big dark media » spry

Fox Sports Adds Spry Photo Galleries

Scott — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:40:45 +0000

Very cool- just got word that Fox Sports has implemented a very nice set of Spry-based photo galleries like this one:

You can check out the new FoxSports.com Photo Galleries here:

http://msn.foxsports.com/pgStory?workingCategoryId=0

Make sure to click around with the sliding panels to check out the variety of galleries they’ve already implemented- really makes for a great vewing experience, and an equally great example of Spry in action. Nice job.

Spry – Linking to a Non-Default Panel

Scott — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 00:19:11 +0000

So you like those fancy-schmancy Spry accordions, but have the need to deep-link into closed accordion panels from an external page? That’s a pretty obvious use case usability-minded designers (and their clients) may require, and Dreamweaver and PHP guru David Powers has a great tutorial on just that topic on his Foundation Dreamweaver blog – “Linking to a non-default panel”.

If you’re strictly using the visual Spry tools in Dreamweaver to author, you’re probably missing a lot of the hidden gems in SpryURLUtils.js (included with the Spry 1.6 update), and this is a great tutorial for taking that first dive into the extra goodies v1.6 provides.

Spry and the 2007 Ajax Survey

Scott — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 19:55:04 +0000

It’s been a big year for the Spry framework- with tons of feedback from the standards and best practices community helping us get version 1.6 out the door that addressed darn near all the immediate concerns with the framework. Recently I blogged about the 2007 Ajax Survey, an annual census of framework usage across the Ajax development community, and urged interested parties to write in Spry, as it was not part of the survey- well, at least not at first.

The survey results are in- and although it didn’t crack the top 10 (among some heavyweight contenders), apparently Spry was the #1 write-in framework, to the degree that the surveyors added it as an official choice in the survey a day or two later. The excerpt of interest from Richard Monson-Haefel’s weblog post announcing the results:

“Spry is growing quickly and may be in the top 10 next year. Spry was left out of the survey for the first day or so and then added in as it was the most popular write in toolkit. It may have faired better if it was an option from the start.”

Great to hear. Now again- Spry wasn’t one of the top 10 frameworks, but for a designer-focused framework to make such a splash in such an application developer-heavy community this year can only be a positive sign that things are headed in the right direction (at least I’d hope so!), and we’re of course going to keep pushing forward on Spry to make it even better for next year. No resting on laurels here, that’s for sure.

Thanks to everyone who wrote Spry in on the survey! And if you haven’t checked out Spry 1.6 and all the new treats within, now would be a great time to do so. Make sure to drop comments and suggestions in on the Spry forums, too- the team’s always listening.

Ajax Survey III @Ajaxian

Scott — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 19:59:33 +0000

If you’re doing any rich interface development and/or Ajax work, you should definitely participate in the recently-announced Ajax survey created by Richard Monson-Haefel of the Burton Group. It’s a simple, 3 question survey, and should only take a minute of your time.

Note that Spry is *NOT* included in the list of frameworks (heresy!), but I strongly recommend putting it in as a write-in vote if you’re down with the Spry framework. Perhaps even if you aren’t.

(Link courtesy of Ajaxian)

Jeremy Keith on Spry 1.6

Scott — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:18:20 +0000

Back at Web Directions North in Vancouver this past year I had a conversation with Jeremy Keith on JavaScript and web design/development in general, and which was also a not-so-thinly-veiled effort to dig deeper into some excellent criticism he’d raised around the Spry framework, also echoed by Roger Johansson. I had roughly another half-hour/45 minutes of conversation that didn’t air, but was of immense value to the Spry team (and Dreamweaver team) in charting our response.

And that response was the recent Spry 1.6 update, of course. Which is getting much better feedback than 1.0, by a long shot. Jeremy recently took another peek at Spry and was as pleased with the documentation as he was with the technical changes in 1.6, Roger also recently gave a nod to the improved accessibility and progressive enhancement support. Right on. Spry’s still young, relatively speaking- so it’s nice to know the ship is headed in the right direction in regards to best practices overall.

Would you agree? If not, why?
Inquiring minds would love to know…

Spry 1.6 and the NBA

Scott — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 16:08:41 +0000

Fox Sports just used Spry 1.6 to implement a very sweet realtime scoreboard/game tracker for this year’s NBA season:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/scores

Very cool- I believe it’s been in action for a few days but I’ll definitely be using it to watch the scores for this evening’s games. If you haven’t gotten into Spry 1.6 yet, there’s a good interview up at Builder.AU by Andrew Muller where I talk about the Spry framework’s most recent release. You can view it here:

Spry: “Standards, Dreamweaver & the future”

Enjoy!

Spry 1.6 – It’s On.

Scott — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:45:05 +0000

That’s right- Spry 1.6 is now live on Adobe Labs, you can download it now and get playing with the bits right away. The Spry team is really proud of this release, as it both clarifies and solidifies a lot of their positions on the framework as a whole, and how to use it in responsible ways.

Oh, and did I mention Spry now includes an easy way to update your framework files in Dreamweaver CS3, too? You betcha. You can either download an MXP to update Dreamweaver specifically, or the full framework package (including all the additional documentation, samples and more – including the MXP updater for Dreamweaver).

Some interesting articles for those of you wanting to use Spry responsibly (I strongly recommend reading these regardless!):

Spry and Best Practices
Progressive Enhancement with Spry
Using Spry Unobtrusively
Validating Spry
The Spry Element Selector (for unobtrusive usage)

Of course, there’s a lot more- but the good news is that Spry 1.6 is now available, and ready for you to start tweaking with ASAP. Regardless of whether you use Spry within Dreamweaver, or as a standalone framework, the team welcomes your feedback on the Spry forums so we can keep making it better for you and your real-world projects. Get to the bits, already!

Update: Don Booth has a great post on the Spry Team weblog now, too – great read for more details (including the new compressed versions of the Spry framework files- saving significant download time). Check it out here.

Desktop RSS with AIR and Spry

Scott — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 16:51:04 +0000

Notorious Aussie rebel Andrew Muller has written up a great article on building an AIR RSS viewer using Adobe’s Spry framework for the plumbing. Although he’s using Aptana in the article, Dreamweaver users have it just as easy (if not a bit easier) following the same steps, as obviously Spry’s much more integrated with DW CS3 than any other dev tool at the moment. You just need to grab the Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver CS3, which you can pick up for free (in beta form) at Adobe Labs.

Minor modifications to use Andrew’s article with DW CS3:

Install the AIR Extension for DW CS3 via the Extension Manager.
I suggest creating a unique site definition for each AIR app, to help keep assets managed well
Build the RSS application in Spry using either Andrew’s explicit instructions in code, or supplement that workflow with the visual Spry tools in Dreamweaver for a richer coding/GUI experience
Preview the application using Dreamweaver’s “Preview in Browser” toolbar menu > “Preview in Adobe AIR”
Package the application using the “Package in Adobe AIR” command from Dreamweaver’s Site menu.

Simple, quick and easy! And great little article to get your feet wet with AIR and Spry. Make sure to give Andrew some props if you like the walkthrough.