Web 2.0 is here to stay and the web technologies that made it “2.0” have also matured enough to move on to Web 3.0? Web is more intelligent, user friendly and interactive. Rich Internet Applications (RIA) have successfully caught the users’ attention and brought the desktop experience to browser. The transformation of desktop experience to browser played a key role in quick adoption of web 2.0. In this article we will take a look at some of the JavaScript APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that made it all happen.
AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML) changed the way we used to write applications for the web. AJAX can make calls to the server and load individual elements in a webpage without reloading the whole page. Remember how your GMail automatically loads and displays new emails? This is called Asynchronous communication.
Here’s the list of 10 widely used AJAX/ JavaScript libraries:
1. jQuery
jQuery is one of the most popular JavaScript library that facilities developer to traverse html documents, event handling, animation and Ajax interaction.
Features
- DOM traversal and modification
- Events
- CSS manipulation
- Effects and animations
- Ajax
2. Dojo
An open source JavaScript library designed to develop cross platform Ajax based web applications.
Features
- Asynchronous communication
- Packaging system
- Client-side data storage
- Server-side data storage
3. MooTools
Object Oriented JavaScript framework which allow developers to write cross browser, flexible web application. MooTools supports safari 3+, IE 6+, Firefox 2+, opera 9+, Chorome 4+
4. Yahoo! UI
YUI (Yahoo! User Interface) written using JavaScript and CSS for building scalable, fast and highly interactive web applications .YUI is available under BSD license and yes it’s free to use.
5. Prototype
Prototype is a light weight JavaScript framework for dynamic development. Prototype introduced class driven development and support inheritance feature of object oriented programming. It uses json format for data exchange.
6. Qooxdoo
Qooxdoo is a platform independent object oriented JavaScript framework for creating rich internet application (RIA). It is an open source framework.
7. Cross-Browser
Cross-Browsers brings X-library as a JavaScript library for web developers. No need to include entire library so don’t worry X-library wont burden your application loading time on client side. It is design in a way which offer you pick and chores facility.
8. AJS JS Library
AJS is a JavaScript library which claims to be the lightest JavaScript library. The current version is 33kb Uncompressed. If performance is a consideration for you then you should definitely check it out.
9. OAT Framework
OAT (Open link Ajax Toolkit) offers Rich Internet Application development . It includes
- UI widget collection
- Event management system
- Ajax database connectivity
10. SWFObject
For all my flash developers’ friend we have something for you too. SWFObject offers a JavaScript API that provides complete set for embedding SWF files within your webpages. You must be thinking about its size, let me inform you friends only one small JavaScript file, 10 kb /gziped 3.9kb.
You may also want to take a look at:
- The Ultimate list of HTML5 based Games
- 78 jQuery scenarios to fall in love with
- 55 PHP Tutorials for amateurs
And if you are starting off with Computer Science then take a look at: