JNEXT Blog

Illustrating JavaScript freedom...

Just added a JNEXT screen shots page to illustrate just how simple it is to add local SQLite3 database browsing to Web pages using JavaScipt and JNEXT or to add directory traversal directly from within your Web page - again only using JavaScript and JNEXT. I hope to add more samples as they become available - this is the best way I know of to show the ridicuous simplicity of creating applications with native capabilities and Web browser UI firepower.

The next milestone is finishing the JNEXT security infrastructure. This stage is necessary for JNEXT to be safe to use on public sites, and will require a lot of scrutiny so it will probably take a while - stay tuned...

JNEXT continues...

Finally got some time to make some more progress with JNEXT:

To make the JNEXT source code light and simple I've decided to remove from the JNEXT code base all the extensions that require linking to a large 3rd party library and replaced them with extensions that have the same functionality but use self contained code. So for accessing SQlite3 databases from JavaScript I've replaced the existing extension that used the soci database abstraction library with a simple SQlite3 wrapper, and instead of using the large PWLib library to get socket functionality for JavaScript, I replaced the implementation of the JNEXT socket extension to use a light weight cross platform socket wrapper.

The code base hierarchy has been reorganized to accommodate the above and is now much smaller

All the unnecessary Mozilla header files were removed from the JNEXT NPAPI plugin project. There were zillions of them and removing them made things look much nicer...

Finally implemented in the JNEXT npruntime plugin a thread synchronization mechanism using X11 message passing on Linux systems. This was long overdue since its the only legitimate way to pass an event from native code that runs the JNEXT code on a separate thread back to the browser UI thread. In Windows this is easy but I had little experience using X11 functions to achieve the same functionality. So now the JavaScript socket sample works in Linux on Firefox 3, but creates an X11 error when tested with the Opera browser. This is probably due to the fact that Opera uses the Qt library which perhaps does some other sort of message handling - will need to look into this later

A new JNEXT extension project sample has been added named Directory. This sample illustrates how you can traverse the file system from a Web page using JNEXT (on Windows, Linus and Mac OS/X)

A new bazaar branch was created that contains the new and compact JNEXT sources with the above improvements. To get the code, you need to install bzr and then at a command prompt type the following:
bzr branch http://jnext.org/core jncore

JavaScript bar and pie charts

Not directly related to JNEXT, but thought this might benefit various JavaScript/Web developers. I wanted but couldn't find a simple but solid JavaScript charting object on the net for creating pie charts and bar graphs so as usually happens in these situations I made my own. It is based on a slightly modified version of Walter Zorn's fantastic JavaScript graphics library and is built in such a way that you just pass the values and JavaScript does all the dirty cosmetic work for you (just view the source to see how simple it is).

To see a sample, just click here

RIA technology roundup

Since it seems that every time I look there's yet another big company that is joining the RIA technology party, I've compiled the ones I'm aware of today. I hope to soon compile a more detailed comparison table of the various technologies (including JNEXT)

Name	Company	Link
FLEX, AIR	Adobe	http://www.adobe.com/products/air/
SilverLight	Microsoft	http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
Google Gears	Google	http://gears.google.com/
Prism	Mozilla	http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Prism
JavaFX	Sun	http://www.sun.com/software/javafx/index.jsp
BrowserPlus	Yahoo	http://browserplus.yahoo.com/

So, where's the next version ?

Everyday dynamics has left me with little time to devote to closing a release, also there has been a lot of progress in adding support for additional infrastructure.

For those who would like to get a taste of 1.0.8 you can compile the sources - download the sources using bazaar as follows:

bzr branch http://jnext.org/src jnext

In case you're wondering what "additional infrastructure" is - its an implementation of jnext over flash. A proof of concept has been made and now what is left is to glue the pieces together.

so, sorry for the delay, but it will be worth it in the end

JNEXT 1.0.8 delayed a bit

Releasing JNEXT 1.0.8 is taking a bit of time since there's a lot of code that was added and reorganized: support for all the plugins on Mac OS/X, refactoring part of the code, adding JavaScript and internal plugin namespaces, adding the external libraries as part of the trunk for a self contained build environment, moving over from SVN to Bazaar and other tasks all contributed to the delay. There's a lot of other things that are in the pipeline as well but will have to wait for 1.0.9.

Anyway - the planned release date for JNEXT 1.0.8 is sometime during the begining of May - however if you wish to see the latest source, install bazaar (available for Windows, Linux & OS/X) and from the command line execute

bzr branch http://jnext.org/src jnext

which will download the latest version of the code to a folder named jnext

The latest source code runs all the plugins on all 3 platforms.

Closing in on 1.0.8

I've been busy cleaning up the JNEXT framework for release 1.0.8 - the main change is the support for OS/X and organizing the source code so that all the existing plugins are self contained (i.e the source will also include any external library sources a plugin depends on, which is the case with the SQLite3 JNEXT extension).

Its a slow process since it involves double checking that everything complies and runs without a problem on Windows, Linux and Mac OS/X

The screen shot below illustrates accessing an SQLite 3 database from Javascript with the JNEXT SQLite3 extension on Mac OS/X from both Safari and Firefox.

This is just the beginning - I'm really excited to think about all the applications just waiting to be written with JNEXT. I've had my share of UI development, and nothing comes close to the speed of creating applications this way... :-)

jNext for OS/X is working !!!

Finally jNext for Mac OS/X is working on both Safari and Firefox. I'd first like to express my gratitude to Nir Soffer the Mac expert, for providing a scriptable NPAPI sample that works on both browsers. Below is a screen shot of the jNext FileReader extension running on both Safari and Firefox:

I've been holding back on releasing new jNext extensions since I wanted to first complete support for jNext on all the major OS platforms. Now that this is complete, prepare to see a whole lot of powerful extensions unleashed during the course of the next few weeks :-)

P.S. The formal release of jNext with the Mac OS/X support (1.0.8) is planned within the next few days.

Updates

Despite my earlier statement, each day I try to scrape another hour or two to work on JNEXT (I am trying to get by on less sleep, which reminds me of the old joke of the farmer who tried to get his horse used to eating less...)

Anyway, I'm focusing my energies on getting a Mac OS/X (Intel) NPAPI plugin (npruntime to be exact) version working with Safari and Firefox. Although the documentation and number of working samples for scriptable plugins on the Mac is pathetic, after lots of experimenting and trial and (mostly) error, there seems to be enough info for me to combine all the pieces together into a working plugin.

Getting the plumbing working on different platforms has never been one of my favorite development pastimes - personally I find everything that requires a lot of guesswork and trying different stuff until you find something that works quite boring. I guess that's why I never enjoyed adventure games or reverse engineering. For me the creative juices start flowing only after the OS specific plumbing has been completed - and that is why I'm full of anticipation to start implementing new and exciting JNEXT plugins once the Mac port is done.

Suspending development for a couple of months

Too many other important tasks have been piling up which means I have to let go of JNEXT for a bit. My hope is to complete the Mac OS/X port and add some very useful plugins + a quick financial analysis sample after I get back to it. If anyone wishes to continue the Mac port from the point I left it at, then feel free to contact me (though I'm not holding my breath...)