[FX.php List] [OT] Two days with Spry

[Bob Patin/Longterm Solutions]

This really isn't off-topic, since many of us are interested in using  
Ajax for our web apps, but so as not to offend...

I've spent the last 2 days working with Adobe Spry, after seeing a  
demo at Devcon.

I haven't done any FX integration yet, but that's the easy part... the  
big thing for me was to get into it, start designing some pages with  
Ajax, and see what I could come up with.

I rebuilt my website, adding several Ajax elements; the link is here:

http://www.longtermsolutions.com

Since Spry integrates with Dreamweaver, and since I'm a longtime user,  
it was really easy to add some elements once I got started. As you'll  
see, the Accordion menus on the left are a Spry widget, and the fade  
effect uses one of the Spry effects library elements. On the SOFTWARE/ 
Contract Creator page, you'll see a collapsible panel, which took me  
about 15 minues to add to the page. The cool thing is that you can  
select a widget in Dreamweaver, move the DIV to the spot on the page  
where you'd like to use it, and you're good to go. A little CSS  
fiddling with color and so on, and it's done.

Now that I've done this, I'm going to dive into JQuery and see if I  
like it better; Spry's certainly easy to use, and does most of what  
I'm going to be doing.

I also took Jonathan Stark's iPhone demo and rebuilt it to show data  
from one of my databases; it was built using Prototype, but I didn't  
get into editing any of the effects he used to build the pages... if  
anyone wants to see it, let me know.

So my thoughts about Spry at this point: it doesn't seem to have as  
many widgets as JQuery does, although this is only after 2 days. I  
suspect I'll find more in JQ, as I know a few of you loyal JQ users  
will tell me.

Anyway, thought some of you might want to see what can be done in not  
much time w/ Spry.

Bob Patin
Longterm Solutions
bob at longtermsolutions.com
615-333-6858
http://www.longtermsolutions.com
iChat: bobpatin
AIM: longterm1954
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