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A project called Open Rico has had an open-source javascript api that does that for a long time, and it works quite well. There is an online demo at: http://demos.openrico.org/demos/drag_and_drop_custom_dropzone No login required.

I'd recently given myself a crash course in javascript for a site I was working on. Ended up using the moo.fx (http://moofx.mad4milk.net/) library with niftycube (http://www.html.it/articoli/niftycube/) for the all important rounded corners. Checked out dojo but it seemed a little more than I needed. Also glanced at Yahoo.

Looking over the packages listed here, I'm especially impressed with Rico. Single file used in conjunction with the prototype.js script. And a really excellent demo page:

http://openrico.org/rico/demos.page?demo=rico_effe ct_position

The author of the article gives Yahoo credit for the package management -- I think Rico deserves a praise for their site, too. I look forward to giving it a whirl.

We didn't really even need xmlhttprequest; you could use iframes, too. (And some notable "2.0" apps have)

Useful bits I've found getting into ajax stuff:

Dojo Toolkit, a nifty framework for doing all sorts of good stuff. Of particular note to me was dojo.io.* with its dojo.io.bind() function, which provides a simple, cross-platform compatible way to do an xmlhttprequest, with callback functions for completion and errors, an easy way to post variables, specify a method and caching, etc.

openrico. This provides all sorts of fun stuff. The smart stuff starts with declaring $ as a function, which after you get used to it provides a very convenient cross-platform way to access DOM nodes (ie, $('mydiv') or $(divvar)), and has all sorts of canned widgets for effects, like accordian widgets, move&resize, etc... although I've found practical application usually requires a bit more additional work, but their functions help get started.

I wonder how difficult it will be to write degradable applications with this toolkit. The demo applications I played with do nothing at all with javascript disabled... they're just a script tag in a body tag, so they make no attempt to render the application using plain HTML. I know they're just demos, but it won't save any time if you have to develop the non-js version separately... which is a problem particularly for those of us who have to develop to accessibility standards.

Also, this is coming right on the heels of the buzz about Oracle's AJAX Framework... and of course there's the Eclipse AJAX Toolkit Framework, which uses Dojo, Zimbra, and OpenRico (which in turn uses prototype)... others have mentioned Yahoo!'s toolkit and Atlas, as well, not to mention Rails... My point is that there are suddenly a ton of frameworks that all have slightly different approaches to the whole AJAX idea. Some are higher-level, some lower; some target a specific server backend; some offer UI libraries... Any or all of these might merge or die off or be made irrelevant at any time. It's almost harder to develop AJAXy applications now than back when you had to write your own HTTP request code... sure, you can knock one out in ten minutes now, but you spend the time you saved choosing the toolset beforehand.

I think I'll wait a bit... we've put the scorpions in the box and shaken it, so let's see who survives.

There's this: http://openrico.org/rico/home.page and this: http://script.aculo.us/ which are based on this: http://prototype.conio.net/. Neat stuff and easy to use..

There is also Rico. But I think this is all syntactic sugar anyway.

If anyone wants a lightweight, simple, cross-platform AJAX objects they should check this out: http://prototype.conio.net/ The well-written javascript (prototype.js) library is the basis for many innovative opensource AJAX frameworks/libraries including: - Ruby on Rails (built-in support) - http://script.aculo.us/ - http://openrico.org/ - http://bennolan.com/behaviour/

Also, from a development perspective, this is exactly the Model View Controller framework that so many people really like to enforce in their development practices. ... And you can't accidentally put view functionality into the model, the XML communications library you set up shouldn't be processing raw HTML (since passing raw HTML is an abuse of ajax, you should be xmlifying your data, and sending it *as* data).

The incompatibility you are talking about is the direct result of Microsoft implementing XMLHttpRequest with ActiveX, and everybody else implementing it as a native Javascript object

although I enjoy blaming as much on M$ as possible and make the rest of the world look great I have to somewhat disagree with the parent poster. Any "good" web applications developer will check their JavaScript on the 4 most used (IMHO) browser engines which consist of Geko, KHTML, Opera, and IE. I would love to say that only one of these parties have been and are still currently traveling down their own path but it simply isn't true (Check out OpenRico's demos with all 4 engines, only 2 work consistently!). Even with W3C's rules each browser developers has their own way of doing things which makes it extremely hard to code for all 4 browsers. I enjoy building applications in JS simply because it brings some cool bells and whistles that keeps my boss off my back but in all reality I would still consider JS programming to be a support nightmare.

Sure, not a problem. For more cool javascript stuff checkout:

Some more demos from dojo (the editor one is neat, after you select your toolbars, it lets you edit the text of the page on the fly.

Another site, OpenRico, has a neat javascript library. The link takes you to their live grid which updates in realtime through AJAX, but above the grid you'll see their other demos that you can click to view.

Here is another site, ActiveWidgets, their 1.0 version is just a very customizable grid that can be made to look like anything from an excel spreadsheet to a listing of files in a directory (look at the examples linked to from their front page). If you scroll down on this page you'll see links to examples for their 2.0 beta. Check out all 3, you can make your website essentially appear like a native WinXP dialogue (I think that is WinXP, I run Fedora though).

Keep in mind all of this is in javascript/css/html, its also all opensource (you can search for other projects like these, a notable site is scriptaculous). Its really neat to see javascript finally being used to its full potential, web apps should get really interesting in the next few years.

Regards,
Steve

AJAX is hyped a bit, but it really does have some neat capabilities. Actually I've noticed better use of javascript in general recently. Its a very powerful language and only now is its true potential being realized. For some cool examples check out:

This which is a live grid of data updated through AJAX.

This which is just a cool javascript toolbar that also uses SVG icons if your browser is capable (Most people who see this think its flash at first).

This or any of the examples linked to on page.

Web Applications really are starting to take on a whole new generation of capablities and software. I personally think that is pretty neat, its like the perfect merger of fat and thin clients.
Regards,
Steve

Still very bleeding-edge, however, I have seen right-click examples on other sites and the point here is that of motivated you could approximate windows in simple HTML and Javascript. You're right. I can't find anyone actually using this anywhere... I've been working with Rico actually. But I keep an eye on Qooxdoo because its only a matter of time before someone tries to build a real app with this.

Besides QooxDoo and Rico fill different spaces in a complete Ajax application. QooxDoo is effects, Rico is communication.

Yes, but the same sort of thing can be done without Flash (and not requiring a plugin). A comparable AJAX version of your Simple Example:

Another Example [openrico.org]

Since we're on the topic of "start" pages, I thought I would mention my own project, fyuze.com, which was mentioned here on slashdot some time ago. It started out as an RSS aggregator, but in it's latest incarnation is an API aggregator. What does that mean? Well, it means that in addition to pulling RSS/Atom feeds it will also run queries against web-services such as Flickr, Amazon, Technorati, Upcoming.org, and Yahoo (with more to come). It also allows you to post good links directly to your del.icio.us account (hit the settings page).

It doesn't yet sport the nifty Ajax effects of Google and Microsoft, but with prototype and Rico, it is only a matter of time. Anyway, we're trying to push the idea of an aggregator beyond just RSS headlines and weather. So, if you're interested, we'd appreciate it if you gave it try and told us what you thought.