Web

I have been using the Dojo toolkit as my Javascript library of choice since back in early 2006 when it was still around version 0.4. Since then, the project has made tremendous strides including the release of version 1.0 and 1.1 with 1.2 on the way. At the beginning of 2008 I started using the Zend Framework to build MVC PHP applications and, with the release of 1.5, it has become my PHP framework of choice.

To my delight, the Zend Framework and Dojo have recently announced a partnership which will lead to tighter integration of these two great open source frameworks.

Imagine the following scenario: you are the operator of a small website that has a private user’s area which requires visitors to login to view. A few months later, you want to add a gallery application which also requires users to login and, finally, you want users to be able to edit a community wiki, but not allow non-members to make changes.

There are several Firefox plugins which allow the user to manipulate their browser cookies. However, most of these plugins force the user to manipulate cookies individually. This can become tedious if the user is simply “importing” cookies from, say, a wireshark dump.

The CookieInjector userscript simplifies this process, by allowing the user to copy-paste the cookie portion of the dump and have the cookies from the dump automatically created on the currently viewed web page.

This weekend I was working on some SFU community sites and I decided it would be nice to display the SFU ULife calendar on one website in particular. SFU ULife is a community building initiative which aims to increase the visibility of the community and events at SFU in a pledge to increase student involvement and awareness. Read more about ULife’s goals Here.

I recently re-launched the SFU Bookswap website at a new address: http://sfubookswap.com. It is still reachable from the old address of http://books.sfu-rha.ca. The new address will provide fast, dedicated hosting which is a step up from the less than reliable system that was previously used.

The new version of the Bookswap website also sports some new features and improved functionality. The process for making an offer has changed slightly: now the seller of the book is immediately notified of offers via email, rather than when the posting expires. This is intended to provide sellers with up-to-date information on people interested in their postings so they can make informed decisions if they are considering selling their book via another means.

Dojo (http://dojotoolkit.org/) is a wonderful javascript toolkit which just reached version 1.0 at the beginning of November. I have been watching and developing with Dojo for a couple years now and I can’t tell you how excited I am to have passed the version 1 milestone

Greasemonkey (http://www.greasespot.net/) is a handy Firefox extension which allows the injection of javascript (called userscripts) into the webpage currently being viewed. This allows for the customization of the look and feel of a website: improving the user interface or adding additional functionality.

In this example, we are going to use greasemonkey and Dojo to display a dialog widget on an arbitrary website.