WebDev3000 » BSD License

Frontal

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 12:57:01 +0000

When used properly, Flash is awesome. Unfortunately, a lot of Flash sites look and feel like s**t, and increased use of devices like the iPhone or iPad could start a slow but unstoppable process of “Flash destruction,” if things continue to evolve as they did in the last few years. Speaking for myself and from the user’s point of view, I don’t want Flash to die, I just want to get best content for my desktop computer, and best content for my mobile phone or iPad (when the moment comes, probably v3 or v4 will be decent for my needs….). Considering these, Frontal could be one of those many tools needed to help developers save Flash. Why that?

Think about what Frontal stands for – this is an intuitive scripting and markup language able to generate Flash, thus enabling you to quickly create sites and Web-based apps without having to write countless lines of code! To make it all worth your time, Frontal can easily embed a wide range of Web technologies, including Ajax, HTML/HTML5, JavaScript, and it even offers support for deep linking!

The official page I linked to in the previous paragraph has a lot of examples, tutorials, and a well done user’s guide, so if you want to create fluid layouts and decrease the development time, you know what to do… after all, there’s only one price: a small chunk of your time, since Frontal comes under the terms of the BSD License. Good luck and be sure to come up with the best products that you can – Flash must not die!

InAppSettingsKit

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 24 May 2010 09:51:38 +0000

Love it or hate it, the iPhone is now one of the most notorious mobile platforms, with a growth rate that doesn’t seem to stop or even slow down at all. I am not going to start that discussion about the device’s goodies vs. Apple’s marketing force to turn a brick into a gem, because this would take us away from the real topic of this article, namely InAppSettingsKit, described by its creators as “an open source solution to to easily add in-app settings to your iPhone apps.”

InAppSettingsKit is available as an open source solution for all iPhone app devs out there looking for a way to easily add in-app settings to their iPhone applications. This package allows you to maintain the Settings.app pane using an hybrid approach, so the user of your application can choose where to change the settings.

The code in this package is covered by the terms of the BSD License, so it can be easily included in free and paid apps, as long as you’re giving credit to the original developers. To make it all even more interesting, InAppSettingsKit goes beyond creating an imitation of the Settings.app behavior, since there are also some additional features available that add some extra flexibility to the product, but I’ll leave those for you to discover…

JoobsBox

Codrut Nistor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:07:45 +0000

Confession time, once again! Deep inside, I am a lazy person. Sometimes, this becomes pretty obvious, but at least it doesn’t happen too often. For example, some buddies of mine released some job reviews site, and things are going pretty well for them. I was already thinking about releasing something like that, but slightly different (their site is about reviewing current/previous jobs, my idea was about something like Monster.com), and the two things blocking my way to having that up & running were… only one, in fact: lack of time and “calling” to start working. Fortunately, I just found something to help me go through, although it won’t help me kill my lazy side once and for all…

… but it will help me remain lazy and get the job done at the same time! Its name? JoobsBox, of course! For those who would do anything but write a single line of code (I am usually a part of that gang, I must admit it), having such a CMS freely available is nothing less but a treasure. Just think about this – an open source job board application!!!

Yup, you got that right – JoobsBox allows your users to easily add job listings, without even having to create some user account, and predefined categories can be added to make this easy job even easier.

Built with PHP (Zend Framkework) and MySQL, JoobsBox comes with support for additional plugins, allowing you to enrich the list of current features as you wish. Sure, some coding may be needed here… or some research work, since probably somebody coded a plugin for your purpose already!

Unfortunately, we’re still talking about an Alpha stage project, but since I’ve seen it at work on a few sites, I can say it’s ready to go already. After all, it has plugins, supports multiple languages, interface themes, and it’s even free! What else do you want from it?

Compatibility: all major browsers, of course; if you encounter any problems, be sure to drop a comment below and let us know about it, maybe someone can help!

HashMask

Codrut Nistor — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:12:20 +0000

If you’re one of those who don’t like to see their own passwords as they type (very useful when you’re in a room with people you can’t actually trust), password masking is a good idea, but it also has its weak parts, especially that one when you get pissed off by typing it wrong a few times in a row and not being able to figure out where’s the mistake…

The idea behind HashMask is to give you a hashed representation of your password as you type, pictured as a color-filled sparkline-bordered area that’s being displayed at the end of the password entry field. Once you get used to it, you’ll never type a wrong password and press the Login button again, so adding HashMask to your site can really be a good idea.

Released under the terms of the BSD license, HashMask is a jQuery plugin that won’t get users using an old or incompatible browser in trouble, but it won’t help them see if they are typing the password right before pressing that Login button, either…

Compatibility: all major browsers with JavaScript enabled, except IE6 and, probably, the IE-based browsers installed on a computer with IE6 in place (some feedback regarding this part would be great, so if you can provide that, don’t be shy!)

Open Atrium

Codrut Nistor — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:27:34 +0000

Working with people who are not in the same room with you can be a blessing, or a curse, depends a lot on the tasks you have to accomplish, the people you work with, and your own style of work. Speaking for myself, I usually enjoy working on my own, but when I have to team up with someone, I would rather do this remotely, and so I started my quest for the best online collaboration tool…

While Open Atrium may not be the best tool for the job, it’s surely one worth checking out, so here it is! After all, you don’t find open source web applications able to create an intranet for teamwork around every corner… and since Open Atrium also gives you the chance to extend its features by adding your own modules, what else there is to say?

Oh, yeah, let’s point out the most important features, shall we? Open Atrium is built using the Drupal framework and offers blogs for each group, Twitter-like shoutbox for fast info sharing, group dashboard, good document collaboration features, as well as a full ticketing system for better project tracking/management.

Anything else? Oh, yeah, support for multiple languages, and about the same requirements as Drupal – PHP 5.2+ with GD enabled, MySQL 5+, and Mod_Rewrite.

Compatibility: all major browsers are supported, except IE6 (could anyone help with info about IE7/8 compatibility? thanks in advance!)

Elastic

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:09:16 +0000

A few years ago, I messed with CSS for a while, and despite the fact working with it can get pretty tricky sometimes, learning the basics is pretty easy. Since most problems appear when having to handle complex layouts, having a little helper by your side can’t hurt, don’t you think?

The little CSS helper I just spotted is simply called Elastic, and its purpose is to turn the creation of elastic, liquid and fixed layouts into a child’s play. This free CSS framework is based on the 4-columns printed layout approach, but its capabilities allow unlimited column combinations.

Elastic offers a declarative syntax language allowing you to easily define the structure and behavior of your layout, so you won’t have to remember those cryptic class names ever again!

The feature list of this framework is pretty long, and since you can check it out for yourselves, I’ll only add that Elastic is covered by the terms of the
BSD license and, since one image is worth a thousand words, you should take a look at some of the sites made using Elastic.

Compatibility: all major browsers

QuickFlip

Codrut Nistor — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:07:15 +0000

I am not JavaScript-powered, but I kept flipping around last night. Oh, yeah, the heat… but since I mentioned flipping, let’s take a look at a useful jQuery plugin that will make your webpage content flip like a card, shall we?

Jon Raasch is a Web developer and SEO expert who spared bits of his precious time to write QuickFlip, and he went even one more step ahead, making it freely available to those in need!

The purpose of this plugin is to take any piece of HTML markup available on your page and make it flip like a card. While this is a very cool effect, I strongly advise you not to use it more than once or twice on the same page. I guess you don’t want it to look like a circus, after all…

QuickFlip uses a CSS trick to get the job done, and allows you to add more information to your page and show it in a pretty handsome way. The only problem is that those visiting your site should have JavaScript enabled, of course. Other than that, everything’s fine, really!

Compatibility: any major browser with JavaScript enabled

Firebug

Codrut Nistor — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 12:05:17 +0000

Back in the days when I was a kid, it was nothing out of ordinary to stare with my friends at some firebugs for hours. While the firebug, or “Pyrrhocoris apterus,” for the scientists, is one ubiquitous insect that eats seeds from lime trees and mallows, there’s also one firebug that’s eating code for breakfast… and the same goes for his other meals!

Firebug allows developers to forget about having to use a bunch of different tools for fine tuning and troubleshooting their code. With this Firefox plugin, you can easily edit, debug, and watch your CSS, HTML and JavaScript code without breaking a sweat!

Various features allow you to monitor network activity, so you can easily find which one of your pages is taking too long to load, explore DOM objects, use the command line to quickly run JavaScript code, as well as accurately log all debug info you need to find the problems hidden deep inside your code.

Oh, yeah, something you also need to know if Firebug sounds like something new – while you can run it in a window of its own, as you can see in my screenshot above, Firebug can also appear as a bar located at the bottom of your browser, so it won’t ever get in your way. Is this sweet, or what?

Compatibility: Firebug 1.3 only works with Firefox, while the adventurous ones using Firefox 3.5 Beta should use Firebug 1.4 Beta, but if you want Internet Explorer, Opera or Safari support, you should try Firebug Lite