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:Very nice - great little library (Score:1)
It's goingt to be a long road for both of them as growing resentment http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ [useit.com]
Re:Very nice - great little library (Score:2, Flamebait)
OK OK mod me flamebait.
Re:Very nice - great little library (Score:1)
Yahoo UIL and Google Code pages (Score:5, Informative)
BSD license (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BSD license (Score:2)
Re:BSD license (Score:4, Funny)
Re:BSD license (Score:2, Informative)
Re:BSD license (Score:3, Interesting)
I know at least 1 giant company started using FreeBSD because of Yahoo. "It can handle entire yahoo userbase" is really a huge "selling" point.
http://www.ictp.trieste.it/~cfonda/sudan/OSs/refe
When is a design pattern not a Design Pattern? (Score:3, Informative)
Nice Accessibility (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice Accessibility (Score:3, Insightful)
thanks yahoo! (Score:2)
The components and patterns Yahoo has released will speed up the development of feature rich sites for other organizations.
Prototype still rocks (Score:4, Interesting)
There are some good snippets in there though, and Yahoo has done a good job of introducing code and web services to the developer community, much much more that Google has.
The design patterns are a very very good thing to expose. Although many of us might have been using similar standards, it sort of brings a number of them under one umbrella and into one place.
Re:Prototype still rocks (Score:3, Informative)
I had to google around to find documentation, such as this site [sergiopereira.com]).
Re:Prototype still rocks (Score:3, Informative)
For a really lightweight effects library, check out moo.fx [mad4milk.net].
Re:Prototype still rocks (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Prototype still rocks (Score:1)
Where is the tree widget for Prototype again? OMG there is none!
Prototype has some nice features and allows for OO like programming in Javascript. But it mangles the Javascript Object and the OO design promotes code bloat.
Anyone doing any serious DHTML should check out JQuery (http://jquery.com/ [jquery.com]), it's a revolutionary lightweight Javascript library that borrows the niceties of Prototype but allows you to achive the same result in a fraction of the code. You can also use it with Prototype, and it weighs
Re:Prototype still rocks (Score:2)
Hurrah! Clap-clap! (Score:2, Interesting)
"Library", are you kidding me? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a collection of, count em, THREE main scripts folks. There are free libraries of javascript code out there with orders of magnitude more DHTML functions and scripts. Sure, Yahoo offers some derivatives of each of their primary functions, but one of the categories is a collection of "vented menuing" scripts that could have been written five years ago. Only a multi-national company bent on branding (and yes Google, you're in the same boad) could put up a page like that and call it a Library.
To be honest, I'm consistently frustrated by the status of OSS code with regard to the DHTML components necessary to support open source RIA technology. If you want to do a vented menu, have a slider control, or YADDA you can find about 450 million scripts scattered across the javascript repositories of the web.
What it comes down to is this; if you want to do a collapsible menu or drag and drop then you're in luck, we have the widgets in OSS for you! OSS RIA won't be feasible until SVG stabilizes and is as ubiquitous as the Flash plug-in.
-rt
Re:"Library", are you kidding me? (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed. Most of the posters obviously didn't do much investigation, or are not that familiar with AJAX development. This is the same stuff you've been able to get elsewhere for a LONG time. The Blueshoes [blueshoes.org] and ActiveWidget [activewidgets.com] collections are a lot more useful, albeit not entirely free.
To be honest, I'm consistently frustrated by the status of OSS code with regard to the DHTML components necessary to support open source RIA technology.
It's because the market is still young. For right now there's money to be made in DHTML controls. As long as that's true, programmers aren't going to be giving stuff away. (Hell, I've got my stash of super-secret components, and I'm willing to bet that you do too.) Once components become more commonplace, OSS libraries will begin appearing.
Re:"Library", are you kidding me? (Score:5, Informative)
It's fully documented as well.
Re:"Library", are you kidding me? (Score:2)
Re:"Library", are you kidding me? (Score:2)
I.e. never. SVG has no reference implementations, so in a comparison I saw recently, 10 different SVG "compliant" renderers renders the same content in 10 different ways.
SVG is just a vector engine slapped on top of HTML/CSS and JS. Flash has audio, video, sockets, it has JavaScript 2.0 JIT compiler (coming in a couple of months) with true OOP and it's hella fast.
Flash has advanced authoring environment for bu
Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
TWW
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
Poorly implemented breadcrumbs are a waste of screen space. Well implemented breadcrumbs are an invaluable navigation tool. They help users track where they are in a given subsection, and help give the user a feel for the overall tree structure of the site. They also improve navigation by allowing the user to reach any level above the current one quickly and easily.
For example, say I'm shopping for a new laptop. I mig
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:1)
Store >> Computers >> Desktops >> Store >> Specials >> Store >> Laptops >> Bell Demented X
And this is actual requested behavior! I'd agree that site navigation tools
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
In fact, I'd go as far as to say that what you've described isn't breadcrumbs at all, which were really another way of displaying a "file path" style view of where you are on heirarchical sites, such as web forums or stores with categories like the GP suggested. That they are clickable is a bonus feature taken from file managers that added that.
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
I just press Alt-left-arrow and pick a different link; I don't even have to move my hand to the mouse.
Breadcrumbs are an indication that a site is badly designed (or that the PHB/client has seen them somewhere and thinks all "professional" sites have to have them).
TWW
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:3, Insightful)
The back button doesn't work if you land directly on the page. Breadcrumbs also provide information to the user about their location independent from the ability to move to those locations. Pay attention, young padewon.
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:1)
This sounds like the writing of someone who doesn't have a very large userbase for their site, or doesn't much care about providing the best browsing experience for those users. When you're designing a public website, you're aiming to minimize the amount of confusion that may occur on the part of your users. You want to make things easier for
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
Help! Help! I'm being attacked by a usability-fad-of-the-month nazi!
TWW
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
I'm not talking about when I'm designing; it was just a coincidence that I was typing up a site with breadcrumbs when the story appeared.
As a USER I find the current trend of having breadcrumbs inexplicable except insofar as it seems to go hand in hand with sites which are thrown together and then have some navigation trick stapled on in order to avoid the whole plan being totally unusable. In other words: as
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
That people react positively to the sight of a trail, and say they like them but when their usage is monitored they actually rarely use them.
It's like clients who ask for - nay, insist on - a CMS for their site. They love them. They pay extra for them. They never fucking use them! We even tell them: "look, you want a content management system; everyone does. But your site is pretty static; it would be cheaper to just pay us once a year to update the pag
Re:Bloody Breadcrumbs (Score:2)
Users don't learn what sites to like from a book. As a user I find breadcrumbs pointless. Sorry to have disturbed your dreamworld; go back to your books.
TWW
Oblig. Grinch (Score:1, Insightful)
Now I do think Yahoo has done a smart thing in doing this under a BSD license, but it's worth remembering that this might be because they don't really have a way to protect their IP anyway. You can muss up script to be less readable,
Re:Oblig. Grinch (Score:2)
Yes there is: It's called copyrights and patents. You can easily have your ass handed to you on a courtroom plate if you try to rip off someone else's JavaScript. Make sure you have permission before you start stealing code from other
Re:Oblig. Grinch (Score:2)
A good way to not-release-the-source is some sort of binary distribution that cannot be trivially decompiled. To some extent, you can obfuscate your JavaScript pretty well with various tools that are out there, but if it's m
Re:Oblig. Grinch (Score:2)
No such thing exists anymore. Even complex C/C++ programs can be decomplied quite easily. It's just that people feel more exposed with JavaScript because the code is distributed in source form. Try a packer/obfuscator like this one [edwards.name] instead. The code can still be extracted by someone smart enough, but it does put a barrier in their way.
Re:Oblig. Grinch (Score:2)
I always do. Trolls don't like it (it smells too much like a real conversation), but it works well for those of us who like to actually discuss things.
Anyway, I do agree with your point, but it seems unlikely, which is why I think this is mainly for PR due to the nature of the tech. My point was that if they could enforce their IP they might not have gone this way.
It really depends on how valuable the technology is to you. If I implement a gaming library in AJA
Please don't use the drag and drop (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Please don't use the drag and drop (Score:3, Insightful)
Comments interesting and appreciated... (Score:5, Insightful)
With that said, I'd also like to say that the pages are pretty well done. It is obvious that a great deal of time and effort was spent conceiving, writing, and, producing these beginnings of libraries and instructions. I found the effort to be commendable and interesting.
For someone like me, these types of efforts actually help me understand quicker and keep me interested.
UI Controls (Score:1)
Unless there's a Grand Hatch (tm) that we've all overlooked, I'll start using this right away*!
So, thanks Yahoo.
*) In this particular comment, "right away" is defined as "tomorrow, or any other time I feel like checking it out".
I wish I had these 3 years ago (Score:2)
I think my calendar is easier to use. And mine creates the div and checks to see if it already exists.
Someone now needs a UI Design tool that allows people to easyly integrate these into a design WYSIWYG mode.
Calendar foo = new Calendar('your_id');
Opera Users... (Score:2, Informative)
Design Tools? Bah! (Score:1)
Good compatibility too, this is great! (Score:2)
I think a standard JS widget library is a definite good thing, and with a company like Yahoo behind it it will probably get more developer awareness and traction with the business folks too than what's been available up to this point from smaller developers.
BSD licensed too, so it's free in any sense of the word for any use (good for us half-commercial folks
Damn... (Score:2)
You think I kid.
Horay for Yahoo! (Score:2)
Pity about the reporters they've shopped to the Chinese... They're probably quite uncomfortable right now. But hey, Free! Code!
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
And who's even mentioned search? You simply created made that inference up out of thin air. Read more carefully before you post.
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:2)
Shut up already.
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Thank you for marking me as a "foe," though. I look forward to not reading your reply.
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:1)
Re:Yahoo, giving guidance on Web design? (Score:2)
Re:Design Fixes. (Score:3, Insightful)
Patterns are nothing to do with languages. Patterns are not meant to fix problems in languages, they are conceptual repeating patterns, like 'the need to store', 'the need to display', 'the need to pass data'.
If your language of choice happens to implement one of these languages (roughly like struct or Object for the DTO pattern), then so much the better.
Justin.
Re:Design Fixes. (Score:1)
Re:Design Fixes. (Score:3)
Re:So.... this is newsworthy? (Score:2)
Re:So.... this is newsworthy? (Score:2)
Is that the same Backbase that has "Your web browser is not compatible with the primary Backbase site. Find out which browsers are supported at the Compatible browsers page." at the top of the page, and whose demos are entirely broken?
Backbase support for Safari and Opera has been "forthcoming" for quite a while. It's not there yet. Which means that Backbase is about as useful as ActiveX for public websites.
Nice architecture. Once it actually works I'll pay more attention to it. Right now? Not even clos