I've just created the jQuery Media and jMedia wrapper modules for those two jQuery plugins. I am excited about both of them, which are similar. I'm already using jQuery Media for the audio player for Air America Radio (to be launched next week), and found out about jMedia today while researching other uses for the plugin.
Basically, these plugins will replace links or other text with Multimedia, automatically compatible with the browser. They both support audio and video, and come packed with cool features that I haven't even finished exploring yet.
I'll show you how it works next week after Air America's launch. But I'll let you know, it's really, really cool. Makes developing multimedia intensive sites super easy. And I'll definitely have to put it in Drupal Multimedia, my book that should be published this summer.
I plan to support one or both of them in Embedded Media Field as well, as it should make theming that easier than it currently is. They both already support jQ out of the box, for easier administration.
And that's just the beginning...
I think the feedapi integration patch is all that's really holding up a release, if you want to go over there and help test it...
when you say near term, is that near as in the next couple of weeks or near as in the next year? I have a job right now that could make use of this, I would like to stall for time until some sort of release, so an indication of any sort of release would be awsome. (I would be a willing tester)
cheers,,,, looks awsome.
Interface building is already possible: http://drupal.org/project/atck
besides the benefits this technology brings (ajax stuff), we have to remain on our toes not to overload the system, because for example the sproutcore system is painfuly slow.
Kinda interesting, it would be cool to see drupal apps going in this direction
http://www.sproutcore.com/ http://ajaxian.com/archives/an-interview-with-280-north-on-objective-j-a...
From a design standpoint It would pretty neat to build apps in visual interface builder. Sproutcore is heading this direction already. http://developer.apple.com/documentation/DeveloperTools/InterfaceBuilder...
for these kind of apps SEO really isn't necessary.
My battle plan was to offer API to other modules to display their content in 2 steps:
step 1) this is the first time content is being displayed. this will dump plain HTML from the server to the user
step 2) this will take the content in step 1 and attach actions to it so that when user interacts with that content it will isolate individual sections and communicate it back to the server via AJAX at which point content will be served through JSON + AJAX bypassing module's own theming layers.
the flaw with step 2 is that the module will be limited only to theme functions that are currently defined by js_theming module.
I will take care to come up with with some solution that will enable misc modules expand the javascript theming functionality. the project is still in very early stage of it's life and it already supports item lists, table theme, handles drupal status messages in a smart and admin configured way, allows table themes to offer table sorts just like drupal core does. offers themes for l() and url() functions. i think i forgot to mention other things but as you can see its growing rapidly and pretty soon will include more features to aid user end javascript theming.