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8 July, 2008 12:27 am

Becoming a better Javascript Programmer using JSLint

Posted by Richard Wong under Javascript, Tools | 2 Comments

I have recently came across this interesting and useful Javascript tool called JSLint. You feed in your javascript code and JSLint will scan through and looks for problems in your code.

You might ask what is the different between this and debugging using Firebug? Well, although it is only a syntax checker and validator, it is much more stricter and follows proper Code Conventions. In other word, it will tell you errors you normally won’t get.

As you know, Javascript sometimes allows code to be implemented in a sloppy way which could be very troublesome for large complex projects. So I have been using this tool as a reference point to tighten up my javascript code.

So go and paste your code at JSLint and see how your code is doing. But I must warning you, it might hurt your feeling!

Source: JSLint

28 June, 2008 1:06 am

4 Plugins to turbocharge your Firebug

Posted by Richard Wong under Development, Javascript, Tools | 2 Comments

Anyone developing for the web will have at least used or heard of Firebug. It is very powerful tool for debugging and testing any web pages on Firefox. You can live edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.

Although Firebug is already packed with features, there are always rooms for extras. Since the creation of Firebug, plugins are being developed to extend the power of Firebug even further. Here is a list of useful plugins for Firebug.

Jiffy

Jiffy provides a very detail and visual view of the Javascript time measurements captured by Jiffy-Web. It allows you to get information of AJAX requests and other Javascript functions.

YSlow

YSlow developed by Yahoo! is probably one of most famous Firebug extension out there. It analyzes web page performance and tells you why performance is slow. It gives you information on all the requests, load time, sizes and even give you tips to improve your site speed.

FireCookie

Instead of using other Firefox extensions to view cookies. This Firebug plugin allows developers like you to keep using the firebug interface to debug with cookies. FireCookie gives you the ability to view and manage cookies. It also has a console where you can see when cookies are created, changed or deleted.

FirePHP

For those PHP developers out there, FirePHP is enable you to print to the Firebug Console using simple PHP function call. The main benifit is that all the debugging data are hidden from normal user and you can review in a nicely format within Firebug console.

Updates:

So still want more plugins? You can always build your own. Jan Odvarko of Software is hard has a series of tutorial on creating a Firebug plugin.

9 June, 2008 1:53 am

280 Slides: Using Javascript to build the Keynote on the web

Posted by Richard Wong under Javascript, Tools, Web Apps | 0 Comment

280 Slides a new online slideshow creator among existing services like Google Presentations, Sliderocket, Empressr or Zoho. The first thing you notice with 280 Slides is that it looks pretty similar to Apple Keynote. It has an easy to use interface with a strong feel of a desktop application.

Although, it still cannot replace a desktop application with lack of advance features like charts, styling or effects. It does provide you with interesting ability to integrate with other web services like publishing to Slideshare, or add media from YouTube and Flickr.

The very interesting thing about this application is that it is built by a Javascript Framework called Cappuccino which is a port of the Apple Cocoa framework. In the process, they made Javascript Objective and calling it Objective-J that they will open source soon. This means developers on the Apple platforms using Objective-C could use this to build web apps a lot easier and at the same time, introducing more people to Cocoa and Objective-C.

Sources:

280 Slides: Like Apple Keynote, But Online [via Techcrunch]

An interview with 280 North on Objective-J and Cappuccino [via Ajaxian]

6 June, 2008 11:41 pm

NitobiBug - Javascript Debugging Script

Posted by Richard Wong under Javascript, Tools | 3 Comments

NitobiBug is a Javascript debugging script that once embedded, it can be used as a object logger and inspection tool. The main selling point of NitobiBug is that it is a light weight script you include in the page. This means it runs across different browsers without the need to install any plugins or extension.

Although the interface and features are not as powerful or rich as Firebug, this is still a handy tool to use when trying to debug on multiple browsers.

You can see a demo here and download it here

NitobiBug

5 June, 2008 11:01 pm

Beautiful Subversion Client for Mac

Posted by Richard Wong under Development, Tools | 0 Comment

As a developer, version control is an integral part of my development process. As one of many source version control system, Subversion can manage files and directories over time with a central repository hosted on a Subversion server. So team collaboration become a lot more manageable and effective, since all changes are logged and could be easily rollback.

Now Versions is providing us a brand new subversion client for the Mac. It has a very clean and intuitive interface that makes you really want to use it. So if you are not using subversion and want to give it a try, you can use a hosted Subservsion services like beanstalk. Then you can start versioning you code in no time!!!

You can check out the beta software here

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