Calling For Ideas: dwProgressBar and Typewriter

Discussion

1. Chuck

   Hey David,

   I was wondering why you use mootools mostly instead of jquery.
2. Gio

   dwProgress Bar:
   you can pass as argument an array of function to execute, the script can count it, execute it and set itself to increase by a portion on every end.

   ex:

   var f= new Array();
   f[0] = alert('olè');
   f[1] = alert('olè2');
   f[2] = alert('olè3');
   f[3] = alert('olè4');
   
   pb = new dwProgressBar(f,{  
       container: $('put-bar-here'),  
       startPercentage: 0, 
       speed:1000, 
       boxID: 'box',  
       percentageID: 'perc'
   });
   

   in this case, for every alert() the bar can increase itself by a 25% automatically.

   Gio
3. evilhuman

   I obviously can’t speak for David (and you were asking him so you probably don’t care :) ) but for me it simply comes down to familiarity. I started with MooTools when it was still just MooFx and based around a “lite” version of Prototype (if memory serves). From there I just migrated to MooTools and used it when I needed more than a one or two small onload functions. I’ve dabbled with jQuery since it came around to top all the popularity polls but I’ve never seen a killer feature that’s stolen me away. This could be laziness on my part as much as anything but it’s worked for me so far.

   I’ve always felt that it was sort of skipped over a little unfairly. There was a period of time when you couldn’t turn round without tripping over a Scriptaculous article. MooTools, as it was then, was getting very little attention despite offering, for me, similar simplified control in, at the time, a dramatically smaller filesize (I say at the time as I have no idea when Scriptaculous itself it like these days). Then it seemed like suddenly jQuery was everywhere and the Moo went unnoticed. It’s possible that there was a more involved and public discussion process that lead to jQuery’s dominance but if that history exists I blinked and missed it.

   Sorry, I’m rambling on, and potentially to people who aren’t interested :) Move along, nothing to see.
4. Chuck

   hey evil,

   Thanks for that. I asked David but would like to know from others. Laziness is a great reason. Since I didn’t know ANY js until jquery, the plugins made it for me. Since then I’ve learned a little.

   I think the reason a lot of people skipped moo is because (at least a year ago) they really pushed it was for advanced js people. I was scared to post there, being a rookie and all. Then jQ came along and it seemed easier for noobs to learn. Kinda like joomla.

   I’ve heard great things about moo though, and the MODx devs use it for the manager. They say it worked great and fast w/ Ext for the new backend ui.
5. Matthias

   I’m using jQuery because it had some effects, MooTools didn’t support well enough. That’s the only reason. It’s a pure matter of taste I think. But I wouldn’t say that jQuery is the “MooTools Joomla” – then MooTools would be “Typo3”. Try to compare Joomla and Typo3 ;-)
   jQuery is also full of advanced features. If you’re new to JS, both frameworks are well done (and easy to learn) I think.
6. Chuck

   The only comparison was “Joomla is often chosen because it is easy for rookies: jQuery may have a quick uptake because it is easy for rookies”

   My comparison ends there.
7. aleorem

   the message variable that the writer actually writes should came out of an object in html. that would allow search engines to parse the text, and people with deactivated javascript. furthermore you can use markups like strong or em.

   it would be cool if you could add a courser that the text writes
8. Paul

   Some ideas for Typewriter –
   Being able to load ‘news’ or ‘headlines’ from a different page, e.g a news page, maybe it could pull in everthing within the news div (not sure if thats even possible) using ajax.

   Secondly a delay after set no of characters/words so you could have
   “Breaking News . .
   and then it stops (maybe a dot appears and then dissepears over teh space of 5 seconds) then the rest of the message appears so it looks like its pulling in breaking news as it happens.

   Just a few ideas!

   Maybe once the ‘headline’ has been typed out, it then slides up out of the box and the next one is typed in.
9. RG

   Ummm, Joomla may well be used by Rookies but its by no means a rookie web builder.

   It happens to be a CMS that allows a web builder to make effective sites with rapidly where the sites recipient (ie: customer) can be taught or entire organization taught how to effectively manage the site.

   Typo 3 as well as numerous others are complete nightmares when it comes to training an external organization on maintaining a site. Understand something here… Programmers (which I am one) have essentially forced many businesses into a wall which Micro$oft is working to resolve. We’ve built static sites, flash sites, sites with Drupal and others… Not a SINGLE customer of ours is EVER happy about having us get paid to maintain a site. What businesses and even privateers want is a site built for them and then they want just maintain it, add content, photo’s, manage a blog whatall.

   Because of basically web development firms greed factor Micro$oft has decided the opportunity exists to cease this market in large fashion. I suggest you look at what the strategic vision is, take a look at what Visual Studio 2010 is to be as well as the time frames of the next three release of Visual Studio, SQL Server and IIs.

   Beyond needing perhaps an artist… the Web Developer will become a relic as businesses, individuals etc. will be able to drag/drop, set properties and associations and be able to literally visually build webs that make not only Joomla, but Typo, Drupal and numerous others look like DOS .vs. Windows.

   Thats only a bit of the pie however… For stand alone apps, c/s apps they are moving the same way. For example I saw a few demos of forms, say an invoice form, purchase order, general accounting forms literally customized easily, dragged and dropped into VS 2010 and wham… it built an application that from scratch would have taken me 6 months and it did so in about 4 minutes.

   While we as programmers may see fault in everything from Joomla to DotNetNuke reality is we are not the customer. The technology both in computing performance and price as well as coders holding cards close so they stay the focal point for business, applications etc. development instead of considering the customers ablity to control is going to result in programmers becoming the exception, not the rule.

   Now… whether anyone care debate that… doesnt matter.

   We have had more customers happy with their Joomla sites and easy training than any other web building solution we have encountered. Our business has spiked in huge fashion due to it. Additionally we do get more of these clients asking us for additions, scrolling this, and active that because they realize… Once we do the dev work they do the rest and they LOVE IT.

   THEY see the results of THEIR efforts and take ownership in it .vs. them paying us over and over and over. Its simply a no brainer folks. Locally here where we are not only has our business increased in huge fashion due to Joomla CMS but we have had numerous clients dropping other local firms in favor of us… Why? Because word travels.

   Joomla is not a amateur platform… It is in fact a fantastic way to make money.