I came across a situation where I needed an Ajax style spinner but could not download any images. I extended concepts from the jMaki Revolver to make an image free spinner all in JavaScript.

  window.waiter.show({ speed: 1,
                       delay : 40,
                       targetId : 'body',
                       textColor : '#FFF',
                       background: 'green',
                       opacity : 85,
                       message : 'Please wait 2'});

Test on this page

For detailed documentation on all the properties and more examples see the Ajax Waiter.

If there are features or enhancements you would like to see let me know.

Sun has been providing GWT support with the GWT For Netbeans plugin for some time now. The plugin allows you to very easily create GWT applications that can run on Tomcat and Glassfish. The plugin allows you to easily integrate servlets and other Java EE components in an IDE environment.

With my Ajax dealings over the past few years I have been asked about jMaki and GWT integration. For some time I had thought that GWT was a competing technology but I have come to realize that while jMaki and GWT are truly cousins whose marriage is in this case a good thing.

When integrating jMaki with GWT jMaki provides a well defined model for interacting with JavaScript and GWT provides a model for interacting with Java. jMaki can open up the JavaScript universe to GWT in a well controlled manner.

As a start the jMaki team would like to introduce the GWT community to jMaki Charting. jMaki charting provides dynamic charting capabilities where charts can be manipulated on the client without round trips to the server.

Integrating jMaki charting with GWT has helped us develop a really good integration strategy for GWT and JavaScript for which we created an architecture document. The integration can be summarized by the graphic below.

With the GWT jMaki integration we are exposing the charting functionality including Axes creation and updates, DataSets, and Markers through a set of Java APIs. See the JavaDoc APIs here. All the resources needed for the component are provided in a single jar file that you simply place in your classpath and include the jmaki.charting.Widgets inherits statement in your gwt.xml file. jMaki charting may be downloaded from the jMaki Charting homepage. It supports both Hosted or Web mode.

We have also created a sample application to show how to use and modify a chart. You can see the application live here.

Charting is just the beginning. We are now working on providing access to the jMaki widgets and would love to have the community get involved. Would you like to join us?

Now that jMaki 1.0 is out we have time to look at integration with our JavaScript functionality like the Open Ajax 1.0 Hub. The integration was done using a simple jMaki extension which takes the events from jMaki and republishes them on the hub. jMaki is also capable of registering libraries as they are being loaded.

To show the integration we have published a version of the application running with Dojo, Yahoo, and jMaki integrated along with the Open Ajax Hubs components on http://jmaki.com/oaa. You can find out more about the details on what we did in the description tab of the example.

How will you use the hub?

Having experienced continuous development for over 2 years it is time to put a stake in the ground and call jMaki 1.0 ready for general use.

Included in the bundles:

• The core jMaki framework.
• Sample applications.
• Ant task for creating applications and adding widgets and necessary dependencies to those applications.
• All the scripts and widget libraries.

We provide bundles for both PHP and Java. The ant task for application creation allows you to create applications rapidly from the command line.

We also provide plugins for both Netbeans 5.x and 6.0 that will create jMaki applications with all the necessary resources in the correct places. Included support is:

• The core jMaki Framework.
• Templates to start out with.
• Drag and drop widgets with templates.
• Theming support.

How you experience jMaki is up to you. Find the bundles on the downloads page.

We have also started work on consolidating all the blogs, documents, and form posts on using jMaki into an online book. This is a work in progress and you can find the starting table of contents on our developer site.

I would like to thank everyone on the team and others not listed on the team page for their hard work in putting this release together. I like to encourage would encourage you to join the effort. jMaki is going places and we would love to have you along for the ride.