How to get UI designer window for AJAX - javascript

I want to start AJAX coding but also want to be able to design user interface in a designer window (like in MS Visual Studio) by dragging widgets onto the work area. Is there any tool that would let me do that easily?
Right now I'm using Aptana 3. I've installed jQuery but got lost trying to get jQuery UI. Is there any other way to get what I need?

There are no ajax/widget/js libraries out there that will have their own component designer, and you can stop searching for free ones, there are none.
There is one that most people know about, and it's called Sencha Architect, for the super awesome Sencha ExtJS library. Beautiful widgets, outstanding designer app, brilliant documentation. And such things of course come with a price tag.
If you are willing to make an investment:
Sencha ExtJS: http://www.sencha.com/products/extjs/
Store for ExtJS: http://www.sencha.com/store/architect/
Sencha Architect: http://www.sencha.com/products/architect/
Store for Architect: http://www.sencha.com/store/architect/
Other than this one, I've not seen any component/UI designer application for any js/ajax library.

Related

Rich content front-ends/jQueryUI replacement

I've been going around in circles for days on this. I've got a (conceptually) simple website, which is all Javascript/Ajax at the front end, with a minimal amount of hand-written HTML, and lots of C++ on the server. The user basically needs to see a few menus, and fill in a few forms, and they get back pretty tables.
My problem is the actual UI front-end. This is for a sports club, and is not a commercial site, so it doesn't have to be that good. I've been using jQueryUI (there's some jQuery in the JS). I'm using tabs and dialogs, and it's all a bit clunky. I now want to add a couple of horizontal menus, and jQueryUI doesn't do this (there's menubar, on a code branch, but it's unfinished and development stopped 6 months ago). I also want to integrate dokuwiki if possible, which is php. I don't have to support old browsers.
Question: can anyone recommend a lightweight rich content front-end to replace jQueryUI, that will get me going quickly? I can spend a little on something commercial as long as I can quickly prototype without paying anything. A CMS would be Ok - I have some Joomla experience, but I really don't want to write any modules just to get my own JS and a wiki into the site.
Oh - and please suggest something quickly, before the question is closed as pointless and irrelevant... :)
There are a lot of examples.
Twitter bootstrap or flat ui

HTML5/JS equivalent of a UINavigationController

I'm working on an HTML5-based app with an iPad view and wanted to have a list in a sidebar that has navigation nested so that I user could drill down a couple of levels before tapping the desired item in the main view to the right. I don't have a ton of web experience and I'm hoping someone could point me in the direction of a js-based library that would offer such functionality. The closet thing that I could imagine would be something similar to the UINavigationController in iOS that would allow me to easily push and pop lists of items.
I've explored JQuery Mobile and the closest thing that I could find was the 'nested listview' functionality, which as of version 1.3 is deprecated.
jQuery Mobile has this functionality built in. I would suggest reading through all the documentation. It will give you a better understanding of jQuery mobile and what you can and cant do.
Or if you just want information about the Navigation Model you can read about it here.
Finally you can find a demo of it in action here.
If you are not going to built it yourself then jQuery Mobile is probably the way to go.
Description from their website:
A unified, HTML5-based user interface system for all popular mobile
device platforms, built on the rock-solid jQuery and jQuery UI
foundation. Its lightweight code is built with progressive
enhancement, and has a flexible, easily themeable design.

Is there a lightweight framework for mobile apps that will also leave my existing site mostly alone

I'm looking for a javascript framework to help me with mobile website front-end programming.
The perfect solution would be a js file that, when included in my project, will give me basic mobile helper functions/event handling such as drag and drop, tap-hold, swipe WITHOUT forcing me to create a mobile specific version of my existing website.
I looked at jQuery Mobile and jQtouch but both forces me to create a mobile specific version of my website.
Is there any framework that could help me?
I think a better way to say it might be: "Is there a lightweight framework for mobile apps that will also leave my existing site mostly alone." Does that state it well, or, did I misunderstand?
You should be able to get pretty far with jQuery and jQuery UI.
I would also recommend something like Knockout.js to handle data binding.
Of course, you could always pull out the functions you want from jQuery/JQM. As I understand it, JQM is fairly separable, the widgets, that is.
Zepto is a jQuery compatible Micro-Framework for mobile devices that should fit your needs
You should check out Sencha to the list of frameworks you're considering. I've been playing around wit

jQuery: Plain HTML/CSS with core jQuery or jQuery UI for a blog?

I'm about to implement a blog, and I'm pretty sure I want to go with jQuery, because I really like it.
However, when I last did jQuery, I just did plain HTML/CSS and then improved the user experience with what jQuery has to offer. Meanwhile, jQuery UI has been released, and it looks like a full-fledged user interface framework like Ext JS.
Can I benefit from jQuery UI with a rather simple website like this, or is it more geared towards web applications like GMail?
jQuery UI is quite large and seems to have lots and lots of CSS in their skins. I'm a bit worried that I would have to write/adjust tons of CSS to make the blog look like I want it to. If I did plain HTML/CSS, I would have fine-grained control over the appereance.
Edit: I'll stress again that I'm specifically wondering whether jQuery UI is intended for and useful for a simple website like a blog. It is no doubt useful for more sophisticated web applications.
Edit 2: Thanks for all your answers, too bad I couldn't accept more than one. By now I realised that jQuery UI is not like I expected a full-fledged web application framework, but rather a bunch of useful utilities on top of jQuery. I think I'll use it, if only for Draggable, Droppable and Selectable.
You don't necessarily need to write loads of CSS if you don't like the supplied styles.
The jQuery UI ThemeRoller is a very good web-based GUI for customising the look of the widgets. It then allows you to download your own customised (and minified) .css and .js files containing just the widgets you need.
I suggest that you should have a play with that first and see if you can make the demo widgets look how you'd like them before making any decision.
You can have both... I have! Where I am using widgets (datepicker) etc, I use jquery ui, besides visit : http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ and you can customize the colours quite easily. The UI themes are recommended strongly if you use the widgets as the widgets rely on the css defined therein to move things around, for display and selection, handling rezise of widgets.
You can always build your site using html + css then add the ui theme later, as you said it will increase the user experience greatly... besides we always end up using 1 or 2 features then extend or find other suitable plugins.
As always, the answer is 'it depends'.
More specifically though, it depends on what kind of a UI you're planning on. If you find yourself coding functionality that's already there in jq UI go ahead and use it. They've got a handy theme roller plugin which will allow you to customize the skin to perfectly match the look of your site, so that is a non issue.
You might also want to include it all through a CDN (offered by google or MS) so that your site doesn't get slow downloading the (relatively) heavy initial payload.

MooTools Plugins

Im looking for some good resources for MooTools. jQuery has a nice plugins site. Does anyone know of a similar site for mootools plugins?
Specifically Im looking for:
Grid Component
Modal Dialog Component
Treeview
What would you recommend?
clearly not looked very far (at least for the repository) - any google search for 'official mootols plugins' would have done the trick. Even a look at the mootools homepage reveals The Mootools Forge:
http://mootools.net/forge/
I cannot comment on the availability of the individual items yet I know treeview is available, modal dialogues also - that leaves the grid component.
update
If i had to pick, i'd go with http://www.jsfiddle.net/sixtyseconds/zNMQy/ for modal view (by 60 seconds, aka chris pitt) - consise, to the point and customisable BY YOU. events etc as you'd expect.
As for tree view, the only one I used a while back is called... mooTree, http://sites.google.com/a/mindplay.dk/mootree/Home - very flexible (adopt structure from html, xml or json source if memory serves etc).
MooTools.net/Forge has lots of widgets and UI:
For Grid Component, OmniGrid
For Modal Dialog, MUX.Dialog
For Treeview, Tree or Mif.Tree
You may also wish to check Mocha for Mootools, and JxLib for Mootools, both being UI frameworks.

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