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Understanding Google Wave Development – Part 1

Jeffrey Scott -TypeHost Web Development — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 02:22:22 +0000

Since “Google Wave” was introduced at the Google I/O Conference in San Francisco May 27th to 28th, 2009, there has been a lot of buzz and attention surrounding the new platform. What exactly is Google Wave? According to the development team, it is the biggest upgrade to email since the introduction of the web, a type of combination between email, blog, forum comment section, instant message system, and widget board. Google Wave shows the enormous influence that Facebook is having on the future of the web – in a way, the preview looks as if the majority of Google services were integrated and remixed into an animated Facebook stream. The big differences are in the standards behind the interface: XMPP particularly allows the Wave documents to function like an instantaneous, shared whiteboard in addition to a saved multimedia document with filtered permission levels.

What is a wave?

“A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.

A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.”

Source: http://wave.google.com/help/wave/about.html

For those that did not attend the I/O conference, the essential resource is the launch video from that day that is viewable at:

Google Wave Developer Preview at Google I/O 2009

Developing For Google Wave:

Google plans to open source much of the code behind the Google Wave platform, and one of the points confirmed is that anyone- ISPs, private groups, individuals, companies, websites, domains, will be able to operate their own Wave server based on the Wave Federation Protocols. Developers who would like to build new applications for the Wave platform should review the draft specifications and white papers available at:
http://www.waveprotocol.org/

The Google Wave API is intended to enable developers to embed Wave documents in standard web pages as well as to “extend” the platform by embedding widgets within a Wave itself. The Wave extensions allow for the embedding of virtually the entire archive of iGoogle widgets, and allow programmers to develop Java, Python, ActionScript, and other applications to add new functionality to a Wave. For more information on the Wave API, visit: http://code.google.com/apis/wave/

“On May 28th, the second day of Google I/O, we unveiled Google Wave as a developer preview. But, we’d never actually had non-Google developers use it, and we were eager to see how it’d play out… So, on the Friday after I/O, about 60 developers assembled down at Google HQ for the very first Google Wave API hackathon. After five hours of hacking and ad-hoc discussions with members of the Wave APIs team, there were a whopping 17 demos to show off. We were awed by how enthusiastically developers dove in to the APIs that day, and excited to see what they created. Their accomplishments were especially amazing as no one had even used the product prior to the hackathon.”

Source: http://googlewavedev.blogspot.com/2009/06/1-wave-sandbox-5-hours-17-awesome-demos.html

Examples:

Embed API – Methods to communicate w/ server:

LoadWave
SetUIConfig
AddReply
Follow

Sample Google Wave Embed Code:






Google Wave Embed API Example: Simple Wave

Source:http://code.google.com/events/io/sessions/ProgrammingWithAndForGoogleWave.html

Further Resources:

A month after I/O, most developers who did not attend are still waiting for Google to approve sandbox access. There are a couple of good email discussion groups dedicated to working out issues related to development on the platform:

Google Wave API Group: http://groups.google.com/group/google-wave-api

Google Wave Federation Protocol Group:http://groups.google.com/group/wave-protocol

Wave Gallery: http://wave-samples-gallery.appspot.com/

PyGoWave Server also has a type of sandbox set up and some demo projects online:
http://pygowave.p2k-network.org/

Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/05/28/google-wave-guide/

Wavety: http://wavety.com/

Drupal.org discussion: http://drupal.org/node/476438

Drupal.org module project: http://drupal.org/project/wave

Drupal.org Google Wave Group: http://groups.drupal.org/google-wave

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Understanding Google Wave Development – Part 1

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JSConf 2009 April 24 & 25 Washington DC

voodootikigod — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:00:48 +0000

JSConf 2009 is the first conference dedicated to JavaScript developers in all forms and it is shaping up to be one amazing conference. The conference brings together some of the greatest visionaries and developers within the JS community including John Resig creator of jQuery, Jason Huggins creator of Selenium testing environment, and Stefan Stoyanov from YUI. This is an incredible opportunity for anyone doing web based development since the conference material will show you how to use JavaScript in the browser, on the server, and on mobile handsets. Over two days you will learn about cutting edge technologies, how to get a great job in the web development world, and network with some of the most important people in the next generation web industry.

JSConf 2009 will be held in Washington DC between April 24 and 25, 2009. The conference brings together 16 speakers to present on JavaScript development in the browser, mobile, desktop, and server environments. If you haven’t had much of a chance to do some deep JavaScript work, this conference is a great way to learn from some of the best. Although many people don’t realize it, JavaScript can also be used to build thick client desktop applications. In addition, it is one of the only languages to successfully bridge object oriented and functional programming in a way that anyone can use it. JavaScript has seen an incredible rise with modern web application frameworks and it only seems to be increasing in the coming years, this is the only conference that will show you how important JavaScript is to your programming and design capabilities.

The conference is purposefully being kept small and intimate so you will be able to interact with the speakers and attendees during the day and during the social events. Also there will be many opportunities to interact with the sponsors and select vendors that will present to network and potential pursue employment opportunities. The conference costs $450 right now for two full days worth of speakers, breakfasts, lunches, a beer and wine tasting social event on Friday Evening, and a networking social event on Saturday Evening. If you are looking for more work, this conference has also drawn the attention of a lot of hiring employers who are looking for top notch developers.

If you are interested in going, we recommend getting your tickets soon at http://jsconf2009.eventbrite.com as they are selling very quickly. For more information or other speakers, check the website at http://www.jsconf2009.com or twitter us @jsconf

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

JSConf 2009 April 24 & 25 Washington DC

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Mozilla Labs Releases Bespin Beta: In-Browser Collaborative Code Editing

Jeffrey Scott -TypeHost Web Development — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:52:56 +0000

I recently received a tip to check out a new Beta release of “Bespin” at Mozilla Labs, and decided to test the demo for review. First, what is Bespin and why would anyone be interested in it? Essentially it is a HTML or code editor that works in the browser, or in this instance a browser that supports the HTML 5

All of the html, css, php, javascript, or other files for a site would be listed in browser in a file management hierarchy familiar to anyone who has used a FTP program or CPanel. Clicking on the file would load it directly into the browser where it could be edited and then saved back to the disk, or in this instance the remote server. The “cloud” aspect is related to using the browser for this work, rather than a typical desktop application. As someone coding html files for over 13 years, this routine of working through multiple programs during the web publishing process could be transformed.

Bespin also enables collaborative authoring, editing, and file management for web development through a shared browser interface. The simplicity of the program leads to its expansion – if it can replace the desktop editor on your computer, then why not have everyone on the team use it and manage the publication of core site code files in the same manner… through Bespin? According to the developers, they are looking to improve upon Vi, Emacs, Textmate and IntelliJ IDEA.

“Accessible from anywhere – any device, any location
Simple to use like Textmate, an editor not an IDE
Wicked Fast – performance, performance, performance
Rock-solid real-time collaboration, like SubEthaEdit – it just works
Integrated command-line, like vi, fun like Quicksilver, social like Ubiquity
Self-hosted environment, like Emacs, for extreme extensibility, but with JavaScript”

The page referenced above, from Ajaxian, the development group behind Bespin, includes some great resources on the project and video of how to put it into use. I used a desktop FTP program for many years before switching to FireFTP, and have never been happier with a FTP program, so I can see how integrating browser based document editing for html, php, javascript, and css files could be excellent, especially if they can be drawn directly from the remote server into the browser, edited, and saved again without the need of FTP. This is the advantage of Bespin’s open source code – you can install and host it on your own servers, and modify it to meet your development needs.

It is in the latter, the open architecture leading to extensibility and new features from third party developers, where Bespin shows the most promise – this is the initial release of the program. For example, Bespin in it’s current form does not include WYSIWYG authoring of html documents like Dreamweaver or similar products, nor does it allow for in-browser preview of the page design. It is a code editor and file manager fusion that also includes a command line interface. From a developer’s perspective, if you add it to something like Basecamp’s features for communication and project management, Bespin could be a really powerful tool in a mash-up. If it becomes a modular platform that people actively develop for, and acquires “extensibility,” Bespin could be one of the first cloud apps to really change things.

Anyone who has been doing web design and web development professionally has probably become more or less ingrained in the way they do code editing, and the programs themselves become the basic canvas for daily work, like Photoshop & Illustrator for graphic design. I made the change from a desktop based FTP program to one running in FireFox as a plug-in based on reliability and functionality – FireFTP is rock solid. Would I likewise switch over from the combination of 4 different programs I use now for editing web files to using Bespin, another browser based application?

To be honest, a few of the content management systems I have used have an option to bring the CMS files themselves (css, php, index, etc) directly into the browser for editing, and this is handy. Bespin seems to be an extension of that trend, but I am probably too engrained with the patterns of my current work process and lacking the free time to put into installing and testing the application as my daily code editor for project work. If it easily installed, eliminated FTP layer, and had WYSIWYG html editing functions along with the ability to edit the code of web files directly from the server in the browser, with one click publishing of revisions, I would seriously consider using Bespin.

To find out more about the Bespin project at Mozilla Labs, visit:
https://bespin.mozilla.com/index.html

More on HTML 5 & Canvas:
https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Canvas_tutorial
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvas_tag

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

Mozilla Labs Releases Bespin Beta: In-Browser Collaborative Code Editing

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Get Free Web Designs

Aaron D. Campbell — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:00:30 +0000

WebDevNews is happy to announce the official launch of it’s new sister site, Get Free Web Designs. Get Free Web Designs, is the result of collaboration between the people behind Xavisys and Blogging Rock Star and offers high-quality open source templates completely free! You can find open source templates in a number of great designs, and use them to create professional web sites that stand alone or integrate with popular CMS platforms.

Get Free Web Designs, or GFWD, currently has 167 open source templates for free download available on the site, and they are all valid XHTML! The designs can be viewed by author as well as being searchable by validation (XHTML 1.0 Transitional, XHTML 1.0 Strict, XHTML 1.1), license (Public Domain, GNU GPL, Creative Commons), contrast, width (fixed or fluid), number of columns, and color. If you would like to get regular information on updates and the addition of new themes to the site, subscribe to the RSS feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/GFWD-Design-Feed.

GFWD is open to designers who would like to list their themes and templates on the site for hosting and download. It’s excellent exposure for new designers and it’s a great way for seasoned designers to give back to the community. If you would like to register to submit designs, visit the Get Free Web Designs Registration Page now to get started!

Thanks go out to Wolfram Fiedler for the amazing design which helps to truly showcase each of the designs submitted to the site. Also, Sean of Blogging Rockstar for the site layout, search engine optimization, and user interfaces, all of which I’m sure you’ll appreciate whether you are contributing designs, looking for designs, or both! Lastly, Aaron with Xavisys Web Development for the back end coding which allows the site to be responsive and reliable, allows the searching to be robust and intuitive, and also makes things like the statistics page possible.

We want Get Free Web Designs to be an amazing resource for you, so if you have any ideas or suggestions, please contact us. Also, stay tuned and watch the Get Free Web Designs blog! We’ll keep you updated as new features and functionality are added to the site.

Please feel free to check out the free XHTML and CSS designs on Get Free Web Designs. If you’re overwhelmed or aren’t sure where to start, hopefully some of these will help (pulled from the current statistics):

Top Web Template Contributors

graystatic contributed 30 designs
wfiedler contributed 22 designs
NickyD contributed 19 designs
Outsider contributed 14 designs
coollew contributed 13 designs
Karen Blundell contributed 9 designs
Gigacore contributed 8 designs
conartistdesign contributed 8 designs
Pat Heard contributed 7 designs
Payal Dhar contributed 7 designs

Most Downloaded Designs

wfiedler_21 by wfiedler (42 downloads)
Wild City by Outsider (38 downloads)
Leaves by NickyD (35 downloads)
lazydays by Pat Heard (30 downloads)
Orangealicous by graystatic (28 downloads)
Falling Away by Pat Heard (27 downloads)
Metamorph Floral by metamorph (26 downloads)
Simple Life by Pat Heard (24 downloads)
wfiedler_12 by wfiedler (22 downloads)
Chocolatey brown by kalyan (22 downloads)

Most Downloads Per Day (Average)

Nature by NickyD (15 downloads per day)
Mustard Green by kalyan (9 downloads per day)
Simply Plain v2 by kalyan (7 downloads per day)
Simply Plain v1 by kalyan (5 downloads per day)
wfiedler_22 by wfiedler (5 downloads per day)
metamorph eagle by metamorph (5 downloads per day)
dip! by Outsider (4 downloads per day)
metamorph darkside by metamorph (4 downloads per day)
Simply Black v1 by kalyan (4 downloads per day)
Chocolatey brown by kalyan (4 downloads per day)

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

Get Free Web Designs

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The Top 10 Open Source Content Management Systems

Jeffrey Scott -TypeHost Web Development — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:00:47 +0000

As a web designer working online since Netscape 1.0 building sites for clients, the biggest change I’ve seen in thirteen years in the industry is the advent of the Open Source Content Management System as the preferred platform for development. Nothing is more illustrative of the change between first generation web standards and the web 2.0 evolution than the CMS trend. Providing a great base for social networking, including blogs, forums, wikis, image galleries, comment logs, ecommerce, voting, bookmarking, tags, and innumerable other extensions along with traditional web publishing methods, the CMS is the preferred platform for most web designers building sites today. Open Source has led to the establishment of huge, user-powered development communities that are dynamically changing and constantly upgrading, offering free software, themes, and modules for building professional web sites. The ubiquity of the shared hosting LAMP – Cpanel – Fantastico set up has popularized the CMS far beyond even the developer/design community.

The top 10 Open Source Content Management Systems:

1. Drupal
2. WordPress
3. Joomla
4. Media Wiki
5. Liferay
6. TYPO3
7. Moodle
8. Dolphin
9. Pligg
10. Movable Type

Honorable Mention:
Xoops, Geeklog, e107, Mambo, Nucleus

1. Drupal:

Drupal gets the top nod because of its ease of use, vast number of modules, great user, developer, and support community.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: core CMS, Views, CCK, Organic Groups, & huge library of contributed modules.
Disadvantages: complex, needs more top quality themes, frequent security upgrades.
Outlook: Huge potential to continue growth and expansion on this platform over time.
Website: http://www.drupal.org/

2. WordPress:

WordPress is a simple and elegant CMS, perfect for single user blogs, with a large number of themes and modules available online.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Easiest CMS to use, customize, and extend.
Disadvantages: Lacks many of the social networking functions, ecommerce, forums, wikis, etc. used on more expansive sites.
Outlook: Best for personal publishing, huge user community, will continue to be the preferred choice of bloggers for years.
Website: http://www.wordpress.org/

3. Joomla:

Joomla has one of the largest user communities of any CMS, everything you need and more to develop social networks, ecommerce, & archive sites.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Professional standards, internationalization, customization.
Disadvantages: too many commercial products for Open Source development, difficult to learn.
Outlook: Strong challenger for the top CMS spot, commercialization of extensions should continue to provide many income opportunities for 3rd party developers.
Website: http://www.joomla.org/

4. Media Wiki:

Media Wiki invented a whole new way of working on the web, and is a CMS for collective authoring of documents, used to power the one of the largest and most popular sites on the internet, Wikipedia.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: If you need a wiki, it is the best.
Disadvantages: Does not include many other functions / extensions of other CMS platforms, doesn’t theme well, most sites look the same.
Outlook: Follows the model to success of doing one thing extremely well, has the support of the Wikipedia Foundation, very popular authoring model.
Website: http://www.mediawiki.org/

5. Liferay:

Liferay is a popular new CMS that is great for building portals, and offers a professional look and feel that sets it apart from the other platforms.
License: MIT
Programming Language: Java, PHP, Ruby
Main advantages: collaboration, calendars, internationalization, design.
Disadvantages: More closely tied to a commercial outlook / corporate structure than most Open Source projects.
Outlook: Not as well known or implemented as some of the other CMS platforms, but nice design & features to set your sites apart from the crowd.
Website: http://www.liferay.com/

6. TYPO3:

One of the most complex and professional CMS platforms out of the box, TYPO3 is popular for business websites, especially with European companies.
License: GNU
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: design, extensions, customizations, flexibility, professionalism.
Disadvantages: too difficult to learn for most, too many proprietary conventions.
Outlook: Strong CMS for web development, sure to continue with a core of specialized developers and corporate clients, but loosing support and market share to other platforms.
Website: http://www.typo3.com/

7. Moodle:

Moodle is one of the most unique CMS platforms on this list, designed specifically for Course Management and Education, and used for online learning platforms.
License: GNU
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Huge user and development community, online education, no real competitors or similar products, extremely powerful.
Disadvantages: not really applicable for most web design purposes.
Outlook: Look for this “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” to continue to be the standard online operating system for education and spawn many interesting mashups with other CMS platforms as well as many more modules & extensions.
Website: http://www.moodle.org/

8. Dolphin:

Boonex Dolphin is popular among web designers who want the latest in social networking, with an industry standard look and all of the features of the popular online communities out of the box.
License: Creative Commons
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Plug-n-Play user community with all the bells & whistles.
Disadvantages: not really Open Source, must pay to remove ads, requires specific hosting requirements, difficult to install, buggy.
Outlook: Look for Dolphin to continue to be a popular choice for social networking, though its “cookie cutter” design runs the risk of becoming stale with too many sites implementing the same design.
Website: http://www.boonex.com/products/dolphin/

9. Pligg:

Pligg is a Digg clone that provides social bookmarking functionality for websites, allowing users to post links, vote them up or down, and leave comments.
License: GPL
Programming Language: PHP
Main advantages: Best for Social Bookmarking, can be themed and extended to build top quality sites like Mixx, Redditt, Del.icio.us, etc.
Disadvantages: difficult to install, mod rewrite problems, poor support on community boards, questionable Open Source future.
Outlook: With the 1.0 release of Pligg upcoming within a couple of months, look for a big surge of use back to this platform but watch out for increased commercialization.
Website: http://www.pligg.com/

10. Movable Type:

Movable Type is the main challenger to WordPress for a personal blog platform, and supports multiple users, Themes, and Tags.
License: GNU
Programming Language: Perl
Main advantages: Blogs
Disadvantages: Too closely tied to commercial products and services compared to most Open Source communities, Perl.
Outlook: Look for MT to fall off the list as other of the blogging platforms below increase in popularity, but sustain development as PR for the company’s commercial offerings.
Website: http://movabletype.org/

Honorable Mention:
Xoops, Geeklog, e107, Mambo, Nucleus

This is a post from Web Dev News, a site brought to you by Xavisys Web Development.

The Top 10 Open Source Content Management Systems

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