

Scripty2 - a complete rewrite of script.aculo.us - catone
http://scripty2.com/

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patio11
Every time I see a website like this I think "I really wish I had both the
visual design and front-end engineering talents to make something like this
happen". I have enough problems getting text to go where I want it to go and
while I can read and understand Javascript I just have no clue where I'd even
start going about getting, e.g., semi-transparent balloons with rounded
corners as a rollover effect. That would probably take me a week to get right,
after much copy/pasting.

I suppose that, somewhere out there, there is a front end engineer really
wishing he could alter the Big Freaking Enterprise Web App backing his AJAX
calls.

~~~
aditya
Have you looked at jQuery and jQuery tools? they make life easier, by far.

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whalesalad
Here's a direct link to the github page, which gives _slightly_ more insight:
<http://github.com/madrobby/scripty2/tree/master>

"scripty2 is a complete rewrite and reimplementation of script.aculo.us, with
are modular structure intended to ease the development of highly customized
user interface effects and behaviours."

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100k
The site has no explanation as to why this was needed.

~~~
madrobby
(disclaimer: I'm Thomas Fuchs) The reasons are manifold, but the core reasons
are as follows:

1) the scriptaculous fx framework was the first serious JS/DOM animation
toolkit out there, and by version 1.8.X it was full of old cruft (e.g. hacks
for browsers no one uses anymore)

2) I personally needed some more mature effects for my projects (like the
pepsicozeitgeist twitter vis amy hoy did with me)

and maybe most important: 3) hacking just for the fun of it :)

~~~
davidw
Seeing as how you're watching this discussion, I'll throw out an unrelated
question:

It seems that jQuery has gained a lot of momentum lately. What are your
thoughts on it and prototype? I'm just an 'end user' and try not to do too
awfully much with JS, and they all seem like nice work to me... I'm just
curious which way the wind's blowing.

~~~
madrobby
I think there are several really great frameworks out there, each one target
to specific audiences. I see the current situation as follows:

jQuery: The "I don't have to learn JavaScript" audience, quick+easy to improve
certain page interactions. Tons of plugins, but quality and customization
options vary wildly.

Prototype: The "I'd like to roll my own components" audience, very Ruby-like,
super-easy to do your own specialized UI stuff. Has a learning curve, however.

Dojo, YUI: The "I'm enterprisey and like to edit configuration files"
audience. Componentized frameworks, which can do everything (but make
tradeoffs for complexity).

And of course there are others, serving various niches.

Your choice depends: Site or app? And do you just want to skin some prefab
components, but your site will look like thousands of others, or do you want
to roll your own and do more complex stuff and stand out of the crowd?

~~~
smoofles
Don't forget Ext.js: "I hope using this will not make me have to think about
UI design. Oooh, shiny late-nineties buttons!" ... :P

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pablolarah
Very impressive effects with no much technical requirements.
Gooooooooooooood....¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡

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mishmash
Note: "alpha release 1" - sounds like fun for some.

~~~
msie
Sigh, I just bought a book on scriptaculous! At least I'll get some use out of
scriptaculous (and the book) before scripty2 becomes stable.

~~~
madrobby
Yeah, scriptaculous doesn't suddenly stop to work just the alpha of V2 is out!
:) Also, most concepts of the old version still apply to the new one.

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ahoyhere
More information on his official blog post:
[http://mir.aculo.us/2009/06/26/scripty2-for-a-more-
delicious...](http://mir.aculo.us/2009/06/26/scripty2-for-a-more-delicious-
web/)

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ilyak
Docs sucks.

Prototype's docs are great, btw, but they're going trash them, unfortunately.

~~~
ahoyhere
How do the docs suck?

They're pretty complete, and they come with animated graphs/examples for every
single easing function. Where do you find better docs than that?

[http://scripty2.com/doc/scripty2%20fx/s2/fx/transitions.html...](http://scripty2.com/doc/scripty2%20fx/s2/fx/transitions.html#bouncepast-
class_method)

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akirk
256K (zipped) download, says it all.

~~~
madrobby
Ahm, that's the size with the offline documentation and all. The library
itself is about 5k minified and gzipped, plus 35k or so for Prototype.

~~~
akirk
Thanks for proving me wrong. It was the gripes I always had with Prototype and
Scriptaculous, how cool that they finally addressed that.

