Dojo 1.6.1rc1 is now available.
1.6.1rc1 contains many fixes, with a special focus on IE9 and FF4 support, browsers released just after Dojo 1.6.0 was completed.
Please test 1.6.1rc1, especially against IE9 and FF4 browsers, and send us your feedback and/or file any bugs you find. April 20, 2011 is the target release date for 1.6.1.
Dojo’s build system has long been considered as one of the toolkit’s most important features. Using the build system will dramatically improve the performance of your Dojo application by optimising the JavaScript modules and CSS files. This reduces the download size and number of HTTP connections needed to load your application.
Today, The Dojo Toolkit’s build tools are about to improve even further with the launching of a brand new solution, The Dojo Web Builder!
The Web Builder is an online solution providing an intuitive web interface to the existing build tools, allowing you to create customised Dojo builds using just your web browser and much more. This new tool will dramatically lower the barrier to entry for the build system, easing new users into the process of using a build tool and improving the performance of unoptimised Dojo applications everywhere!
To start, use the Dojo Web Builder tool, or continue reading for more details. We have produced a number of screencasts showing off the tool’s features and walking you through the steps required for some common example builds:
Dojo Web Builder – Custom Builds from Dojo Toolkit on Vimeo.
Dojo Web Builder – Auto Analysis from Dojo Toolkit on Vimeo.
Dojo Web Builder – Advanced Mode from Dojo Toolkit on Vimeo.
The Dojo Web Builder project consists of two new components that were developed:
The entire project will shortly be open-sourced, living on the Dojo Foundation’s Github repository, allowing anyone to contribute to its continuing development. More importantly, other users will be able to run local versions of the tool pointing at their own modules. For example, an organisation might provide an internal version allowing teams to easily generate new custom builds of a project’s modules, without having to distribute the entire project source. In addition, the tool can be configured to generate custom builds for older versions of The Dojo Toolkit, such as 1.5 and 1.4.3. Future plans for the project include native support for the AMD module and CommonJS package formats. This will allow the Dojo Web Builder to be used with a broad variety of JavaScript modules and packages external to Dojo. A full announcement will follow when the project’s source code is available.
Start using the Dojo Web Builder today. The hosted version is configured to provide access to the custom builds using the latest version of The Dojo Toolkit, 1.6.
OpenXT is “an open-source development toolkit for hardware-assisted security research and appliance integration,” and was started by a team at Citrix.
The project is a massive systems project (basically an entire OS for PCs). The project includes a full-screen single page application created with Dojo to create virtual machines and manage the platform. It uses a custom data access layer which communicates with the system DBUS control plane via WebSockets.
Here are a few screenshots of the application:
The Dojo 1.6 release was a substantial undertaking and involves efforts from the largest Dojo team ever. We’re reinventing Dojo for the present and the future, and this release is the first major step towards our plans for Dojo 2.0. The tremendous efforts and work of the Dojo community has made this release possible, with significant improvements in a short amount of time.
Dojo 1.6 contains a number of great additions and refinements. Key highlights include:
We’ve also made substantial progress on Dojo Mobile, available now for your mobile web apps!
Visit the new Dojo Features section to watch interviews with key Dojo committers and users and learn more about this release, as well as the thousands of outstanding features that have been in Dojo for several years.
In total, we’ve resolved more than 600 issues since Dojo 1.5. The DOH test suite of tens of thousands of tests passes in all officially supported browsers:
The code was completed before Internet Explorer 9 and Firefox 4 were released. That said, we’ve fixed all known issues with these browsers as well (testing was done with IE9 RC and Firefox 4 RC1).
Dojo is also tested with popular mobile browsers including iOS 4.x, Android 2.x and 3.x, and passes for all supported features in Dojo Mobile, and most features throughout Dojo. Work is also near completion for support with Blackberry 6 on mobile phones and the PlayBook.
Get the Dojo release that’s right for you. Choose from CDN, optimized builds, or source versions with full demos and utilities.
Many improvements have been made to the Dojo documentation. Most notable is a collection of new tutorials on using Dojo 1.6, in addition to the reference guide and API documentation.
Work on Dojo 1.7 is already underway. We’re anticipating releases every 3 months in 2011 as we make progress towards Dojo 2.0! A full roadmap will be available shortly so you’re aware of the latest changes, and to know how to get involved.
Read the complete Dojo 1.6 release notes for full details on everything that has changed with Dojo since 1.5.
And as always, we appreciate your interest and usage. If you find an issue with Dojo, have a suggestion, or see anything on the site or within the documentation that you think should be better, please register for a Dojo Foundation account and open a ticket.
We’re planning the following upcoming Dojo Beer events:
Let us know if you plan to make it, and we’ll update the details as they become available.
We’re pleased to announce the first Dojo 1.6 beta.
When Dojo 1.6 final is released in February, it will be our first release that includes a number of retrofitted, backwards-compatible, significant changes towards Dojo 2.0.
Because there are a number of changes in progress, we will also soon release Dojo 1.5.1 which includes just the most important fixes for what has been our most stable and popular release ever.
Please check out the in draft Dojo 1.6 beta release notes and the list of resolved issues for more details. Try it out, and as usual file tickets in http://bugs.dojotoolkit.org/. And if you’re interested in Dojo Mobile, many significant additions and improvements have landed in trunk, with many more planned for 1.7 and 2.0.
Stay tuned in February for the Dojo 1.6 release.
Long-time Dojo user Eye-Fi was at CES in Las Vegas showing our their current wi-fi enabled SD memory card and photo sync services.
Here’s a video interview where they show off the camera and application, and discuss the benefits of using Dojo within their platform, as they transitioned from a traditional web app to an AIR-based application:
Additional commentary and context is available at TheNextWeb’s post on how to Upload pictures straight from your digital camera to your social networks.
Great work by the Eye-Fi team, in creating an amazing hardware+software platform for simplifying the photo sync process, with the Dojo Toolkit as a key component in that effort!
Sam Foster, Dojo committer and SitePen software engineer and Dojo trainer, delivered a great overview of Dijit and Dojo widgets at the December London Ajax User Group event. If you’re interested in quickly getting an overview of Dijit, or just want to see Sam in action, check out the following:
We’re looking to create a new collection of case studies about you. If you’re interested in participating, please tell us about your project through the following questionnaire.
Sam Foster will be presenting an overview of Dijit at the London Ajax event on December 14th. The general topic for the night is Widgets, with Sam representing Dijit, Matt Parker representing YUI, and a pair of lightning talks will also be delivered on ExtJS and jQuery UI. If you’re in London, be sure to attend.