While there is a mechanism to sort, it requires modifying your search query and a page refresh. My script not only does all that live, but it also turns the search box into a live-search, which makes finding a particular ticket fast. To accompany all this, I also de-paginate the results so all the tickets are in one page. This could potentially cause problems, because some projects might have thousands of tickets; but that’s a problem for another day.

While I have been on a jQuery spree recently, I made sure not to use it for this Greasemonkey script. Even though there is a lot of DOM manipulation, I rely on Xpath and JavaScript 1.6 Arrays. The script is simple enough where it’s easy enough to convert to jQuery if needed.

If you use FireFox, Greasemonkey, and CodebaseHQ, Give CodebaseHQ Tickets+ a shot.

At first, I was going to use xml + xslt to make it. I actually got a proof of concept working nicely. But once I tried using javascript, it got weird on me because it was XML instead of HTML. Then I changed it to plain HTML + an XHR request to get the XML file and got basic realtime filters working. Then someone pointed out that there was some google docs with the information I wanted so I switched from XML to JSONP.

Anyways, this is the limit of my attention span so I’ll paste the URL now. http://allbfcards.com/

And I’ve posted a live demo of it here: http://crccheck.com/demo02

It’s not as refined as google maps, but it’s still pretty fancy. Navigation is done in the minimap, and you can draw on the large map with your mouse pointer.

This time, I made it work in FireFox and Chrome/Safari

One of the biggest problems with my  last Canvas experiment is that if you put text labels over points of interest, they quickly clutter up and become difficult to read. In this demo, I take a list of labels and the coordinates they belong, then I treat each label as a like-charged ion and they automatically repel each other and find their own non-overlapping positions. I also put a spring force between each label (visualized by the red line) to its original position so they don’t stray too far. There are also some visual embellishments specific for the application.

In my next iteration, I’m going to try and properly attach events to each particle. I have rudimentary drag and drop now, but it’s not robust enough for other ideas I want to add. I also want to be able to add uncharged particles and have wind and gravity. So I can make the whole thing a proper particle playground.

Note: since the code was ripped from a Greasemonkey script, it’s FireFox only.

Update 18 July, 2010: I’ve made it a little more interactive, re-ported a more up to date version of the code, and made it somewhat compatible with Safari and Chrome.

For my clients, I have made Greasemonkey scripts that can:

• scraping data for import into spreadsheets/databases
• adding AJAX to a site that didn’t support it before
• creating mashups (e.g. linking your CRM to another website)

My self-hosted homepage for my widgets was here, while my approved widgets are hosted on the official site. There is one secret widget I made that isn’t really hosted anywhere, and that’s my cockroach simulator. That was one of my favorite widgets. It hogged my CPU, but it was worth it to see a cockroach scurrying around my screen.  My most popular script was probably Doom mooD.

I know it’s been mentioned by Dwight Silverman twice before, and I still haven’t found anything that’s even close to the combined whimsy and functionality. When you add in the nostalgia factor, I don’t think anything can match up to it.

From programming widgets, I learned about XML and javascript. I got into some of the heavy object orientated side of javascript, and even started making libraries for other widget makers. I also started making Photoshop scripts to help automate taking my Photoshop designs into the XML layouts for the Yahoo! Widget Engine.

The Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI)

If you’re building a rich web application from scratch, YUI will have very thorough tools to do anything you want. As long as you survive writing the code.

Mootools

If you’re looking to add a little ajax and dhtml to your exisiting web page, or need a lightweight, high performance library, go with Mootools.

jQuery

Somewhere between Mootools and YUI, jQuery has a lot of  features and is very tidy to code.

Perhaps we can compare the philosophies behind each framework by examining their respective homepages:

	YUI	jQuery	Mootools
Slogan	The YUI Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, DHTML and AJAX.	The Write Less, Do More, JavaScript Library	a compact javascript framework
Size	8.91KB	13.41KB	7.33KB
Comment	Look at how busy and dated their homepage is… but it is compact.	A very slick page, but underneath it, it is a little bloated.	Simple and clean.