Qooxdoo 4.1.1 and 5.0

The week in qooxdoo (2015-05-22)

Posted on May 22, 2015 by Andreas Ecker

Welcome back to the weekly status update.

Upcoming Releases

We have started to work on the ramp-down for two new releases: a maintenance release qooxdoo 4.1.1 as well as a major release qooxdoo 5.0. They are expected to ship in mid June.

qooxdoo 4.1.1

Currently there already are 70+ issues resolved for qooxdoo 4.1.1.

qooxdoo 5.0

qooxdoo 5.0 has about the same number of add’tl issues resolved. That’s a total of about 140 issues for qooxdoo 5.0, currently. As some API changes are to be part of this upcoming release (in the qx.Website domain of the framework), and acc. to our semantic versioning scheme it will be called 5.0 instead of 4.2.

As said, there’s currently the ramp-down phase dominated by testing and bugfixing. We work towards stable, complete release packages in the next few days. With a number of holidays and absences coming up, we expect to do the actual shipping in about 3 weeks, i.e. in mid June. Stay tuned.

qooxdoo 4.0 released

qooxdoo 4.0 released

We are happy to announce a new release of the framework, qooxdoo 4.0.
Many thanks go to the entire community for making this happen: the team of core developers, 1&1 as the supporting company, all contributors and users who brought in their suggestions and improvements.

A major highlight of the current release covers all three GUI toolkits (website, mobile and desktop). Your qooxdoo-based app can now work with all kind of input devices. This is an awesome feature in this ever-growing multi-device world:

ThreeJS: Particle System and Raycaster

Selecting particle in ParticleSystem [wikipedia] using Raycaster [wikipedia].
Using ThreeJS.r58.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42803030/threejs_sample/webgl_particlesystem_raycaster.html
(Credit: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42803030)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4253186/three/examples/webgl_interactive_particles.html
(Credit: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4253186)

qooxdoo 3.0 released

We are happy to announce a new major release of the framework, qooxdoo 3.0.
Many thanks go to the entire community for making this happen: the team of core developers,1&1 as the supporting company, all contributors, and last but not least the users and enthusiasts who brought in questions, comments and suggestions.

The release of qooxdoo 2.0 about a year ago was a landmark in the framework’s ongoing evolution to become a universal JavaScript framework. Now with the release of qooxdoo 3.0 each of the three major application domains, i.e. Desktop, Mobile and Website, ship with substantial if not radical improvements.

Read more: http://news.qooxdoo.org/qooxdoo-3-0-released

Why mobile web apps are slow

I’ve had an unusual number of interesting conversations spin out of my previous article documenting that mobile web apps are slow.  This has sparked some discussion, both online and IRL.  But sadly, the discussion has not been as… fact-based as I would like.So what I’m going to do in this post is try to bring some actual evidence to bear on the problem, instead of just doing the shouting match thing.  You’ll see benchmarks, you’ll hear from experts, you’ll even read honest-to-God journal papers on point.  There are–and this is not a joke–over 100 citations in this blog post. I’m not going to guarantee that this article will convince you, nor even that absolutely everything in here is totally correct–it’s impossible to do in an article this size–but I can guarantee this is the most complete and comprehensive treatment of the idea that many iOS developers have–that mobile web apps are slow and will continue to be slow for the forseeable future.Now I am going to warn you–this is a very freaking long article, weighing in at very nearly 10k words.  That is by design.  I have recently come out in favor of articles that are good over articles that are popular. This is my attempt at the former, and my attempt to practice what I have previously preached: that we should incentivize good, evidence-based, interesting discussion and discourage writing witty comments.I write in part because this topic has been discussed–endlessly–in soundbyte form.  This is not Yet Another Bikeshed Article, so if you are looking for that 30-second buzz of “no really, web apps suck!” vs “No they don’t!” this is not the article for you.  (Go read one ofthese oh no make it stop can’t breathe not HN too I can’t do this anymore please just stop so many opinions so few facts I can go on).  On the other hand, as best as I can tell, there is no comprehensive, informed, reasonable discussion of this topic happening anywhere. It may prove to be a very stupid idea, but this article is my attempt to talk reasonably about a topic that has so far spawned 100% unreasonable flamewar-filled bikeshed discussions. In my defense, I have chosen to believe the problem has more to do with people who can discuss better and simply don’t, than anything to do with the subject matter. I suppose we’ll find out.So if you are trying to figure out exactly what brand of crazy all your native developer friends are on for continuing to write the evil native applications on the cusp of the open web revolution, or whatever, then bookmark this page, make yourself a cup of coffee, clear an afternoon, find a comfy chair, and then we’ll both be ready.

Source and Read more: http://sealedabstract.com/rants/why-mobile-web-apps-are-slow/

Take action for free JavaScript

Choosing to run free software on your computer is a powerful statement. Unfortunately, regardless of what you have installed on your desktop or laptop, you are almost certainly running hundreds of nonfree programs as you surf the Web. Web sites often use programs written in JavaScript to expand the capabilities of HTML, adding menus, buttons, text editors, music players, and many other features. Browsers come configured to download and run the JavaScript without ever making the user aware of it. Contrary to popular perception, almost no JavaScript runs "on the Web site" -- it runs locally on users' computers when they visit a site.

Source: 
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/take-action-for-free-javascript
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/05/29/2232224/taking-action-for-free-javascript

Related:
Group:Free Javascript Action Team
Javascript Trap by Richard Stallman

YouTube Refuses To Remove Anti-Islamic Film Clip

"BBC reports that Google officials have rejected the notion of removing a video that depicts the prophet as a fraud and philanderer and has been blamed for sparking violence at U.S. embassies in Cairo and Benghazi. Google says the video does not violate YouTube's policies, but they did restrict viewers in Egypt and Libya from loading it due to the special circumstances in the country. Google's response to the crisis highlighted the struggle faced by the company, and others like it, to balance free speech with legal and ethical concerns in an age when social media can impact world events. 'This video – which is widely available on the Web – is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube,' Google said in a statement. 'However, given the very difficult situation in Libya and Egypt, we have temporarily restricted access in both countries.' Underscoring Google's quandary, some digital free expression groups have criticized YouTube for censoring the video. Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation says given Google' s strong track record of protecting free speech, she was surprised the company gave in to pressure to selectively block the video. 'It is extremely unusual for YouTube to block a video in any country without it being a violation of their terms of service or in response to a valid legal complaint,' says Galperin. 'I'm not sure they did the right thing.'"
Source: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/09/14/1948225/youtube-refuses-to-remove-anti-islamic-film-clip

Qooxdoo: universal JavaScript Framework

Do you wanna make your site something different?

There is Qooxdoo, amazing JavaScript framework. I think you don't need to know HTML, CSS. Just knowledge of OOP and java or C++.

Web: http://qooxdoo.org/
Demos: http://qooxdoo.org/demos
SDK: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/qooxdoo/qooxdoo-1.6-sdk.zip