DHTML is fashionable
2005-01-17 19:30:58
New year, new life. New year, new trend. So we're so happy to welcome 2005 with such kind of news. Apparently, a lot of people is betting for DHTML to solve navigation and usability problems or just developing dynamic applications using this technology instead of Flash. Lets see some examples.
- this amazing application to navigate Switzerland maps, includes zoom effects. No, seriously, no Flash.
- Google has recently developped two interesting projects. Gmail allows us to check the number of incoming emails without reloading the page (among many other features), while Google Suggest shows in real time (while you're writting you're own terms to search) the most likely matches and their number of found documents, so you dont have to type the whole sentence. These two use the XMLHttpRequest object, that allows to make server calls without reloading the page. Here you can see how suggest works exactly. We can expect more brilliant stuff by Google soon, since Mr. Boodman has moved there, so far just to improve Blogger.
- Remote scripting is not new. So far there were other techniques such as the iframe working as buffer, getting data from a page and writting to a layer, or the trick of using an image to add scripts, or the less known yet elegant method of Dan Pupius (I dont remember the link), that was an improvement on the pioneer. Even the now trendy XMLHttpRequest is something quite old (just that now is more widely supported). We already had the WebFX scripts and the Sarissa API. So to stop boring with technical words, lets just see a small summary with definitions and examples in this sourceforge wiki.
- also interesting this Javascript Shell, that allows us to make DOM tests using a commandline tool.
- it will also become trendy the concept of unobtrusive DHTML, by which script is a simple improvement on usability and never a requisite not the mechanism to add content. There are several examples, like the excellent fancy menu, a flash-like menu based on html lists, just like my last modification of an Aaron's script (this time was Accelimation) to make the menu for pixilate, or any other good unobtrusive scripts
OK, before closing, only to add that this year will be full of projects DHTML related. Either local (we have something going on with Pedro and other close bloggers) or international (13thparallel changes format, Dojo Toolkit, etc). More soon.