JSON

JavaScript Theming, a Paradigm Shift

Submitted by aaron on Thu, 2008-07-17 22:51

Oleg Terenchuk (litwol) is now developing the JavaScript Theming module. The five second elevator spiel: this will move theming from the server to the client.

The longer explanation is a bit more exciting. This module plans to abstract the core of Drupal theming into a javascript layer. This will allow a JSON feed to pass raw data to a browser to be formatted on the fly for display.

The implications are astounding, and I'm still wrapping my brain around the possibilities. For one, it could mean super fast in place load times, because Drupal doesn't have to mess around with passing everything around the theming system. An AJAX request could just ask for the data, Drupal sends it, and jQuery will format your list, table, teaser, or what have you. In its second day of life, it already works with messages (and item lists, I believe).

A potential problem I see might be that slower computers would see slower rendering times. But this is already happening with some jQuery-heavy sites anyway. The benefit would be most seen with faster hardware, but this is always true with cutting-edge technology. Everyone else will catch up soon enough.

In any case, I have a feeling that by this time next year, I'll be blogging about the killer combo that changed the world of Drupal and is sending ripples through the Internet: Embed Widgets + JavaScript Theming...

PS Come to DrupalCampNYC next month to find out more!

Playlist Sorting at Air America Radio

Submitted by aaron on Wed, 2008-06-25 13:39

Advomatic just launched a new feature for Air America's player. Users are able to create their own play lists of favorite audio and video clips, and sort them in their preferred order.

To see this functionality in action, you'll need to go to the Air America site, and create a user account. After doing so, launch their player, by pressing on the big Listen Live button on the top left of every page.

Add two or three audio clips by pressing the "+" next to a clip, then go to the video tab and do the same thing.

Finally, go to the Playlist tab. Here, you can click and drag clips to sort them as desired. Go ahead. It's all saved, which you can confirm by going to another tab, logging out, logging back in, etc.

Site recipe follows!

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The Society for Venturism has chosen me as the recipient of its charity for this year, to hopefully offer me cryonic preservation when the time comes. And this month, Longecity, an excellent forum for the discussion of issues related to extending the lifespan of humans, has offered up a matching grant of up to a thousand dollars to help out! So help out! Please.