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JSL – a New JavaScript Library

Binny V A — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:17:56 +0000

Yesterday, I published a new JavaScript Library – JSL. It borrows many ideas from the famous jQuery library.

Download

Packed Version – 13 KB
Source – 38 KB

Features

The Standard Stuff…

CSS DOM Selectors
Ajax Functions
Event Handling is abstracted
Ability to change style of an element.
Extendable by Plugins
Supports all Modern Browsers
And more…

And then some…

Function Chainability
Entire Library is 13 KB(un-gzipped)
Special handlers for Arrays, Numbers
Extra Plugins for Unit Testing and Debugging
Functional Programming Encouraged (map, reduce, filter, etc functions in JSL.array)

Missing Features

XPath Selectors: Does anyone use XPath to select elements in JavaScript? I use CSS selectors for this all the time.
innerHTML Alternatives: I like innerHTML – so I did not include the functions to create DOM elements.
Animations/UI Elements: You will not see any animation functions in this library. Also, no Drag and Drop, sliders, JS dialog boxes and the like. Of course, I may write a plugin for these elements – but right now, they are not supported.
JavaScript Monkey-patching: I don’t do any Prototype style addition to JavaScript standard objects. I hate that – and so should you.
Functions in the global namespace: Everything that I do is under the JSL namespace – except for two shortcut functions – jslib() and $(). So my library adds only three global variables to the namespace – JSL, jslib, and $.
The Kitchen Sink: JSL is a small library – if you want a library with everything, opt for Dojo or YUI.

Some Sample Code

Using Event Handler…

JSL.dom("a").click(function(e) { // Adds a click event handler to all links
	alert(this.href); //Shows the link URL
	JSL.event(e).stop(); //And stops the event from propagating any further
});

The $() Function…

$("div.content p.intro a").setStyle({
	"text-decoration":"underline",
	"color":"red"
});

And everything you expect to work with document.getElementById() works with $() as well…

$("element-id").innerHTML = "Hello World";
$("element-id").getElementsByTagName("a"); // Returns all the anchors under that element.

See More Sample Code

JSL Links

License

BSD, as always.

iFrame Features

Binny V A — Tue, 22 May 2007 18:05:25 +0000

In the previous post I introduced my new PHP framework – iFrame. It had the reasons why you should not use the framework. In these post, I will talk of the advantages you get if you use my framework. But remember – do not use my framework.

No routing – Fully file based

There are no complicated routing rules – the URL should specify which file should be used. For example…

http://www.example.com/user/create.php

Here, ‘user’ is the controller and ‘create’ is the action.

Folder Structure

Like many other frameworks, iFrame has a rigid folder structure.

/
+-common.php
+-configuration.php
+-/includes/  #System files
+-index.php
+-/user/
	+-index.php
	+-create.php
+-/templates/
	+-index.php
	+-/user/
		+-index.php
		+--create.php
+-/js/
	+-/user/
		+--create.js
+-/css/
	+-/user/
		+--create.css

Auto inclusion of CSS/JS files

The system will auto include the CSS/JS files with the same file name as the current file – the files highlighted in the above ‘Folder Structure’ will be included automatically when ever the create.php file is called.

Library for Paging/Tagging

These two classes are great time savers. Unfortunatly they have no documentation – yet.

Small/Manageable Files

The framework forces the code to be broken down into smaller parts. In this framework, one action is one file – instead of one controller per file as in other frameworks. I find this easier to manage than the other approch.

Uses OOPs only when it is required

I only use Object Oriented Programming only if there is a clear need to use it. This step made the system much simpler.

Three Layers

This framework tries to follow both MVC(server side 3 layer) and Content/Behavior/Presentation(client side 3 layer) approaches.

iFrame – My PHP Framework

Binny V A — Fri, 18 May 2007 08:35:50 +0000

I have created a number of Web Applications – Nexty and Jus5 are just a few examples. I used a common code base when creating these sites – but I did not consider it a full fledged framework. However, now the code base has evolved enough to be called a framework. So, I called it a framework – the iFrame framework. I know, lame joke – geek humor

Before moving further, a word of warning – Do not use this framework for your project. There are plenty of great PHP frameworks out there – use one of those. For example…

These are professional, enterprise level frameworks. They are secure, well designed and documented. Use any of those when creating your site – do not use mine. There are no legal restrictions – the code for iFrame is under BSD License. These are the reasons why you should not use my framework…

Disadvantages

Documentation: Many Users of frameworks complain that there is not enough documentation. My framework has no such problems – it has no documentation whatsoever . They only way to find what a function is supposed to do, is to read the code.
Bugs: This system is developed, used and tested by just one person – me. So, there are many yet undiscovered bugs.
No ORM: Those who are in love with ORM will be disappointed when using iFrame – I have not implemented ORM.
Currently, only MySQL is supported: There is a database abstraction layer – but as of yet, only MySQL is supported.
And a lot more other reasons: The reasons why you should not use this framework is too numerous to list here.

Advantages

Despite all the given disadvantages, I will use this framework – these are the reasons for that…

Lightweight

This is the most lightweight framework that I have ever seen.

Helpful functions that reduce coding time

All my PHP functions are available in the framework – If you know how to use them, these functions save a lot of time. For example…

Encourages clean code

iFrame is an MVC framework(although the ‘Model’ is a bit limited for now). By default, each controller has its own folder and each action has its own file. This will greatly increase the number of files – but will reduce the number of lines in each file. Some might find it hard to use – but I find it more manageable this way.

A lot of cool features

I will talk about these ‘cool features’ in the next post.

Code

What good is a framework without the code…

View the iFrame code online

You can get the code from my subversion server – use this command…

svn checkout http://www.bin-co.com/php/scripts/iframe/code/ iframe

Nexty 1.0 Released

Binny V A — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 19:10:30 +0000

Remember Nexty, the easy to use to-Do list manager using GTD principles? Well, that is ready for public release.

Nexty is a easy to use GTD tool created in PHP. It can be installed in a local server or in a online web server. The core idea behind this software is simplicity. I wanted to make a GTD tool that is the most easy to use.

Nexty Links

The next project is ready – watch this space for its announcement.