1.2.6 is now out and the events handling functionality is 103% faster:

• CSS Selectors are 13% faster
• .offset() is 21% faster
• The DImensions plugin is now part of the core
• toggle() can now accept more functions
• attr() has had an overhaul
• You can now unbind bound toggle() and one() functions
• .index() supports jQuery collections
• jQuery.makeArray can convert ANYTHING into an array
• beforeSend() can cancel AJAX calls
• You can now define your own animation speeds with the jQuery.fx.speeds object

Aptana released Jaxer: the first ever Ajax server... you got that right, server-side Ajax ... the concept is pretty interesting, a server-side API that wraps for client-side Ajax app to better optimize it and allows you to interface with the file system and database.... Oh, wait a minute, isn't this really similar to AIR? AIR also extends for your JavaScript libraries to allow file system and database access, except that AIR is a client desktop runtime and Jaxer is a server runtime... nevertheless, they solve the same problem... They allow you to leverage existing JavaScript skills to integrate seamlessly with components that will allow you to deploy full apps without the need of any traditional server-side programming language.

I always thought Aptana was just a nice Eclipse plugin, but this is pretty innovative. It integrates for your Apache web server as a simple extension (no IIS for now), it deploys as a war file for your Apache Tomcat Java server, or even runs in Amazon EC2 ...

I personally haven't tried it, and I have no complaints about ColdFusion, .NET, PHP, or Ruby processing my server requests, in fact, I believe they would be much more robust and reliable than server-side JavaScript, however, this looks great for small and light applications. I'm sure that's their first niche since the only two supported databases are sqlite and mysql, it's a good indicative ...

Anyone see a good immediate use for this new technology?

I will be speaking at the New York ColdFusion User Group this Wednesday, April 16, with the topic of "AJAXify Your ColdFusion Applications". I promise it will be fun, a good learning experience, and perhaps we may even go out afterwards and have some drinks.

There will be tons of nice give-aways:
1 x Ticket to CFUNITED ($999 Value!)
2 x jQuery Reference Guide
2 x Learning jQuery: Better Interaction Design and Web Development with Simple JavaScript Techniques
2 x Tickets to Flex Camp Wall Street
1 x FusionDebug License....

They're all excellent... I love jQuery and CFUnited is the most popular CF event of the year .... hope to see many familiar faces, so don't miss it.

Adobe ColdFusion 8 Update 1 (8.0.1) was released April 3rd (most of you knew already). The good and safe news is that it seems to work fine... nothing broke with the update.

What was updated? You can get the full list here, but I will concentrate only on the Ajax part.

The docs say "We have improved functionality in several areas including AJAX functions, CFPDF, and CFIMAGE. And we have updated several software libraries including Yahoo YUI, EXT JS, Spry, and the FCKEditor."

The FCKEditor component used in the cftextarea tag’s rich text editor has been updated to version 2.5. As a result, the rich text editor now supports Safari 3 and Opera 9.50 browsers. This is great news, but 2.5 was released 11/30/2007... 2.6 was just released, so they went with the latest stable, though it was pretty safe to try the 2.6 RC, which was released a while back.

Next, the Spry framework has been updated to version 1.6.... not too much to say there, I don't care much about it.

Now the important part, the Yahoo YUI Library used for some AJAX-based controls has been updated to version 2.3 and the Ext JS framework used for some AJAX-based controls has been updated to version 1.1.1... I assume they did this because Ext JS 2.0 (released in October 2007 btw) was a major update and it would have taken too much to adapt it? Adobe, trust me, I understand SDLC, but in today's world CF helps us keep up with rapid changing technology and it would be totally worth it ... you will have to upgrade it at some point .... hopefully 8.0.2 will incorporate the a much newer version of Ext.

After blogging about Dan's great EXT cf wrapper, I ran across another one today: ColdExt.
It looks great as well, so how about Dan and Justin join efforts instead of doubling work...?

People, listen up ... Ext 2.0 Beta 1 was released today ... for those of you still not familiar with Ext, it is what powers the ColdFusion 8 Ajax UI: Windows, Menus, Grids, Trees, etc. With the 2.0 release you have an amazing power to build desktop-like apps on the Web .. Start Menu, Desktop Icons, Task Bar, Windows, ... you really have to check it out. It blew my mind .... Where to go from here?

• Official Blog PR
• Desktop Application Example
• Portal Example
• Updated API Documentation

It's not dead (or even dying), it's just...
Not dead, just ... stealthy
Not dead, just ... getting the AJAX treatment
Not dead, just ... in an upgrade cycle

Read more at a new ComputerWorld rectifying story.

jQuery UI is a set of themable widgets and interactions, built on top of the jQuery JavaScript Library, that you can use to build highly interactive web applications.

The core of the library revolves around different mouse interactions, namely drag and dropping, sorting, selecting, and resizing.

On top of the core interactions are built a number of reusable widgets, including accordions, date pickers, dialogs, sliders, table sorters, and tabs.

Finally, the library is finished off with a few effects that you can use to liven up your site, specifically magnifier and shadow.

» More Information

Since I just moved AjaxCFC to its own homepage, I moved the SVN repository from RIAForge and created a Trac project. If you had RIAForge's SVN mapped, please update your records: ajaxcfc.com/svn . I maintained the same structure and history, though I plan to restructure it very soon.

Please file any bug and enhancement request into the new trac site.