Tag: announce

Basic Maths

Posted on by david

After over a year of not really liking the look or functionality of my blog, most of that time “planning” to do something about it, I realized I wasn’t likely to ever get around to redesiging it on my own.

I’m not designer, although I occasionally “play one on TV” (i.e: When no one on the project knows how to spell “Photoshop” let alone use it.) Anyway, I decided to delegate and purchase a WordPress theme.

Given the reference nature of many of my posts, I thought that Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole’s Basic Maths was a good fit. I hope you do too. Enjoy.

ERModernLook

Posted on by david

World? ERModernLook. ERModernLook? World.

ERModernLook is a modernized DirectToWeb look added to Project Wonder this morning. My sneak peek post from yesterday has a short screencast that gives you an idea of what it looks like.

Some additional details:

ERModernLook Frameworks

  • ERModernLook – contains the standard look page templates
  • ERModernDefaultSkin – contains the css and style resources
  • ERModernDirectToWeb – contains modernized versions of components from ERDirectToWeb

ERModernLook Applications

  • ERModernMoviesDemo – a demo application based on the ERMoviesLogic framework

Features

ERModernLook was designed with the following features in mind:

  • Tableless semantic markup – tables are used but only for tabular data (i.e: list pages).
  • Uses the Ajax framwork to supply pragmatic ajax behaviour.
    • When paginating
    • When switching inner page tabs.
    • In-line editing of related objects.
  • CSS inspired by: “Object-oriented CSS”
  • CSS and style resource are located in a separate skin framework making customizing easier.
  • All buttons/background images are references via CSS and are contained in the skin framework.
  • Enhanced edit relationship page that is embeddable and supports in-line related object editing and creation.
  • Enhanced edit date component based on Unobtrusive Date-Picker Widget V5.
  • Professionally designed default skin.

Getting Started

The easiest way to get started is to watch the demo videos (OK, not just right yet, but there will be demo videos) and then run and play with the ERModernMoviesDemo application. ERModernMoviesDemo uses the ERMoviesLogic framework which has an embedded H2 database and shouldn’t
require any configuration to get running.

The ERModernMoviesDemo can easily be copied and modified to use any business logic framework.

  • Modify the NavigationMenu.plist to customize the main menu.
  • Duplicate and modify the MoviesNavigationController referenced by the session to support your Entities.
  • Modify the user.d2wmodel to support you Entities.

Using your own skin

The CSS resource components in the look pages obtain the name of the framework that contains the css files from the
er.modern.look.skinframework property. This makes creating your own skin as easy as duplicate the ERModernDefaultSkin framework
and change the value of that property in it’s Properties file to match it’s new name.

Known issues

  • The look has seen VERY little testing on IE. Feel free to file bugs, but since I avoid IE at all costs, only bugs with patches will get serious consideration (and probably not at all for IE prior to 7).
  • The look is pretty young, so expect to there to be bugs. We will be using it in production apps so expect any obvious ones to be squashed pretty quickly.

That said, enjoy!

WOWODC 2008

Posted on by david

Mark your calendar! WOWODC 2008 WOCommunity.org‘s second annual WebObjects developers conference is taking place the weekend before WWDC at the Parc 55 Hotel in San Francisco.

Pascal Robert (who has done an amazing job pulling this all together) tells me we have an incredible roster of presenters and sessions lined up for the this year. If last years conference is anything to go by, it should be a rip-roaring good time.

Tickets are available here

Disclaimer: I am a member of the WOCommunity.org steering committee.

Nothing for me.

Posted on by david

The Macworld 2008 keynote just completed and there is nothing there for me. I’m not disappointed (to be disappointed you need to have expectations) but there is just nothing there.

Time Capsule – Not a problem I needed a solution for.

AppleTV 2.0 – I’ve got a Mac Mini thanks.

Movie Rentals – Uh, no thanks.

iPhone Update – I live in CANADA remember?

MacBook Air – Cute, but I don’t need an unexpandable, fixed battery, non wired, paper think laptop – even if it is super portable. My MBP is my primary computer and I think it’ll stay that way for a while.