I always love checking out what the BBC get up to on their website..

As mentioned in my other blogs they have their own open Javascript frame work  that you can checkout here.

But recently I noticed something small – they have improved on.. well kept with standards and moved to HTML5 Canvas Javascript generated clock instead of the old flash clock.

Here is some info and code – its pretty neat well done.

2 DAYs of partying 26 shots laters… And its time to return to normality.

So recently I have been looking at creating a custom smoother loading animation for WebCenter Spaces – at the moment the only real and easy option I have to say is stick with gifs for compatibility. But if your crazy like me and want to try out  new things then check this out…

In the past the only way I have actually successfully created animated pngs is by creating a background sprite and using javascript to cycle through and change the position to show the next frame – You can see an example of this on one of my other blog posts here. This is good but can be a bit resource heavy constantly changing background-position style.

So what else is there??

Well I noticed today APNG… First time I had come across it but it seems as if the standard has been out since 2004..
(I need to improve my surfing skills)

Anyways – this allows you to create animated PNGS. There is a catch.. -  unfortunately.. .. This currently is only supported by Mozilla Firefox 3 – Opera 9.5 – KSquirrel 0.7.2 – XnView 1.92…
Thats right Chrome doesn’t even support this; tried and tested – haven’t tried IE9 but knowing microsoft I doubt it..
There is however the ability to swap to a gif with a bit of javascript if the browser does not support APNG and I guess you could incorporate the animated sprite technique I use

Ok; so here is my approach to creating an optimised APNG.

1. Create all your png frames.
2. Pass the images once through PunyPNG and Yahoo’s Smush.it.
3. Rename your pngs as required by APNG Assemble.
4. Zip and Upload.

Voila! You now have an awesome compressed animated PNG

My Example (uncompressed = 245kb – 39 frames)::

Yes.. I haven’t tried reprocessing the animated png through the compressors you may want to give that a go and let me know what happens

—————————-

Update – ok ignore the compression – compression doesn’t improve optimisation and if run after strips out all animated frames

It’s true and there is footage!!

From the looks of it I`m guessing a iphone maybe HTC.. So that means time travel is in our grasp this century.. C’mon; you can’t tell me next century we will still be holding mobile devices and walking about?!

Some new WebCenter REST javascript integration samples have been released over at the Oracle WebCenter Suite 11 g Demonstrations and Samples page..

I just happened across them and as no one seems to have posted I thought I’d be one of the first..
Go check them out; no JS frameworks needed they have XHR http request methods in place in a small lib. 
I usually incorporate the jQuery framework but it’s nice to see a clean sample without the need of the additional methods provided by jQuery.

Looks nice and clean and I see some good comments for a change

In an attempt to get to more developers to start using the WebCenter javascript framework including myself I have started to work on an opensource ebook hosted at github – I’m hoping to make it a simple guide very much like the jquery or Extjs docs with some useful samples for devs to review. And you too can start to contribute soon… I’m not doing this all on my own! In theory we shouldn’t need to incorporate other frameworks when developing with ADF..

ADF should be able to provide us the same functionality plus more! I know I am certainly one of the guilty ones using other frameworks to assist with creating custom widgets quickly… I guess it’s really because I have quite a strong knowledge with developing with these other frameworks; but that is not really an excuse to mix and match these when ADF should be able to handle all my requirements.

If you really want George maggessy has provided a small guide within his blog of incorporating jquery..

On the plus side there is already a great Oracle ADF Javascript reference guide located here – but unfortunately there are no intuitive samples or docs available and you really have to know what you are searching for and under which namespace to review -  one great location for info and samples is over at Frank Nimphius’ Blog or at the Oracle ADF Code Corner where he lists his and other samples

eBook to open soon for review on github – Keep an eye out and I’ll let you know..

Something I did when experimenting a couple years ago manipulating a logo in photoshop – hope you like

I have to say a big thanks to Rich Manalangs from The AppsLab Team for making his WebCenter REST API Examples available. (Thanks Rich this really helped me out)
Without these samples my life producing this REST integration would of been a lot harder.

I decided to come up with a quick small jQuery Ajax chained callback script that parses a javascript object to store data returned from the REST response.

It has made my life easier than writing multiple functions to return the REST response; and with it I have been able to quickly create a small WebCenter twitter portlet using the Forums as the data store. Keep an eye out – an  Example to come in a future post.

Your probably asking why javascript and not create a taskflow and do it server side..
Well we did give that a go first, without much success the issue is down to authentication at the moment there is no way of authenticating the logged on user via the server against the REST framework…
You can setup a login option but when people are logged in you don’t want to ask them to login again.
Don’t worry there will be an update.. But not until PS3.. So in the meantime the best approach is to use the clients Session and javascript which is automatically authenticated.

If your interested read on for a simple example and source.

Read the rest of this entry »

If any of you have played with Cooliris/piclens or use the Cooliris UCM component.. And thought it was great for presenting an image library. Just wait until you check out Microsoft Pivot.

Pivot has been out now for a good year now; I had plans last year to integrate it with the UCM but as always I find I have so many ideas running around in my head and other things I want to try out, that I never had the time ..

Well over the weekend I sat down and began to play and develop a UCM Component..
It’s almost complete and will release it soon free for you to install and play with!

Check out the video of Pivot – and then imagine the UCM as the asset store and meta repository!

Zynga have been making a lot of acquisitions of Social Game Development teams – their latest Dextrose labs.

This is a great move by Zynga; although I have to say I am disappointed with Dextrose labs for selling out. Although I don’t know the exact details to the acquisition maybe it is a good thing although I fear Dextrose were probably finding it difficult to sell their games engine – I’m positive there was a lot of interest but I’m sure large corporations were more interested in acquiring Dextrose and their games engine rather than share and develop games on the same engine as a competitor…

I can’t say I’m a fan of Zynga – their games maybe; although, I’ve never played any of them. I have heard of them and know a lot of friends who do play them especially on facebook. Actually, I even see my girlfriend playing one of them in the evenings The graphics look nice and the interface is intuitive. But their website is pretty bad… I don’t think I can see one positive thing I like logo looks aweful.. Frontend html structure is pretty basic; colour scheme well just check it out for yourself – I hope they do a revamp soon and some of the Dextrose team show them the ways..

Good Luck Dextrose – I`m looking forward to see what comes out of Zynga