Programming in the State of 70% Drunkeness

This is yet another big day for the entire web development community. After jQuery has release its UI demos and book, here comes Prototype, another most popular javascript framework.

With both of frameworks going onto the official track (full release cycles, book release, etc.), we now can say, “yes, javascript is powerful and has become the mainstream now”. Congratulations to everyone who contributed to all of the awesome works.

The final versions of Prototype 1.6.0, script.aculo.us 1.8.0, and the Prototype & script.aculo.us book are now available. Prototype 1.6.0 is the most significant update to the framework since its inception over two years ago.

• Prototype 1.6 Released
• Script.aculo.us 1.8 Released
• “Prototype and script.aculo.us: You never knew JavaScript could do this!” book released

Here are the highlights

Prototype 1.6.0 released

This version of Prototype brings a number of major enhancements to the core APIs as well as the usual slew of bug fixes and performance optimizations.

• Ajax transport objects are now automatically wrapped in an Ajax.Response object.
• Ajax.Response includes support for accessing JSON response bodies as JavaScript objects via the responseJSON property.
• The class API now includes full support for inheritance and superclass method calls. (See Mislav’s tutorial for more info.)
• Class objects now have an addMethods method for adding instance methods after creation.
• Elements can be created easily with the new Element(…) syntax.
• Element#insert provides a unified API to DOM element and HTML fragment insertion.
• Element#select is an alias for getElementsBySelector and is now the preferred way to find elements by class name.
• Element#wrap lets you easily wrap an element inside another element in place.
• Enumerable methods on Array are now backed by native Array#forEach implementations when possible.
• Enumerable now has aliases for equivalent JavaScript 1.6 Array methods, and support for JavaScript 1.6’s context parameter for automatic callback binding.
• Enumerable#grep now calls the match method on its first argument, so you can use it to e.g. filter an array of DOM nodes by CSS selector.
• Event objects are now automatically extended with instance methods, so you can write e.g. event.stop() instead of Event.stop(event).
• Prototype’s event API now supports firing DOM-based custom events with Element#fire.
• The new dom:loaded custom event fires when the entire document has loaded and is ready for manipulation.
• Function#curry allows for partial application of function arguments.
• Function#wrap facilitates simple aspect-oriented programming and provides the basis for Prototype’s superclass method call mechanism.
• Function#delay delays invocation of the function by the given number of seconds.
• Function#defer schedules the function to run as soon as the interpreter is idle.
• The Hash API has changed, and you must now use Hash#get and Hash#set instead of directly accessing properties on Hash instances.
• String#interpolate is a shortcut for instantiating a Template from the string and calling evaluate on it.
• Object properties can now be used in template replacement strings.

script.aculo.us 1.8.0 released

script.aculo.us 1.8.0 is fully compatible with Prototype 1.6.0 and includes several improvements since the last version; see the announcement on Thomas’ blog for more details. Here’s what’s new:

• Complete rewrite of the in-place editing controls.
• Full CSS inheritance support for Effect.Morph.
• Support for tweening between two values of an element property or method call with Effect.Tween.
• A new sound API for playing interface sound effect MP3s.
• Numerous bug fixes and performance improvements.

Prototype & script.aculo.us available in PDF

Core contributor Christophe Porteneuve’s book Prototype & script.aculo.us is now available for purchase from the Pragmatic Programmers. The “Bungee book” covers the final versions Prototype 1.6.0 and script.aculo.us 1.8.0, which is no small feat, considering many of the documented features were added in the five months since the book first went beta! You can get the final PDF instantly for $22; paper copies are $34.95 and will be shipping in the next few weeks. Every developer using Prototype and script.aculo.us will want to read this book.

Share This