Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

&YET has written a detailed article on Re-using Backbone.js Models on the server with Node.js and Socket.io to build real-time apps.

Using this approach we send very small changes over an already established connection, we can very quickly synchronize state from one client to the other or the server can get updates from an external data source, modify the model on the server and those changes would immediately be sent to the connected clients. Best of all – it’s fast. Now, you can just write your views like you normally would in a Backbone.js app.

Source: http://andyet.net/blog/2011/feb/15/re-using-backbonejs-models…

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Envy Labs Rails 3 Cheat Sheets is another great cheat sheet to add to our Web Developers Cheat Sheets. Some of these sheets may be a review if you’ve already been working with Rails 3 for a few months now, but they’re great if you’re just now getting the hang of it or you want a good reference guide.

Source: http://blog.envylabs.com/2010/12/rails-3-cheat-sheets/

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Drop-shadows are easy enough to create using pseudo-elements. It’s a nice and robust way to progressively enhance a design. The article: CSS drop-shadows without images, is a summary of the technique and some of the possible appearances.

There is no need for extra markup, the effect can be applied to a single element. A couple of pseudo-elements are generated from an element and then pushed behind it.

Requirements: Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 5+, Safari 5+, Opera 10.6+
Demo: http://nicolasgallagher.com/css-drop-shadows…
License: License Free

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AddyOsmani has written a really throughout article on Building Single Page Applications(SPAs) With jQuery’s Best Friends; DocumentCloud’s Backbone.js, Underscore.js, LAB.js and jQuery templating.

SPAs are web applications or websites which persistently run in the same page without requiring a reload for further navigation. All of the code needed for your initial load in these applications is driven by either local data or data retrieved from a web server on demand, such as any additional data required from your app that might be driven by user actions.

Requirements: jQuery, Backbone.js, Underscore.js, LAB.js
Demo: http://addyosmani.com/resources/backbonegallery/
License: License Free

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BundleHunt 3 Now on Sale with Unprecedented Value for Designers and Creatives, featuring 20 popular design resources and applications normally valued at over $1287 for just $49.

The bundle includes such interesting products as Pictos Icon Set, GoMedia Arsenal Ultimate Vector & Font Collections, Wordpess themes from Press75, the newest Smashing eBook and 3 month MultiSitePlan from WPEngine.

BundleHunt 3 is offering the pack for 14 days only. The sale ends at midnight, EST on Feb 21th. Information on each product and screenshots can be found there. What are you waiting for?

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You should take time to design your URL structure. Don’t leave it up to your framework. Don’t leave it up to chance. Think about it and craft an experience. URL Design is a complex subject. There’s good URL design, there’s bad URL design, and there’s everything in between – it’s subjective.

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t best practices for creating great URLs. Kyle Neath has written a great article to show you some best practices in URL design and explain why new HTML5 javascript history APIs are so exciting to work with.

Source: http://warpspire.com/posts/url-design/

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We have collated a set of Cheat Sheets for Web Developers a while ago. Now, we have one extra cheat sheet to add to our excellent collection.

How many times have you gone to the jQuery UI themeroller page, scrolled down to the bottom, hovered over the icon you wanted, and then looked at the hover tooltip to find the icon name? jQueryUI Icons Cheatsheet shows you all jQueryUI Icons for your reference.

Source: http://www.petefreitag.com/cheatsheets/jqueryui-icons/

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Web development, is the craft of realising a description of a website or app as a real, working thing. Front-end development is the part of this involving the browser. On the upside, you can get the rewarding feeling of making a Photoshop file into something living, that people can actually use instead of just look at. But on the downside, you have to trick and occasionally force-feed a design to, say, IE6. To say this part of the job requires a certain degree of bloody-mindedness is to be quite understated.

David Barrett is going to show us three things in the article: Getting to Work with New Web Technologies. Firstly, he will introduce to some new front-end technologies, like HTML5 and CSS3. Secondly, he will show you a few different ways you can use these new technologies in your projects today. And thirdly, he is going to show you a few little demos of these things, and walk you through their implementations.

Source: http://stuff.contrast.ie/talks/newwebtech2010/

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OAuth can be a tricky concept to wrap your head around at first, but with the Twitter API now requiring its use, it is something you need to understand before creating a Twitter application. This tutorial: Creating a Twitter OAuth Application will introduce you to OAuth, and walk you through the process of creating a basic application.

Requirements: OAuth
Demo: http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/creating-a-twitter-oauth-application/
License: License Free

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Today we are going to look at the end-to-end tools and options you have for Building Large-Scale Enterprise jQuery Applications. Addy Osmani has put together a toolkit for large-scale jQuery application development by identifying the options you have available at the moment for dependency management, MVC with jQuery, templating, testing, minification and more.

Source: http://addyosmani.com/blog/large-scale-jquery/

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