Open Source Resources for Web Application Developers

I think most of us have written at least one jQuery Plugin / Script. In this post, Latent Motion would like to show us how to get the most out of that script by also releasing it as a jQuery Bookmarklet. You will find two examples of utilities that are ripe for bookmarkleting, as well as a prepared jQuery Bookmarklet file that you can easily modify for the purpose.

Within the article: How to Create a jQuery Bookmarklet. You will find a jQuery Bookmarklet template provided for us. What it does is:

1. Test if jQuery already exists, attempts to load it, and then tests if it’s loaded 5 times every second, waiting to call the jqReady function.
2. Use a similar process with the array JS, attempting to load jQuery dependent scripts (such as jQuery plugins). Once done, it will call jqCustom.
3. In jqCustom, if uncommented, it will load myCSS, and then run any jQuery code you’ve added.

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://www.latentmotion.com/how-to-create-a-jquery-bookmarklet/
License: Creative Commons License

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Isobar Code Standards & Front-end Development Best Practices contains normative guidelines for web applications built by the Interface Development practice of Isobar North America (previously Molecular). It is to be readily available to anyone who wishes to check the iterative progress of their best practices.

The document outlines their de-facto code standards. The primary motivation is two- fold: 1) code consistency and 2) best practices. By maintaining consistency in coding styles and conventions, they can ease the burden of legacy code maintenance, and mitigate risk of breakage in the future. By adhering to best practices, they ensure optimized page loading, performance and maintainable code.

Source: Isobar Code Standards & Front-end Development Best Practices

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Envato Marketplace has recently launched CodeCanyo. At CodeCanyon, you can purchase and sell scripts and components for a variety of languages and frameworks, currently including JavaScript, PHP, ASP.NET, and Java. Most of the items are at very low price.

Here we have collected the following 20 Really Useful Scripts & Components on CodeCanyon. You may find them useful when developing your own web applications. Please feel free to suggest some useful scripts you found somewhere else as well.

1. Living Form

This technique allows you to create unique forms that are guaranteed to impress your clients. You can choose multiple colors and adjust more than ten different variables to create your own effects. The possible combinations are infinite and there are no limits to the effects you can create.

2. ThumbsUp

ThumbsUp would be a nice addition to your website. It allows visitors to vote for anything you want. It ships with an admin interface and six different templates for you to choose from.

3. Advanced Backup System

This script is a must have for every webdeveloper/webmaster that want to save some time. Advanced Backup System or Abs helps you with tasks as backing up files, backing up databases and deploy new version to a server. (more…)

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Safari on iPad is capable of delivering a “desktop” web experience. iPad has a large, 9.7″ screen and fast network connectivity, and Safari on iPad uses the same WebKit layout engine as Safari on Mac OS X and Windows. You can ensure that your website looks and works great on iPad, and even create new touch-enabled web experiences for your customers, by considering a few specific differences between iPad and other platforms.

If you have access to an iPad, test your website using the iPad. If not, you can test your website in Safari on iPad using the iPhone Simulator (Hardware -> Device -> iPad). iPad is available in the iPhone Simulator in iPhone OS 3.2 SDK beta 2 and later, which is available to iPhone Developer Program members. In cases where it is possible to simulate iPad-like behavior in Safari on a desktop computer, instructions are given on Technical Note TN2262: Preparing Your Web Content for iPad.

Source: Technical Note TN2262: Preparing Your Web Content for iPad

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Accordions are a UI pattern where you click on a title (in a vertical stack of titles) and a panel of content reveals itself below. Typically, all other open panels close when the new one opens. One way to look at an accordion is like a collapsed single column of a table.

The Grid Accordion works with the same theory as most other accordions. Only one cell is open at a time. The big thing is that the column of the current open cell expands to a reasonable reading width.

Requirements: jQuery Framework
Demo: http://css-tricks.com/examples/InfoGrid/
License: License Free

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Designing a web application? Familiarize yourself with Rich Internet Application technologies and 43 Essential Controls for Creating your Web Applications.

Rich Internet Application technology has empowered us to create really amazing user experiences. The best RIAs on the web today rely on a discreet set of UI controls to provide a lively and timely experience. If you are moving from web site design to web application design, the best information you can have at your disposal is an understanding of these essential controls.

Many products are siloed by the RIA framework they are using, and designers create novel controls when the framework doesn’t have what they need. This can decrease the usability of the product, and increase the amount of design effort, usability testing, technical specifications and development time. Before you succumb to designing a brand new control, you should learn what’s out there.

Source: 43 Essential Controls for Creating your Web Applications

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Do you need come unqiue custom designs? LogoMyWay aims to connect clients needing design work such as Custom logo designs, T-shirts designs, Business cards designs and more to a thriving community of talented logo designers exploding with creativity.

You can take a look at the Logo Design Portfolio. Currently, there are 70 – 400+ custom logo designs you can choose from. You can also start a logo design contest within minutes for as little as $200.00. Three simple steps and your design contest goes live. You will see amazing logo designs within hours. There are hundreds of creative logo designers in over 100 countries waiting to create your logo design.

You will receive Industry Standard Vector Logo Files that can be used in almost any application you choose. You will also get a free legal contract giving you 100% full legal ownership of your new logo design. Best of all, if your logo contest doesn’t receive at least 40 logo concepts, they will refund your payment no questions asked. What are you waiting for? Get a custom logo design at LogoMyWay now.

Source: http://www.logomyway.com/

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Speech bubbles are a popular effect but many tutorials rely on presentational HTML or JavaScript. Nicolas Gallagher has written a tutorial: Pure CSS Speech Bubbles, which contains various forms of speech bubble effect created with CSS2.1 and enhanced with CSS3. No images, no JavaScript and it can be applied to your existing semantic HTML.

You can also look at the tutorial: Pure CSS Social Media Icons, which creates social media icons using CSS and semantic HTML. It uses progressive enhancement to turn an unordered list of text links into a set of icons without the use of images or JavaScript.

Source: Pure CSS Speech Bubbles
Source: Pure CSS Social Media Icons

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Matt Legend Gemmell held a 6-hour workshop at NSConference in both the UK and USA recently, focusing on software design and user experience.

Predictably, an extremely popular topic was the iPad, and how to approach the design of iPad applications. He gave a 90-minute presentation on the subject to start each workshop, and he is very kind to share some of his observations of iPad Application Design.

This article is about the user interface conventions and considerations which apply to creating software for the iPad platform and touch-screen tablet devices in general. It is not a technical discussion of iPad-related APIs. This is an excellent article for designers and application developers. I am sure you will find it useful too.

Source: http://mattgemmell.com/2010/03/05/ipad-application-design

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You have all your important data backed up, right? I mean, come on folks, it’s 2010. We may not have flying cars yet like we’re supposed to, but “having backups” is a problem that’s solved. And I’m sure you’ve solved it. I’m sure you sleep well at night knowing that if a comet hit the data center where your website lives, and everything was completely destroyed, you could get back up and running somewhere else quickly enough.

If, however, you are one of the many many people who doesn’t have a good backup strategy in place, this article “Bulletproof backups for MySQL” is here to help you out. He covered quite a bit in this article, but if you make it through everything, you should be able to rest easier knowing that you have good, safe backups of your database.

Source: Bulletproof backups for MySQL

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