* An object-oriented JavaScript Library
In the last few issues of this newsletter, I have covered several products for building Rich Internet Applications (RIA) using Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (AJAX). Today I have an AJAX library that is very stable, well-engineered, and, best of all, free.
The library is called Rico, a fully object-oriented JavaScript library built on Prototype library. According to the developers, Rico “originated as work done in Sabre Airline Solutions to create a suite of rich Internet components, behaviors and effects for the Web application space.”
Rico is both free and open source (under the Apache 2.0 License) for both personal and commercial use.
Rico makes use of the XmlHttpRequest and provides a simple interface for building drag-and-drop features and cinematic effects such as scaling and smooth sliding transitions. It also provides behaviors such as an accordion component and “LiveGrid”. LiveGrid connects HTML tables to AJAX responses so tables can display an unlimited amount of data scrolled into view on the fly, as needed.
To get a feel for the power of Rico check out the demos, which are really impressive. In particular the weather widget is excellent and as the Rico site notes: “The resemblance to Laszlo Systems weather application is on purpose. It is meant to compare their flash based solution with a pure DHTML/Ajax solution.” So there.
I’ve played with the accordion feature and it really is very simple to use and very effective. You’ll also find useful commentary in the source of the example pages.
PDF documentation is available for both the core Rico engine and there is a PDF tutorial on the Rico LiveGrid.
