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Open Source Social Software Toolkit: PeoplePods

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:44:08 +0000

PeoplePods is an open source toolkit built with PHP/MySQL for creating websites with social networking capabilities with ease.

It can be used to build stand-alone sites or layered onto existing sites for adding social functionality.

It has the popular social functionality such as:

friend lists
personalized content views
bookmarking
voting, etc.

and standard web application features like:

log-in
personalization
content creation and management
& more

The toolkit is object-oriented & comes in 3 pieces: the core, plugin modules & administrative tools.

PeoplePods has support for theming & can be improved further easily with its plugins module.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: Mysql, Php

Site-Specific Browsers: Turn Websites Into Desktop Applications

Umut M. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:28:52 +0000

For a web application, It is always a good idea to provide access to it from other platforms like mobile or desktop programs.

As web designers/developers, desktop applications are harder to create considering they have a totally different environment.

In order to fill this gap, we can make use of site-specific browsers which enable us to lock a website inside an application-looking browser that can interact with the system tray/dock & display notifications.

Some usage examples for site-specific browsers:

displaying new orders, support tickets for an e-commerce website
showing system tray alerts when a new visitor visits your website
or even locking your whole application inside a site-specific browser and offering it as a desktop application.

To sum up, they simply help us convert a website into a desktop application. Here are free & mature tools for creating site-specific browsers:

Mozilla Prism (Win-Mac)

Prism is a very easy-to-customize tool that supports Windows & Mac.

Applications created can be:

minimized to system tray/dock & a navigation can be added there
set to display status messages & popups in the system tray/dock

Prism apps. will be running seperately from the browser & will stay alive even if the browser isn't.

P.S. You can also read a more detailed post about Prism at WRD.

Fluid (Mac)

Fluid enables you to create Cocoa desktop applications with:

dock icon
standard menu bar
growl notifications
Userscripting (Greasemonkey)
& more..

Bubbles (Win)

An application platform for creating site-specific browsers which supports:

system tray icon & context menu
notifications
drap'n drop of local files
& more..

Mango (Win)

Mango can create a website-to-application instantly with features like:

custom tray & context menu
minimize to tray
always on top
kiosk mode
fixed width/height
& more..

All application settings are kept in a XML file which can be used for further customization.

Other Site-Specific Browser Methods:

Curl offers EmbeddedBrowserGraphic to accomplish this functionality.
Using Adobe AIR, it is possible to create site-specific browsers (a simple example).
Site-specific browsers with WebKit.

Further Resources:

There are also other ways of creating desktop applications with web scripting technologies like:

Wapache: Apache server & IE bundled to create portable dynamic apps.
Appcelerator Titanium: create desktop apps. with HTML, CSS, Javascript as well as Flash and Silverlight (see WRD post).
Roadsend PHP: a platform for converting PHP apps into EXE files. (see WRD post)

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: Desktop, Mac, Windows

dynaTrace AJAX: IE Ajax Performance Analysis

Umut M. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:01:41 +0000

dynaTrace AJAX Edition is a free tool for diagnosing & preventing Ajax performance issues.

The tool runs on IE & measures the performance of your AJAX application as real users are feeling it.

It traces & analyzes AJAX calls through their entire round trip (DOM event, JavaScript, HTTP request, avaScript callback) and displays network traffic, CPU load, execution times & more.

dynaTrace AJAX also records every session for future offline analysis.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: IE, Javascript, Performance

Parsing XML With JavaScript: jParse

Umut M. — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:01:04 +0000

jParse is a jQuery plugin for parsing XML that was fetched with the jQuery .ajax method.

It can select the value of any XML node or a node's parameter & can ouput a totally customized HTML.

The plugin is very flexible & offers features like:

running callback functions before it starts & after it finishes
limitting the number of to be processed
excluding XML nodes with certain words, numbers or symbols
output the number of 's in a feed anywhere in your document

As jQuery .ajax method does not allow cross domain Ajax requests, the XML must be on the same domain.

To see how easy it is to parse a XML file with jParse, check the demo.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: Javascript, XML

Run Browsers From Web: Browser Sandbox

Umut M. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:01:06 +0000

Browser Sandbox is an online platform which makes launching various browser versions possible.

It requires an installation of a plugin & can run:

IE6-7-8
Firefox 2-3-3.5
Apple Safari 3-4
Opera 9-10
Google Chrome

The platform is definitely a gold mine for making cross-browser tests quickly & easily.

P.S. Spoon allows you to convert your own apps to Spoon apps & post them on the web. You can check the platform's homepage for that.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari

Krumo: A Better print_r() & var_dump() For PHP Developers

Umut M. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:25:45 +0000

Many PHP developers use print_r() & var_dump() for debugging which output hard to read/unformatted results.

Krumo is a replacement for these functions which can display structured information about any PHP variable.

Once Krumo is ran, the output is displayed in a collapsible DHTML tree built around the structure of the dumped PHP variable.

Also, it speeds up the debugging process by the ability of turning it "off" rather than disabling every dumping route inside the code.

Krumo runs on PHP 5 & to see how useful it can be, check the examples.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: Debug, Php

Build Applications The Way Google Does: Closure Tools

Umut M. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:21:37 +0000

Closure Tools is set of opensource (release info) developer tools by Google which are used while building Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs & many others.

The tools include a JavaScript compiler, library & templating system.

JavaScript Compiler

It compiles JavaScript into compact, high-performance code. The compiler removes dead code and rewrites and minimizes what's left so that it downloads and runs quickly.

It also checks syntax, variable references, and types, and warns about common JavaScript pitfalls.

The compiler also offers a Firebug extension, named Inspector, for better debugging.

Closure Library

It is a broad, well-tested, modular, & cross-browser JavaScript library.

Only what you need can be pulled from a large set of reusable UI widgets, controls, lower-level utilities for DOM manipulation, server communication, animation, data structures, unit testing, rich-text editing, & more.

Closure Templates

They simplifty the task of dynamically generating HTML.

In contrast to traditional templating systems, in which you use one big template per page, you can think of Closure Templates as small components that you compose to form your user interface.

Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets

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Tags: Debug, Javascript

15 Out-Of-The-Oven Adobe AIR Applications For Designers & Developers

Umut M. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:25:13 +0000

Adobe AIR applications are great considering the ease-of-use & simplicity they offer.

Almost regulary, WRD is sharing the fresh Adobe AIR applications that web designers & developers will find useful, like:

Since then, new applications are created & ready to use. And, here they are:

Image Editing, Debugging & Invoicing

zFlick

This is an awesome Flickr search tool that makes browsing between images fun.

Once you find what you're looking for, just drag'n drop that image to your desktop to download it.

PixelWindow

It helps measuring the width/height of any item on the desktop. With a semi-transparent background & custom-presets, it is a great helper when prototyping websites.

Caldera

Caldera resizes, renames & recompiles any number of images in bulk.

You can set it to resize images by scale or spedify a maximum width/height. The renaming function supports automated-names (prefix plus number).

URL Decoder And Encoder

A tiny application with a single purpose: it makes URLs with querystrings more readable, easier to analyze or can create querystrings from a given input.

Debug.a.li.cious Console

An application that transforms ActionScript objects into a human readable format with 5 different debugging levels.

doswf

doswf is an Adobe AIR application for encrypting, confusing & watermarking SWF files.

PreFab

This is a handy application for simplifying common tasks, improving the workflow & enhancing the visual quality of your Flash 3D productions.

It's a small but powerful tool that can add visual quality to low polygon models using a nice bag of tricks thanks to the advanced rendering capabilities of Away3D.