Sugar on a Stick
Posted by Srinath
What can be sweeter than a name with Sugar in it? Does it help that its for students, its open source and is fun too? Well then I'm definitely talking about "Sugar On A Stick" - A new initiative that aims to put accessible, fun software on a pen drive that students can carry around:
- Sugar on a Stick as 1-to-1 computing in an elementary school
- Sugar on a Stick to empower middle- and high-school students to help test, and learn computing platforms as learning tools
- Sugar on a Stick for learning conferences to let people try Sugar and collaborate with other conference participants
Its based off Fedora 11, comes as a 380 MB ISO, and is primarily runs off your USB or CD media. The first release, tastily titled "Strawberry was released on 24th of this month. So here is to a great initiative, and I'll be taking it for a spin this week and get back with my thoughts.
Announcing jGridTable
Posted by Srinath
After my post about developing a new jQuery plugin, I've managed to shake off my apprehensions, and get it hosted on googlecode. The project is titled jGridTable, and hopefully isn't already taken. I will dedicate a page to it in this blog, where I can keep track of day to day developments, invite comments and suggestions from people, and more importantly, ask for guidance. And if at all I get it to work, I intend to publish it with the liberal MIT license, so that others can keep improving it. My overall aim for the project is to make it as flexible as possible, without bloating up.
So here is to jGridTable. Lets see how far it goes.
Developing a new jQuery Grid plugin
Posted by Srinath
After weeks of searching for the perfect grid based data editor for my project, I've aspired to build one myself. Sure there are hundreds of existing plugins and more which are well established, and developed by well knowledgeable folks, I find a few shortcomings. Drawing inspiration from the existing plugins, here are my goals:
Goals:
- Uses jQuery library
- Small and light. Size should be less than 30 KB for minified version
- Dynamic data source for easy table population (JSON or plain HTML)
- Create, Read, Update and Delete (CRUD) operation
- Sorting based on columns (using tablesorter plugin)
- Searching based on filters for multiple columns
- Follows KISS Principal - Keep it simple stupid. No unnecessary insertion of DOM elements
- Insertion of checkbox for each row and defining custom button to perform an action
What seems like a huge list of features add to my very basic problem : I'm still a noob at jQuery and javascript. So, as a personal goal this project is a way for me to learn jQuery right from scratch, and to put it to good use.
Methodology:
- Study the existing plugins to understand how they work
- Use code snippets that are already available. Reduces work, and will be much better than reinventing the wheel the wrong way
- Less attention to appearance (CSS) till the code really works, partly because I'm still learning CSS, and would be tough to combine both jQuery and css code when I'm new to both.
As you'd have guessed, its an ambitious project for someone who is new to javascript/jQuery. Nevertheless, I hope I can pull it off with guidance from knowledgeable people who know their jQuery. I plan to host it on either github or google code and put up a dedicated page on this blog to keep track of the development. As the first step, I'll start with defining the various functions that are required, thus creating a skeleton jQuery plugin, which simply displays a one line output when called in order (yea, I'm pathetic).
So anyone who reads this, please leave your thoughts, advice, comments here. Thank You.
Small and light PHP frameworks
Posted by Srinath
Frameworks offer quick and dirty ways to get your code done. Though hardcore programmers still shun them, they are God sent for lazy/beginner programmers who need to get lot of work done quickly. Having looked at all the major heavyweights(literally) of PHP frameworks, I wanted to look for alternatives.
My requirements:
- Small footprint
- Simple
- Easy to use (For a beginner like me)
So here are the nominees:
1. ELF-PHP (Extra Light PHP Framework)
This framework is built on the MVC architecture for software engineering buffs, has good documentation, and will get you started in a jiffy. It probably has the most features compared to the others in this list, and the developer plans to add some more in the future release.
P.S: Grab the latest code from the repository.
It simple, its PHP and its a framework. Has comprehensive logging features, offers various modes for the server (local, production, staging, shell) and is actually being run in 40 different sites by the developer. Should be dependable. Needs documentation on various features though.
Other than having a unusual name, its a micro php framework for separating application logic from presentation. Development has been stopped by the developer, so don't expect support or documentation. For a more recent version micro paging framework, check out Sticks by the same developer.
4. Write your own micro framework!
This excellent post by Anant Garg gets you started on MVC framework basics, and tells you how you can design your own mini framework, and then implement your application using it!
Expect a more comprehensive review of each framework in the furure.
Lightweight alternatives to phpBB
Posted by Srinath
phpBB is the holy grail of free and open source forum/discussion board on the internet. With tons of plugins, themes and a amazing community, its probably the best too. But for those like me who don't want the bloat, and would rather use a simple and easy to manage forum, here are a few alternatives:
1. SimpleMachines - Probably the second best known free forum script. Slimmer than phpBB, and with a better, cleaner admin interface, its my personal favourie. And yes, it does have its fair share of themes/plugins and good community support.
2. FluxBB - This one is "really" light. The download comes in under 300kb, is XTML and CSS valid, and with a minimal but delightful interface is bound to loved by Mac fans.
3. bbPress - Comes from the creators of WordPress, its their in house forum software. Nuff said.
4. Vanilla - Other than having a tasty name, it also offers a very small and simple forum. Great for "minimal" fans.
5. Phorum - Its an open source PHP forum. Probably not as good looking as the others, but does the job well.