MyCamTools, UXI, Sakai 3 and other Sakai’s

A lot has happened in the world of (client side) development for Sakai over the last year. In fact, so much has happened that I haven’t been able to keep up with this blog.

We have managed to get MyCamTools out of the door and it has now been running in production at Cambridge for almost a year now. Reactions have been positive and we have had relatively few reported problems.

In August, we have started working on the UX Improvement project, based on designs made by Nathan Pearson, aimed at improving the Sakai 2.x UX. We have also introduced some Sakai 3 concepts into those screens. You can check the work at http://mycamtools.caret.cam.ac.uk .
I would like to thank Michigan, Indiana, Berkeley and Georgia Tech for their implementation help.

In March, we have started working on Sakai 3 RC 1, which would be a first step towards Sakai 3, and we’re hoping to bring into production this year.  A lot is going on, and it’s a fast moving target right now, so the best way to track the progress is to follow the dev server at http://131.111.21.17:9090/dev/ .

All of this might make more sense if you read through the presentation I recently gave at EuroSakai 2009 in Stockholm which you can find at SakaiEurope-Sakai3.pdf

Enabling JSLint in Aptana Studio

JSLint (http://www.jslint.com) is a pretty cool tool that allows you to validate your javascript code and find common bugs, style issues and pitfalls. Until recently, I was pasting my javascript code into JSLint from time to time, fixing some of the issues and then pasting it back into JSLint, ...

I have now however found a way of enabling the JSLint Validator inside Aptana Studio, which is the IDE in which I write all of my JavaScript code.

You can enable it by doing:

- Open Aptana Studio- Go to Window > Preferences
- Go to Aptana > Editors > JavaScript > Validation in the left hand menu
- Check "JSLint JavaScript Validator"- Hit OK- Go to Window > Show View > Validation
- You'll see the Validation on the bottom right of the screen- Now also click Toggle Information and Toggle Warnings (found on the top left corner of the validation pane)
- You're all set. JSLint will warn you whilst writing code

This is super useful, because I can now track JSLint issues while I'm writing the code, which should improve productivity!