Thomas Fuchs
Hi, I'm Thomas Fuchs. I'm the author of Zepto.js, of script.aculo.us, and I'm a Ruby on Rails core alumnus. With Amy Hoy I'm building cheerful software, like Noko Time Tracking and Every Time Zone and write books like Retinafy.me.
   Want me to speak at your conference? Contact me!

Prototype 1.7rc1 released

April 9th, 2010

A few days ago, Prototype 1.7rc1 was released and introduces some really cool new features and updates!

Perhaps most importantly, we now rely on middleware for the CSS selector engine. It defaults to Sizzle (used in jQuery among others), but you can also plug in others that might work better for your specific application. A good alternative is NWMatcher, a VERY fast selector engine. You might also find this useful in cases you do not need to support some older browsers, or if you want to use Prototype for specific platforms like iPhone Safari, to cut down on unwanted code.

The coolest new feature is Element#on, an encapsulation of the event delagation pattern that is so helpful in cutting down on the number of event handlers:

$("messagelist").on("click", "li.active", function() {
  // handle click on li elements with class "active"
});

Plus, Prototype 1.7 introduces a the new Element.Layout measurement methods, that allow for easy measuring of all sorts of CSS properties, automatic conversion to pixels of arbitrary CSS units plus measuring of hidden (display:none) elements.

Read the post at the Prototype blog for details!.