Jay Kimble

As you may be aware Scott Hanselman’s 2009 Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows came out yesterday. If you are like me you end up pooling through the list especially the new stuff to see if there is something cool that somehow you missed.

I found an item on the list that answers something I think I have been looking for (but not for me), but before I go on I need to give you some background (as usual).

Kevin D. Wolf (aka ByteMaster) and I have been talking over the last several months on all things Ajax. We’re both pretty deep on the topic of Ajax (Actually Kevin is deep on a number of topics), and we’re both pretty opinionated about a few things (I know you are shocked that I would say that about myself).

One of the things I’ve sort of been looking for is something that makes it easy for someone to write Ajax. The new Blend Skecthflow stuff is a HUGE game changer, but if what I want to write is Ajax then after using Sketchflow I’m back to the drawing board.

Interractions in Ajax.. found!

So yesterday, I was browsing the Hanselman list and I found a side reference to a tool to watch called “IxEdit.” All I can say is WOW! [Personal Note: Diane Leeper download this now! I think you could have some fin with this…] Their video tells it all, but I will tell you what I think is cool about it.

You create a page and add references to jquery, jquery ui, and their ixEdit script as well as a few CSS. Once you do this the page launches with a movable dialog. This new dialog let’s you create Ajax/Web 2.0 (more the latter) interactions with your page all by simply playing in their GUI. Really, really cool! Now they don’t do everything, and in fact from what I saw of the tool you can’t set up to make calls back to the server (but I could see something like that being set up, and am starting to think about it). Once you are satisfied you can “save and reload” which reloads the page and applies your designed interaction (so now you can see how it worked).. something not look right simply edit the interaction to tweak it’s setting.

When you are done it will help you deploy the script, so now you have designed JS code with out actually writing a line of code! Really, really cool, IMO!

[I spent a couple of hours looking for pictures to fancy this up a little.. I run a UI/UX users group for crying out loud.. I need to get better at that, so sorry my post is bland.. I’ll try to follow up with something more graphically pleasing]