Javascript framework – Fast.js

After developing web applications for such a long time, there will be some functions and pieces of code that is always use.

Javascript is built to fit the DOM node structure, hence, have rather long functions name corresponding to the different node attributes and methods. This makes coding in javascript a pain in the neck, always having to repeatedly code with the long function calls.

Of course there are frameworks available for production. There is jQuery, Mootools (Just to name a few more popular ones), all great for extensive development.

Fast.js brings another layer to javascript frameworks. Most frameworks try to change the way te scripting is done, making major alterations that vastly changes the code structure of the scripts.

Fast.js, on the other hand, only serves to provide shortcuts to the lengthy and cumbersome javascript functions. This means that code written for fast.js can be easily understood by native javascript development.

The problem with current frameworks is the lack of coherence with the original code structure. This makes it hard for developers to recreate the framework’s code in pure javascript. (Personal opinion)

Fast.js is open source, if anyone is interested in understanding how such a framework is developed, or perhaps want a base framework to improve your web development workflow, here is the bitBucket repository.

To see the Api documentation, visit this page, and to include it into your projects, include this line of code, <script src="http://ongspxm.bitbucket.org/dev/fast.min.js"></scrip>, in the head section of your site, before all the other scripts are loaded.

Design Mockup – testFieber from 99designs

Yet another design from 99designs. This time, I chose a design that has a rather large amount of graphics, in turn, I spent a very long time extracting the graphics and icons.

And speed up the process for this mockup, I used the Entypo font, which provides developer with a huge variety of icons to use for their website. This is the first few times I am trying this out, therefore, there wouldn’t be much of it. When I am more familiar with the icons available, perhaps I will use it more extensively.

In this mockup, I used fast.js to complete the tab toggling. It made the code much much shorter, and more intuitive. If there are more responsive design required in the future, it will surely be part of my toolkit from now on.

(A bit on fast.js) It is a simple framework that I have written for javascript. After spending so many hours typing standard javascript code over and over again, I have decided to create some standard functions to extend the language, making it easier to get stuff done. I will be writing more about it some time soon.

There is the completed mockup, Although the design is fairly close the the original (except for the footer overlay, which I couldn’t bother extracting, because removing the texts from the graphic will take too much time), the content for all the links may not really make any sense, because I have no idea what they originally meant, so I replace them with more rubbish of my own.

Original design: