The Roar of the Fagiano*

jAPS 2.0 Ideas(cale)

2010-06-25T20:18:00.003+02:00

so... we know you do like jAPS 2.0,
and we know a lot of speedy new ideas are running in your head.

And also we know we're all surfing the web 2.0.

So go to http://japsplatform.ideascale.com/ and share your ideas.
Discuss it, vote it, create it.

(I'm pushing all my ideas there)

VirtualKeyboard@Google.ru

2010-05-28T18:14:00.004+02:00

I was trying to navigate at http://www.google.ru/, Google in the Russian version.

And I found a little virtual keyboard:

And I was suprised when I saw it :) It's a great idea to have a "virtual keyboard" when needed to write characters the user cannot write normally or without external tools.

With just one-click-activation I just started Cyrillic! :)

It's a good example of when javascript is useful.
I'd like to add something like that in the jAPS 2.0 CMS :PP

Microsoft: So why use a 9-year-old browser?

2010-05-14T12:59:00.002+02:00

That's it. IE6 is really dead. :D

See the original commercial:
http://www.microsoft.com/australia/technet/ie8milk/Default.aspx

Virtual Box Images

2010-04-06T15:09:00.005+02:00

I was searching for open source ISO files to try under VirtualBox.

And finally I'm finished in a big archive of them: Virtualboximages.com

You can find there many ISOs, from Android to Ubuntu, recent and old too.

It's a nice place where download and try them ;)

Text 2.0 or readers 5.0?

2010-03-31T22:25:00.003+02:00

Have you already heard something about Text 2.0?

No? Ok, if no, watch this:

What do you think then? Images flash automatically in your screen/sheet/paper, sounds automatically are riproduced, vocabulary is just there.

What a wonderful world! :S

I'm a bit sceptical, when I read I just want to be alone and keep focused on it. Maybe in the future that will be the common read habit. Yes in the future. Maybe.

For now I'd prefer to read silently alone.

HTML5 or Flash?

2010-03-13T10:33:00.005+01:00

You surely noticed the actual war between HTML5 and Flash.

Developers started testing their performance in various platform (ex. http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2010/03/01/relative-performance-of-rich-media-content-across-browsers-and-operating-systems/).

And the doubt is still there: what's in the future?

The future is in the open standards. Browser creators/developers/houses have already started to follow the web standard some time ago... so why wouldn't they continue to follow this way?

I think it's just a question of time, when we'll have better accelerated graphic drivers when we'll have better web browser and better web sities so everything will just work with HTML5 and open software.

We have to recognize that Adobe Flash is a great technology but in the "common use" or middle website why do they need to use a closed format?

It's like to have php/mysql in closed-source format and rent a server, sounds strange right?

I'd like to build websites just with opensource software :) so I'm for HTML5.

jAPS 2.0 Road Map

2010-03-08T20:27:00.004+01:00

Looking at the Official jAPS 2.0 Road Map:

Stable 2.0.10 Release
Search by page code in Page Management
Entity Types Interface Management. Example: Back office interface to create and manage content types

Maybe It's a bit "reduced" as feature list... the changelog will be surely longer and more complete.

But the one of the most important feature for jAPS Web Developers is the "Entity Types Interface Management" :D

I'm very exited about it! I'll do a screencast soon ;)

As We can read from the mailing list, Eugenio wrote:

[...]
We're in the home stretch with the new version 2.0.10. (few weeks have faith!).
For those of you who want to try the preview of the new version of jAPS 2.0, the SourceForge CVS is always constantly updated.

So we're just checking everything :) stay tuned.

YouTube and Accessibility

2010-03-05T15:07:00.000+01:00

Good news from Google.
YouTube will recognize the speech in a video, and generate automagically proper subtitles.

The article is in italian, but there is a promotional video in english.

Geolocate users with Mootools

2010-03-04T17:18:00.005+01:00

I want to tell You about a Mootools class called Locate.

You can find It directly in the MooForge here http://mootools.net/forge/p/locate; It helps you to use the geolocation feature of those browsers who support it.

It's pretty fast:

var location = new Locate({
  onLocate: function(position){
    // Do stuff with the position data
  }
});

Well done, Christopher Beloch. :)

Oldies but Goldies

2010-03-01T17:40:00.001+01:00

This is the translation of an old post in italian from "Do It The jAPS Way".

Pane, Storia e... Geografia

From an email of explanation to a colleague:

There are two main types of the web entity we call Breadcrumbs (I'm gonna name theese types with names of my choice):

Geographical Breadcrumbs
Historical Breadcrumbs

Geographical Breadcrumbs are just like a map with a very large red X and the sign "You are here".
They come in help whenever you want to know in which point of the page tree of a website you are, regardless of how you got there.

Mostly used in Plain Old Informative Portals.

PRO: They give a new feature to the user, not embedded in a web browser (the very large red X on the map).
CONS: In a page tree made of 10 or more sublevels, they end out to be an element of chaos instead of adding order .

Historical Breadcrumbs are like Thumbling's breadcrumbs.
They track every single step it took you to reach the point of the site where you stand, regardless of your position in the page tree.

They are used almost only in WiKis, or in large "encyclopedia-style" portals where you end up using the History in your browser so often that you can surely take advantage of a web based version of it.

PRO: They help reminding what pages you read seconds, minutes ago.
CONS: They are definetely a creature of Chaos, and aren't of any use in clearing your position in a website.

Bau,
Wiz

Top Browsers in Europe of 2010

2010-03-01T14:55:00.005+01:00

IE = 46%
Firefox = 38%
(via gs.statcounter.com)
So dear "colleagues" always design for IEs and Firefow and You'll reach almost everyone!

What about CSS3?

2010-02-26T20:34:00.005+01:00

Every designer of the current era is making this question:

What's happening to CSS3?

Oh Great question! I say. And please don't go too far away looking for the answer :)

just this: http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/current-work

W3c is the right place :D

jAPS 2.0 Screencast: Page Models

2010-02-24T22:11:00.005+01:00

Please remember this is a very very very simple example!

jAPS 2.0 Screencast: Istantiate a new portal in 7 steps

2010-02-20T14:50:00.002+01:00

Better than 10 thousand words.

Welcome to:
Instantiate a New Portal from jAPS 2.0 sources in 7 steps.

What You Need:
-> the whole development environment with: Sun JDK, Eclipse, PostgreSQL and Tomcat
-> Already Imported and Already Configured jAPS 2.0 source Project

If You don't know how to do all those things:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIIC077tE0o

Let's Start:
1 - Open Eclipse, and start editing this file: build_newPortal.xml

2 - Just insert the name of the new project You want to create,
modify the property "newportal.name"

3 - use this build_newPortal.xml with ANT, run the
"Create New Portal" task

4 - Import the new project, It's already in your workspace

5 - Verify params: setup the name of the new webapp in the build.xml and verify other params in context.xml

6 - run it (you need to restore/create db first of course)

7 - You got it, Have fun with jAPS 2.0 :)

8 - Follow us at http://roarofthefagiano.blogspot.com/ :P

Bye, Andrea.

How does your website sounds like?

2010-02-18T20:17:00.005+01:00

Uh? Wait a moment.

I was reading my twitter timeline when I saw a post from kamicane, then I landed to C O D E O R G A N.

Welcome to the Magical Mechanical Codeorgan
The Codeorgan analyses the *body* content of any web page and
translates that content into music. The Codeorgan uses a
complex algorithm to define the key, synt style and drum
pattern most appropriate to the page content.

Cool!

Wanna hear how http://www.japsportal.org/ sounds like? :D

Just if you are curious!

jAPS 2.0 FAQ: Can I modify Page Models? And What will happen?

2010-02-17T22:06:00.009+01:00

1 - Yes you can.
2 - Depends.

If you modify JSP files of Page Models no problems. JSP will be just "reloaded" or compiled again by Tomcat and everything will change aspects. Cool.

If you modify XML configuration of a Page Model, which it is currently used for Pages in your portal, you have to configure those Pages again. So you'll have setup again all the Showlets for those Pages. D'oh!

Think soo[...] far when designing the XML configuration :)

Once upon a time...

2010-02-17T11:48:00.001+01:00

...in a galaxy far, far away... and then there was the web, only the web.

A really interesting post from a really interesting blog.

Velocity Reserved Words

2010-02-16T22:10:00.002+01:00

I was googleing for these keywords "velocity reserved words". I need to know what they are!

I did't find nothing useful and also at Velocity Reference I haven't found what I need.

Just a few day days ago I was editing a Content Model, for an Attach Attribute, and I wanted to show the size. The code was something like $content.Attach.resource.instance.fileLenght (yeah there's a typo error in getter!) and not working.

So what's wrong with "resource" and "instance" in velocity? :) Solution was to add a custom getter to the object with a different name.

Mhh I'm still not convinced about Velocity Reserved Words.

Run jAPS 2.0.8 in 10 min. now HD

2010-02-14T10:10:00.004+01:00

Just yestarday I've posted the new Run jAPS 2.0 in 10 minutes but I was thinking youtube can convert your HD video and let user watch it in the desired definition.

So, I've done everything again :D

jAPS 2.0 Screencast: Run jAPS 2.0.8 in 10 minutes

2010-02-13T17:02:00.004+01:00

Here you are:

jAPS 2.0 Tag Library Documentation

2010-02-12T17:04:00.003+01:00

I've just generated and published the TLD Doc for jAPS 2.0.

Have a look at http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1840263/blog/jAPS2.0.8tld/index.html

There is the documentation for jAPS 2.0.8 aps-core taglib and aps-admin taglib.

I also included the jACMS Plugin TLD documentation which is very useful, It's the most important plugin!

Maybe next jAPS 2.0 release will have all the tld files in English! :-P

"Shaken, not stirred"

2010-02-12T12:08:00.003+01:00

News are always good news, here at my workplace!

Well, not the Project Manager of jAPS 2.0 anymore... but proudly the R&D Director @ Tzente S.r.l. (which is the official mantainer of jAPS 2.0)!

Eugenio Santoboni is the new Project Manager, and I'm pretty sure he will guide the project to the next level of greatness.

As of me and my new role, I have to admit it's getting better all the time (find yourself the citation, this time) and the air is plenty with exciting ideas and amazing concepts for the future of jAPS 2.0 and the Web, made accessible.

All bloody hail!

Wiz

(... yes, me Spike's fan, Spike FTW.)

Run jAPS 2.0 screencast now is old

2010-02-10T20:13:00.006+01:00

A few months ago I published a screencast titled "Run jAPS in 10 minutes" which shows how to run jAPS 2.0 version 2.0.6.

So now that video is old :) It's old but still valid!

You can still follow the entire video and just remember that you HAVE TO configure /META-INF/context.xml instead of /WEB-INF/conf/systemParams.properties!!

There was many changes between 2.0.6 and 2.0.8 but in order to run jAPS 2.0 (2.0.8) in 10 minutes follow the old video guide and just edit context.xml instead of systemParams.properties.

...So I'll make a new video ASAP :) maybe with jAPS 2.0.10 :D

jAPS 2 0 - Presentation Layer Comparison

2010-02-10T10:40:00.001+01:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation of mine.
A very brief (really, it's short) comparison between jAPS 2.0 and some "Mistery Portlet Container" ...

jAPS 2 0 - Presentation Layer Comparison

View more presentations from William Ghelfi.