I was excited when the first documentation of the Prototype JavaScript Framework was released a couple of weeks ago. In order to get quick access to the documentation I created a simple Dashboard widget. And well… I thought it would be nice to share it with you.
On the official Prototype blog Justin Palmer posted some tools that are of great help when coding Prototype based JavaScript applications. Besides the TextMate plugins I particulary liked the idea of using a bookmarklet to quickly search the documentation. Since it’s just a simple JavaScript, I thought it would be nice to create a tiny Dashboard widget out of it.
So what about usage? Well as you might have expected, it’s quite simple: For instance if you are looking for documentation on “Event”, just type “event” - if you want some details on “Event.observe”, just enter “Event.observe”… wow ;) Actually you can also omit the separating dots and just use spaces instead. That’s it. Enjoy.
Update: Version 1.1 is out with tweaked support for Prototype’s $-utilities. For instance you can now search for “$, $$, $a etc.”. A special “thank you” goes out to Andrew Dupont, providing the respective JavaScript code.
26 comments so far
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Martin Labuschin January 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
What about a Yahoo! Widget for us poor Windows users.
Fabian January 30, 2007 at 06:47 PM
great widget wolfgang!
i think it would be better to do an windows port for avedesk, cause its basicly the same as dashboard.
Ncus January 30, 2007 at 08:23 PM
Nice… :)
its time to learn some D
Anshul January 30, 2007 at 11:16 PM
I tried it. But it requires that I hit enter before it does anything. Is that the way it is supposed to work.
Tobie Langel January 31, 2007 at 12:33 AM
Great work!
Thanks.
Milos January 31, 2007 at 12:55 AM
Martin: Get a mac! ;-)
Great work! Thank you so much!
Wolfgang January 31, 2007 at 01:06 AM
Exactly – just type in the search term and hit “Return” :)
Justin Palmer January 31, 2007 at 05:31 AM
Beautiful work man! Thats going to be handy.
rick January 31, 2007 at 07:51 AM
This is awesome! If dashboard widgets can parse atom okay, I’ll probably add atom urls for articles in Mephisto. This way widget could display the info inline. If atom is a pain, I can add json support then.
Mike Vitoroulis January 31, 2007 at 12:09 PM
Beautiful and very handy widget, really nice
Alexander Graf January 31, 2007 at 07:24 PM
Nice and simple, thank you so much :-)
Piotr Usewicz January 31, 2007 at 07:32 PM
Pretty Cool! ;]
Wolfgang January 31, 2007 at 10:13 PM
Atom or JSON support would be great idea :) This would reduce lookup times additionally.
Sophia Teutschler January 31, 2007 at 10:58 PM
Very cool! Thanks allot for making it.
Alexander Hahn February 01, 2007 at 01:16 AM
Pretty sweet tool! thank u!
Steve Williams February 01, 2007 at 03:58 AM
Very useful, thank you – and beautiful to look at too!
Something I’ve been meaning to ask since the new prototype site went live is whether there’s a connection with bartelme design? It seems to include a few ideas from here…
Leland Scott February 01, 2007 at 02:17 PM
OK, I’ll be the spoil sport… I do wish folks would stop making empty-headed widgets like this. It’s just a let-down to enter a search and then find yourself whisked off to your browser for the information. If I wanted to use my browser to search the Prototype docs, I can find it easily enough. What we need (or what I need anyway) is a widget that displays the documentation within itself… Come on, widgets are just little websites (or at least, that’s their ultimate best use), and they can be totally ajax- and content-rich. There are good examples of the kind of widget I’m talking about… a couple for PHP and at least one for CSS. They’re little reference works in themselves, not just search portals that no one will ever use…
If I have time, maybe I’ll make it myself… :-) Hey, that does sound like fun! A prototype widget using prototype and script.aculo.us! Gee, where have I seen one of those before…?
It’s got no brains, but it’s very pretty!
Scott Mackenzie February 01, 2007 at 03:21 PM
Top work! I heart widgets at the moment.
I have to agree with Leland somewhat though. I do get a little disappointed when a widget merely does form submit to a website.
Awesome nether less.
Wolfgang February 01, 2007 at 04:15 PM
I agree with you both – a fully featured widget would be the way to go. But for the time time being I just wanted to get quick access to the documentation.
Don’t forget that you can place widgets directly on your desktop – outside Dashboard. So it’s even faster… :)
Gregory February 03, 2007 at 03:19 AM
Very nice thanks.
Wolfgang Klatt February 03, 2007 at 09:45 AM
yeah die Rückseite sieht gut aus :D aber das Widget is auch nicht schlecht
rainnight February 04, 2007 at 06:33 PM
There is bad idea!
Timo Schmidt March 04, 2007 at 08:11 AM
Thanks, this was a great introduction for me.
Zachary Abresch March 10, 2007 at 11:11 AM
Great Widget….I’ve been learning 4 different frameworks and my mind is starting to go on overload!! I’m implementing protoype along with Rico and script.aculo.us on a mock up online menu and this will be a much used resource.
Alex Buga March 11, 2007 at 12:05 PM
Nice widget.
Jesse Thomas March 17, 2007 at 07:44 AM
love it!