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!

Made the switch: Typo 2

April 24th, 2005

So, welcome to version 2.0 of mir.aculo.us!

Running on Typo 2.0—check out the best Ruby on Rails blogging app out there!

There’s a bit of me in Typo, too. Thanks to some Ajax magic, I’ve added live previewing to the admin interface (thanks to the Typo developers to getting the bugs out of this!).

Rails- The killer app for Ruby?

April 20th, 2005

Sam Newman writes: ”Ruby and Python need to start seeing some decent tools and API’s that mark them apart from others. And it’s possible, just possible that Ruby might have found its first killer app in Rails. But for Ruby to make more inroads, it has to be the start of a process that will see further tools, libraries a knowledgeable workforce follow.”

True, so true. So start using Ruby on Rails and develop these great tools and libraries. And don’t forget to share them!

Live demo: Upload progress bar with Ajax and Ruby on Rails

April 18th, 2005

Sean finally unveiled his live demo of the upload progress patch for Ruby on Rails on his site.

Also, “check out the “making-of movie, showing how easy it is to add this functionality to your Ruby on Rails app!

TESTERS NEEDED! Call to arms: The patch needs exercise. Please install it, test it in your environment and report your success stories!

New Safari 1.3 – a look inside

April 18th, 2005

Some cool new things you don’t need to wait for Tiger to use them are there right now with Safari 1.3 (which is included in the Mac OS X 10.3.9 update):

  • Higher performance (Page loading, Javascript)
  • HTML editing support for those WYSIWYG textareas
  • Much improved CSS and DOM support
  • XSLT

Also, many, many rendering bugs seem to have been fixed, so don’t hesitate to fire up those effects!

Offtopic: How to fix an unmountable external harddisk in Mac OS X

April 15th, 2005

So, I got this external drive which was not mountable anymore. The system log complained about a corrupted disk journal. Fire up Google and find this nice little article, which will give you your drive back (and you don’t have to buy expensive bloated disk utilities)—try mounting it writable, then ejecting via the OS X Disk Utility, unplug firewire cable and plug in again.

This should do it. Of course, if you’re not the adventurous type, try mounting it readonly and backup your data somewhere first. Thanks a lot, Christian Fries, this saved me one or two headaches.

UPDATE: I had this problem now once with 10.4 Tiger, and the Disk Utility repaired everything for me—no need to hack around in the Terminal anymore.

Effects for Ruby on Rails apps

April 10th, 2005

Here is a demo page I’ve put together showing all the different effects that will be available in an upcoming version of Ruby on Rails, or more specifically, the prototype javascript library.

Be sure to try out Effect.Puff! So, straight to the demo page.

Upload Progress with Ruby on Rails and Ajax – demo movie

April 10th, 2005

So, following an “old Rails tradition” I present a demo movie of what Sean Treadway refers to as “Web 2.0”.

Sit back and enjoy what you could have on your site for your users soon. Watch the upload demo movie, 45s Quicktime.

Besure sure to check out the live demo on Sean’s site, too!

Autocompleting text fields on steroids

April 9th, 2005

Well. Here’s something your browser can’t do.

Watch the video.

If you want to get into the details, check out Patch #960 on the Ruby on Rails trac.

So let’s start…

April 3rd, 2005

Hi, I’m Thomas Fuchs, a programmer and webdesigner from Vienna, Austria. This site is for collecting all sorts of thoughts, links and other stuff related to web application development in general, and some of the current stuff I do in particular.

At the moment, this means:

  • Ruby on Rails, an web application development framework
  • The prototype Javascript Library
  • Optimizing web site usability
  • All sorts of emerging new web development trends

Stay tuned.