In the Wild for May 26, 2009

By Eric MiragliaMay 26th, 2009

Here’s a recap of news and notes from the YUI world in the past few weeks. Please use the comments below to let us know what we missed.

• Uizard – a Web Mashup Generator Written in YUI: Writes Ajaxian: “The Korean developer community is not that known to people in the west it seems. Language barriers make it hard to communicate and the web design is very different to what we do here. Being lucky enough to work with developers world-wide in the same company I just got reminded of a tool that was built for the Korea Mashup challenge called Uizard.”  Uizard was developed by Ryu Sung-tae — it’s servers are challenged by the Ajaxian link, but check it out when they come back up. (Original source.)
  
• YUI Implementations at Canadian National Railway: Lionel Desdier (the “Java-powered railroader”) wrote in to tell us about his extensive implementation of YUI on web applications at Canadian National Railway.  Writes Lionel: “The goal of that new web application, called Intermodal Orders, is to manage empty container orders for our internal clerks’ usage as much as for our external customers usage. This application is part of our EBusiness portal.  The application web client is purely JavaScript and extensively based on the YUI library. The client uses JSON to exchange data back and forth with the server that runs a Java back-end.  We are using most of the available components from grid layout, calendar, dom, overlays, treeview, datatable and datasource, etc.  We also extended the library to create our own components branded to the company look and feel.”  The EBusiness portal is behind a login, but the main cn.ca site also uses some YUI.
  
• YUI in Use on National Geographic Adventure Magazine: Talk about “in the wild”…  Among the online magazines using YUI is National Geographic Magazine, a great resource for those who like to get out of their cubicles and explore the most interesting places in the world. You’ll find YUI on the magizine’s article pages.
  
• Satyam on “Changing the Style of an Element in a YUI Widget”: YUI’s most prolific contributor is as at it again with a new tutorial on how to style YUI widgets.  If you’re unfamiliar with the process of digging into a widget’s markup and CSS using Firebug (or other DOM inspector), you’ll find this a must-read tutorial.
  
• New Orleans Repopulation Data Using Google Maps and YUI: @mattpriour wrote in to tell us about the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center’s Repopulation Indicators site, which uses YUI Grids, YUI Loader, and YUI Core in generating a genuinely interesting block-by-block look at New Orleans population levels from 2005 to today. (Original source.)
  
• YUI Compressor for Visual Studio: Writes the author:  “Although you don’t want this for all things in life, you do want to ensure that your JavaScript and CSS files are as small as possible.  As a web programmer, a script minifier is a useful application that should be a part of your toolbelt. This article presents a simple way to hook up a popular minifer inside Visual Studio.” (Original source.)
  
• Uzvy.com, Groups Solution, Using Tons of YUI: @alokbhardwaj wrote in to tell us about Uzvy.com, a groups site containing discussion groups and “shareboards” that aims to provide a novel and compelling take on the groups space.  YUI is used throughout, for modal dialogs, XHR, and much more. (Original source.)
  
• Cagatay Civici Adds YUI Calendar to PrimeFaces: Writes Cagatay: “Every JSF component library provides some sort of a date picker component and PrimeFaces is no exception. In fact, PrimeFaces calendar component is based on the well known YUI calendar widget which is equipped with some unique features. Calendar is purely javascript and does not do unnecessary ajax callbacks so it’s fast and furious.”
  
• Eric Abouaf’s YQL Execute, Based on Dav Glass’s Grids Builder: Eric Abouaf has taken Dav Glass’s Grids Builder and added support for YQL query execution, allowing you to build YQL-based pages easily; check out Eric’s adaptation here. (Original source.)