Want several copies of IE running side by side? Want to test out IE 7 but don’t really want to zorch your IE 6 that you also need to test? No problem.
Archive for October, 2006
IE-7 standalone (and, for that matter, IE 3, 4, 5, and 6)
October 26th, 2006 by Aaron N.Dean Edwards /packer/ compression tool
October 26th, 2006 by Aaron N.We’ve been working pretty hard on CNET’s new javascript global framework. It’s based on Mootools with a bunch of other things mixed in. Last week I took on the task of documenting the entire Mootools library, now online. I struck up a conversation with the author of that library, Valerio Proietti from mad4milk.net and have since been granted access to contribute to the source of that library (thanks Valerio!). Mostly my contributions have been focused on the docs, but I’ve also helped out with a few bugs and the like.
Anyway, one of the things that Mootools turned me on to was Dean Edward’s /packer/, which is an awesome javascript compression tool. This thing compresses our libraries dramatically, sometimes as much as halving their file size. We’ve actually put our new global libraries into production on news.com and I just got around to actually testing the efficiency of the compression algorythm. Read the rest of this entry »
jsDoc - a javadoc implementation for javascript
October 10th, 2006 by Aaron N.Ok, so I’ve finished as much digging on this subject as I plan on doing (mostly because the pickings seem to be rather slim). Here’s jsDoc - a javadoc implementation for javascript.
Comparing this library to NaturalDocs the choice seems to me to come down to two things: syntax and presentation. NaturalDocs gives you a really nice layout and a lot of flexibility in how you write your documentation inline, while jsDoc uses the same syntax as javadoc.
Does it matter if we use the same syntax as javadoc? Do we care if the output looks pretty and has a nicer interface? Which one? Spend a few minutes reading the documentation on each of these packages and sound off here, as the work on the global framework has gotten to the point where documentation is going to start to be the next thing that needs focus.
javascript reference javadoc style
October 10th, 2006 by Aaron N.In relation to my previous post on the topic, I was digging around for javadoc options and stumbled upon this javascript reference in javadoc form. It’s quick and easy to use like any javadoc and it’s going in my bookmarks right now.
Natural Docs: Better Javascript Doc
October 10th, 2006 by Aaron N.I’ve been contemplating a javadoc style javascript documentation tool for a while. Not to write myself but rather to go find one because you just know they’re out there. Well, here’s one posted recently on Ajaxian. It looks pretty slick, but I’m curious about how well it deals with a broader context. Sure, it’ll parse a single js file and dump out some nice looking documentation (awesome), but what about an environment that relies on code from several libraries? Can you link across them? Can you collect them? I need to dig into it some more, but it’s a start.
Does anyone have any experience or knowledge of any other javadoc systems for javascript? Read the rest of this entry »
CNET Global Framework update
October 3rd, 2006 by Aaron N.Hi all,
It’s been a few days since I posted. I’ve been heads down on the project to create a global javascript framework for our sites (Redball, at least). I’ve finished this work (or at least gotten it to a releasable state) and I thought I’d share an update. I plan on documenting it extensively and providing a lot of examples (and teaching it) in the near future, but for those of you who are curious, you can peruse the library now. It’s mostly stable (we’re still tweaking and adding things) and you can just download them and read them if you want to see what’s in them.
They include a lot of functionality, are highly extendable, easily debuggable, and hopefully will be useful. The current framework file is about 30K, but Andy just turned me on to a more efficient javascript compressor that will bring that down to 19K. I can’t express how awesome it is to have this thing going out and it managing to pack in so much functionality in such a small package. Read the rest of this entry »