TechCruch has screenshots of the leaked Google calendar service! Looks like it is tightly integrated with GMail, and some SMS services!

These are linked directly, because the TechCrunch site seems to be having problems:

TurboAJAX provides commercial AJAX widgets based on Dojo. Be sure to check out TurboDbAdmin as well!

TurboWidgets are JavaScript client-side controls that provide a rich user-interface experience for AJAX-style web applications. Built on top of the popular Dojo Toolkit, TurboWidgets are designed for ease-of-use and flexibility.

TurboWidgets includes the powerful TurboGrid: a dynamic, flexible data grid. Other rich visual controls are included, such as buttons, trees, tabs, and more. Additional foundation widgets support page layout, application organization, and modularity. Check out the live demo and see TurboWidgets in use in our popular database application TurboDbAdmin.

TurboWidgets are not open-source, but are free for non-commercial use.

Commercial licenses for TurboWidgets 1.0 Beta are available for $199. Commercial licenses are sold on a per-developer basis, and allow royalty-free usage in commercial web pages or applications. See the software license for more information.

Google’s got an editor, an AJAX, WYSIWYG editor. Google Pages.

From the Site:

Google Page Creator is a free online tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and publish useful, attractive web pages in just minutes.

No technical knowledge required.
Build high-quality web pages without having to learn HTML or use complex software.

What you see is what you’ll get.
Edit your pages right in your browser, seeing exactly how your finished product will look every step along the way.

Don’t worry about hosting.
Your web pages will live on your own site at http://yourgmailusername.googlepages.com

From the site (http://www.metz.se/tinyajax/index.php):

TinyAjax allows you to:

AJAX enable your pages without having to write a single line of javascript

Call PHP functions in classes or as separate functions, you can even extend TinyAjax by subclassing it

Let your PHP-code set which elements to alter and with what using behaviours

Integrate it with a template system (smarty-example included)

Easily have gmail style “Loading” notification when AJAX-code is executing

Use PHP-functions for both AJAX callback and regular code

Users are more advanced and expect more from applications. Simple UI is not acceptable in the 21st century. See this article for more information. It’s quite good; the author dives deepter in to:

Yahoo! has released an AJAX UI library and a set of Design Patterns. Here you can learn more about Yahoo! UI Lbrary ; and here you can learn more about Yahoo! Patterns.

“The Yahoo! User Interface Library is a set of utilities and controls, written in JavaScript, for building richly interactive web applications using techniques such as DOM scripting, HTML and AJAX. The UI Library Utilities facilitate the implementation of rich client-side features by enhancing and normalizing the developer’s interface to important elements of the browser infrastructure (such as events, in-page HTTP requests and the DOM). The Yahoo UI Library Controls produce visual, interactive user interface elements on the page with just a few lines of code and an included CSS file. All the components in the Yahoo! User Interface Library have been released as open source under a BSD license and are free for all uses.”

Have Fun!

A really interesting feature of open source is the ability to move quickly in response to user demands. According to this post, PHP will include the php-json module with standard distribution.

Numerous posts in the news regarding AJAX have sparked an interesting debate:

Which toolkit should I use?

Easy enough to ask, not so easy to answer. The sprawling growth of AJAX toolkits has reached a point of dilution. There are so many packages that claim to be THE toolkit it makes it almost impossible to choose one. Additionally, as this technology (as a framework) is so young, the changes are rapid. This can make development a little tedious with the constant need to synchronize changes from your source tree to the package you are using.

AJAX code is very, very simple to write. A simple app that qualifies as AJAX can be composed an deployed in a few minutes…even without a Framework. However, this introduces an interesting opportunity for talented developers and large companies to build a complicated Framework/toolkit that does nice things for you like standardize widget interfaces, integration, and deployment.

It should be easy to use a GUI composer style app to build an AJAX app. Well, at least “most” of the UI. The backend, well, that’s another story. Some of the backend can be build on existing Web Services technology.

Is there an IDE or a Development Framekwork/Toolkit that works for both front-and-back end? Aside from .Net there is very few development environments that address front/back end. If you choose Java, you must choose between JBoss, WebLogic, WebSphere, Tomcat, or a host of other application servers. Then you must pick what you will use for front-end development (UI). Already, if you are not married to .Net, you are saying something like, “I will use Eclipse.” Ok, what if you use PHP, Ruby, or Python? What IDE will you use? Okay, so you are still saying, Eclipse.

Well, now, what framework will you use to tie front and back end development together?

This is what Open AJAX is all about, bringing both sides together. Regardless of what language you use. PHP, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, C/C++. Basically, there is little or no need to build anything for .Net since that case is handled by default.

Now, you see IBM, BEA, and a host of others forming ranks to square off against Microsoft. They know that if it’s easier to build better apps on a MS platform, they will lose customers and users, and thus deminish. Same goes for MS, if it’s easier on another platform, that’s bad for business.

Google is sort of hiding in the shadows. This means:
a) They are up to something
b) They are waiting to see who’s going to win before they side
c) They have already sided and are trying not to cheese the other side off

Either way, as a developer, you’re going to win. The users will win. 21st century applications will be different than 20th century net apps. The Request/Response paradigm is quite powerful, and simple - I also recognize Streaming protocols are powerful and required as well. For the sake of this post, however, making a Req/Res transaction seem invisible is what this wonderful thing called AJAX is all about.

Which side are you on? .Net or Brand X? Write in and let us know.

Richard MacManus has a list of AJAX apps here. The list includes some interesting apps like a calendar and a sticky note app. What do you think? Pretty cool, eh?

Don’t forget Zimbra!

AJAX Office is a project designed to build a browser-based OpenOffice type bundle. Check it out. I think they are looking for programmers if you want to lend a hand.