YUI Library Release 0.11: A Host of Enhancements and a New Logger Control

July 10, 2006 at 2:01 pm by Eric Miraglia | In Development | 24 Comments

In the two months since our last release, the YUI Team has been hard at work improving the library, optimizing code, and working with our colleagues at Yahoo! as they’ve launched numerous products using YUI as a foundation. The new Yahoo! Front Page beta is just one example where YUI is helping Yahoo!’s frontend engineering community to bring its most interesting visions to fruition.

In addition to one brand-new component — the Logger Control — this release brings substantive ehancements throughout the library, including:

Color animation: The Animation Utility sports a new ColorAnim subclass that makes the animation of color properties (like color, background-color, and border-color) a snap.
Drag & Drop performance: The Drag & Drop Utility has been one the YUI Library’s most popular components since its release. Version 0.11 brings an improvement in the way Drag & Drop positions dragged items during a drag interaction — resulting in significant performance gains, particularly in Firefox.
Managing inheritance: We’ve provided new documentation for the Yahoo Global Object, including its new YAHOO.extend method. YAHOO.extend supports prototype, constructor, and superclass assignments for new subclasses, making it easier than ever to manage inheritance in object-oriented JavaScript applications.
File upload: The YUI Connection Manager now supports file upload in addition to XMLHttpRequest-based asynchronous transactions. Connection Manager will create an iframe for you on the fly, use that iframe to post your uploaded file(s) to the server, and then return to you the HTML body of the server’s response — all within the familiar syntax of the component’s connection and response objects.
Minor changes and enhancements throughout: From "popping" a branch in the TreeView Control (and reinserting it elsewhere in the Tree) to implementing AutoComplete with an always-visible suggestion container, a host of minor changes can be found throughout the library for 0.11. Check out the README file found in each component’s build directory for detailed information about enhancements and bug fixes to the components you are implementing.
New Cheat Sheets: Cheat Sheets for the YUI Utilities have been updated for 0.11 and new Sheets have been added for three of the Controls (Logger, Slider, and TreeView).

One of the most gratifying aspects of this release from our perspective is the growing influence of the vibrant YUI Library community on the YDN-JavaScript Yahoo! Group. Peter Michaux, for example, pushed us to add YAHOO.extend to help manage inheritance and to look at new ways to optimize drag-and-drop performance. Hundreds of other members, in ways large and small, have helped us to see places where YUI could be more complete and more useful. Many thanks to all who are contributing there.

The YUI Library’s Logger Control

The biggest change you’ll see in YUI Library 0.11 is the advent of the YUI Logger Control, a flexible and integrated logging package in the spirit of earlier tools like Five Volt Logic’s estimable fvlogger. The Logger Control gives you useful insights into the operation of other YUI components, each of which now ships with a -debug version. Logger debuts with the following core features:

Powerful, compact UI: The default user interface, which is optional and highly configurable, supports live filtering of log messages by category or source and allows you to pause and resume logging on the fly. If Drag & Drop is available on the page, the UI can be repositioned; it can always be collapsed and expanded. Script hooks allow you to show and hide the Logger Control console dynamically.
Integration with the YUI Library components: The YUI Library components now ship with -debug versions that output logger messages at interesting moments. Take a look at how the Logger Console helps to illuminate the inner workings of the TreeView Control in this example.
Simple integration with your own projects: Taking advantage of the Logger Control in your own projects is as simple as adding logging statements at interesting moments in your scripts’ execution: e.g., YAHOO.log("Initializing menu: Variable sName = " + sName);. The global YAHOO.log method can be safely used throughout your scripts, even when the Logger Control is removed from the page.
Integration with other consoles: We’re huge fans of Joe Hewitt’s excellent FireBug extension for Firefox, and we’re pleased to report that the YUI Logger Control arrives with built-in FireBug integration. Moreover, Safari users who have the debug menu enabled will also find Logger messages in the Safari JavaScript Console. Either of these consoles can be used instead of or in addition to the default Logger UI. Check out Firebug and Safari integration in this Logger example; note that external console logging, which (like most debugging instruments) can degrade performance noticably, can be disabled in your Logger configuration.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and learning from your experiences as you implement the new Logger Control, whether to enhance your toolkit while working with YUI components or in development of your own application code.

What’s Next?

Even as we send YUI Library 0.11 out the door we’re thinking about and planning for the next release. As we’ve said on YDN-JavaScript, we’re working on a Tab Control and a Button Control for 0.12 and beyond. And we see many further opportunities to enhance YUI as a platform for building robust, rich applications in the web browser. If you haven’t already, please join the YUI community on YDN-JavaScript and share your thoughts about the 0.11 release, the Logger Control, and where you’d like to see the YUI Library go from here.

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24 Comments »

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Rock on guys, freakin’ awesome work. Thanks again for sharing this with the community.

Comment by Carson — July 10, 2006 #
Great work on the YUI! It’ll be a while before I can use any of the functionality with any grace, but you guys are making it easier and easier!

Comment by Adam — July 10, 2006 #
YAHOO.test.Class2.superclass.testMethod.call(this, info);. Mmm. Lovely.

Comment by Dean Edwards — July 10, 2006 #
I am a bit surprised that you guys added YAHOO.extend. One of the things that I liked so much about YAHOO is that it doesn’t try to extend the JavaScript language like Prototype and other libraries do. The YUI library seems to be inching toward that now.

Comment by mwarden — July 10, 2006 #
[...] Some exciting news for front-end developers today: The Yahoo! Developer Network has released the newest version of it’s YUI JavaScript libraries today. With extensive documentation, great support for cross-browser coding, and a couple new components, these tools are becoming an even better solution for JavaScript developers. Check out more at the official YUI blog. Here is what’s new: [...]

Pingback by Phil Freo - Website Design, Development, & Blog - Jacksonville/Gainesville, FL — July 10, 2006 #
[...] egy új vezérlőt tartalmaz, a Logger vezérlőt, amivel nagyon egyszerűen írni és olvasni lehet az egy eseménynaplóba (event log). A vezérlővel nagyon könnyen követhetjük a YUI Library eseményüzeneteit (event message) és így egy kiváló eszköz hibakeresésre (debug). Az új vezérlő mellett a jelenlegi kibocsátás frissítéseket is tartalmaz (idézet a fejlesztők blogjából): [...]

Pingback by A .NET pontja körül » A tegnap kibocsátott új YUI Library (Release 0.11.0) — July 10, 2006 #
A way to sort a treeview (for example nodes with childrens before nodes without — to mimic a windows explorer, for example) would be nice.

For instance, it would evitate me to code one right now ;)

Comment by YoGi — July 11, 2006 #
I’ve been using YUI for about a month now and even though I haven’t posted to the mailing list I read it every day. And the components and utilities are great to work with. Thanks for making this available to the community, continuing development, and being so open to feedback.

Comment by Sarah Gray — July 11, 2006 #
has anyone integrated tree view and drag n drop to create a draggable tree view ?

if not, seems like we would have to write it ourselves.

Comment by Raza — July 11, 2006 #
[...] Visit the YUI developer blog today to get the lowdown on all of the fixes. I have had an annoying issue with a select box and z-index that will be fixed with the introduction of this latest version. So make sure you update your import links and enjoy. [...]

Pingback by YUI libraries are updated again! at Advanced CSS Design Resources - last-child.com — July 12, 2006 #
Thanks for sharing this great library with community :)

Comment by Tiendq — July 12, 2006 #
I’ve been offering suggestions and developing our site to use this library because I like yahoo’s other projects like flickr and upcoming. My main regret about using this is that its not structured the same way as it is on flickr and upcoming which makes me wonder if those sites will eventually use the YUI or are currently using it or what.

Is there a developer chat other than just the yahoo group message board? I’d love to BS with fans of the YUI and trade suggestions and tips in an environment where i wasnt waiting ages for a reply

Comment by thedillydotcom — July 13, 2006 #
Congratulations to you guys, I downloaded it and replaced old 0.10 but found a nasty bug when using dialog boxes with animation.. IE hangs. Please check this example page with IE on Windows and see what happens.

http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/container/simpledialog.html

Maybe it is my computer but I don’t think so because when I replaced with the old version everything worked fine again.

Keep up the good work.

Comment by Daniel Fernandez — July 13, 2006 #
Well, interface wise… you guys are top notch… :P

Comment by lxcid — July 13, 2006 #
there’s a little bug in connection manager. on line 705 in connection.js: ‘callback.upload.apply(callback.scope, [oResponse]);’. when ‘upload’ method isn’t created by the user, this generates an error.

Comment by yabcok — July 13, 2006 #
Thanks everybody for the positive feedback. Glad you’re enjoying YUI.

@Daniel and @yabcok:

Thanks for the bug reports. It would be excellent if you could log it in our bug tracker on SourceForge.

Comment by Nate Koechley — July 13, 2006 #
I love it. Especially the YAHOO.extend and the new file uploader functionality to the Connection Manager. Great stuff!

Comment by Dustin Diaz — July 13, 2006 #
Quite some time ago I believe someone from Yahoo promised an article on this blog that would explain the team’s reasoning behind using non-validating CSS hacks in the Yahoo CSS library, is this still in the works?

Comment by Chris — July 14, 2006 #
@mwarden:

The use of Yahoo.extend inside the YUI library doesn’t mean you have to use Yahoo.extend when you want to extend the library’s objects. No one is locked into it. I think that is one cool aspects of this function.

If you want, you can rewrite the code in Yahoo.extend or a portion of it each time you want to chain constructors and/or prototypes. This would be the traditional way. The Yahoo.extend function just saves you time and bandwidth and it also makes it self-documenting that you are extending a particular object.

Comment by peter — July 17, 2006 #
[...] A new version of YUI had been release: YUI Library Release 0.11 [...]

Pingback by Openology Development Blog » Blog Archive » Yahoo UI 0.11 released — July 19, 2006 #
[...] la version 0.11 de la librairie Yahoo YUI a été récemment publiée. [...]

Pingback by Map the Maps! » Blog Archive » Versions -min et -debug des fichiers Javascript (.js) de YUI 0.11 — July 30, 2006 #
[...] The 0.11 release last month brought with it the Logger Control and a host of other improvements to the library, including dramatically improved performance in the Drag and Drop Utility, file upload in Connection Manager, and color animations in the Animation Utility. [...]

Pingback by » Monthly YUI Roadmap Update — August 2006 Nate Koechley’s Blog — August 9, 2006 #
i need
calendar-min-11.js
from yui

how can i get it

Comment by bhargav — January 17, 2007 #
@bhargav: You can download previous versions of the YUI Library from our SourceForge project site. 0.11.4, for example, can be downloaded here. Regards, -Eric

Comment by Eric Miraglia — January 18, 2007 #

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