Safari Diversion

Here’s a handy bookmarklet for Safari 3.1, if you’re bored. It’s called flip, for obvious reasons.

Use this bookmarklet (drag to bookmarks bar):

flip

or this one if you want a prompt

flip2.

Have fun, and hello from RailsConf! 🙂

Google-served JavaScript libraries

Thanks to Dion Almaer and Google, you can now use served-off-googles-infrastructure versions of your favourite JavaScript libraries, including Prototype and script.aculo.us.

The files are served with proper caching headers and fully compressed (GZIP), so you don’t have to do it yourself.

In Dion’s words:

• Developers won’t have to worry about getting caching setup correctly, as we will do that for you
• If another application uses the same library (much more likely), they there is a much better chance that it will be already caching on the users machine
• The network and bandwidth of the users systems will not be taxed.

You can either use Google’s API loader (see link to docs below), or just use direct URLs. For example the following code block will load in Protoype and script.aculo.us’ effects (ignore the linebreaks!):

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.0.2/prototype.js"></script>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/scriptaculous/1.8.1/effects.js"></script>

You can read up on this at the documentation site.

Slides from SXSW JavaScript Panel

Head over to John Resigs blog post for more information! And thanks for the positive feedback we’ve received!

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Secrets of JavaScript Libraries

Meet John Resig, Sam Stephenson, Andrew Dupont, Alex Russell and me at the Secrets of JavaScript Libraries panel at south by southwest interactive in Austin, TX on March 11!

This talk will delve into the secret techniques used by JavaScript library authors to create comprehensive libraries that work seamlessly across browser environments. We’ll look at everything from fixes for strange browser quirks, tricks for gaining speed, to tips for writing smooth animations. This panel will be held by experienced JavaScript Library developers who have, cumulatively, many decades of JavaScript development experience under their belts. Everything discussed will be backed up with publicly available, rock-solid, code.

Sounds good? Meet you there! Also, don’t miss Dabble Dabble, Toil and Kick Ass 🙂

Prototype 1.6.0.2 cheat sheet

Juriy Zaytsev just released a brand-new Prototype 1.6.0.2 cheat sheet that is a great time-saver for development and also makes a nice wall poster. As a nice bonus, it lists deprecated methods, too—time to get rid of those in your code.