http://mattsnider.com Understanding JavaScript and Frameworks Mon, 12 May 2008 06:50:18 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en I went through today and revisited my first article, Development Tools. With the advent of new browser versions and the plethora new development tools, plus improvements on existing tools, it was definitely time to take another look. Most notably, I mention two new browsers IE 8 and FireFox 3, development ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/development-tools-revisited/ While on vacation, I took some time to have fun writing a JavaScript tool that I have never seen before. While on the plane, I decided to explore graphing in JavaScript, using the old-school TI-85 as a visual model. Even though, I never seen this done before, JavaScript is a ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/visual-graphing-in-javascript/ No articles this week. I tried to prepare something, but didn't have enough battery life for the plane ride. Now, I'm in Maui and have a really full week. I doubt I will have time to write an article. So, I'm not going to make any promises. However, I will ... http://mattsnider.com/uncategorized/on-vacation-in-maui/ First, for everyone following the JavaScript Game Engine project, I am putting it on hold for now. Building an engine to support dynamic games requires a lot of work... a lot more more time than I currently have to devote to the project, and I do not want to release ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/removenode-and-appendnode-methods/ Unfortunately, I am too busy this week to finish the game project that I have been working on. Not wanting to leave you all hanging, I found some noteworthy news: Ext JS 2.1 Now GPL (was LGPL) Basically, this means that if you modify the Ext Framework and use it on your ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/news-ext-gotcha-and-yui-hidden-gems/ For the game project, I felt it would be prudent to have a menu that handles the control of the game engine. For this task, I have decided to use YUI Menu, because I know YUI well, and it is powerful, extendable, and easy. One of the great things about ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/game-menu/ I was impressed to see that Smashing Magazine, an online designer magazine, choose to feature a collection of JavaScript resources this week. Some of them are really useful: 60 More AJAX- and JavaScript Solutions For Professional Coding Douglas Crockford revisited global variables and decided to change his definition of best practices. The ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/news-collection-of-javascript-tools-and-more/ As I worked on the GameEngine improvements, I realized that it would be nice to have a menu and several other DOM elements. Since the engine will be standalone, it is necessary to dynamically create the DOM elements required to run the game. For this task, I have use a ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/document-createtag-method/ So, as promised, I will be showcasing a game today that makes use of the Movable Object from last Tuesdays article. I had hoped to get this article out earlier, but my old game engine was too sloppy to use. Instead, I hacked together a new engine, but it is ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/sliding-puzzle-game-using-movable/ One of my favorite pastimes is playing and collecting video games, which combined with another of my passions, JavaScript, drives me to figure out ways to port simple gaming engines into JavaScript. JavaScript is not the best language for writing such engines (at least not in the browser), so I ... http://mattsnider.com/languages/javascript/movable-dom-node-widget/