The 0.9 release has a number of improvements over 0.4:
- themability: much easier to customize look of widgets
- size and speed: download is about half the size and page renders much faster
- new features (cooler sliders, tooltip dialog, enhanced form controls, etc.)
- most widgets are accessible (high-contrast mode, screen reader, etc.) and internationalized (translations and bidi support)
- dojo.data integration for the widgets
- more powerful markup syntax (Declaration widget and <script> tags for declaring function parameters)
But, as 0.9 comes to a close there are a number of Dojo 0.4 features that haven't made it into Dijit or Dojox yet, so I figure I should document them so people aren't unpleasantly surprised. Some people may even want to defer upgrading until some more of these features are added. Some of the things that are missing (but we plan to port eventually):
- Table: 0.4 has FilteringTable. Planning to replace it with a table based on dojo.data but unfortunately not implemented yet. (note that we get messages every day saying how important table is; we are well aware that it needs to get finished ASAP)
- Tree: basic tree is ported to 0.9 but it's missing features such as
- dynamically changing the data after the tree is created
- drag and drop
- editing of cells
- icons next to label
- context menu (but i think you can tack this on to the normal tree)
- Editor: has basic functionality but missing some important toolbar items like select h1/h2/p/etc, or selecting the font size/color, and missing floating toolbar
- Charting
- Map widgets: these haven't been ported to DojoX yet
- TaskBar (for FloatingPane minimize/maximize restore functionality): someone should build an MDI module in dojox to support stuff like this, if there is interest.
- Soria theme (blue colored widgets from 0.4): 0.9 has a new theme called tundra where all the widgets are gray. If you are depending on the old colors for an existing, you'll have to wait. Dante is porting the Soria theme so it will probably be available in 1.0.
Here are a few things that aren't missing but that I get questions on often:
- FloatingPane: this has been ported to DojoX, but I think most people will want to use TooltipDialog or Dialog for their needs. The big difference between Dialog and FloatingPane is that Dialog sizes automatically to the content whereas FloatingPane has manual resizing.
- MenuBar: I think you can use ToolBar instead. But it doesn't have keyboard navigation.
The full list is in the porting guide but I thought I should mention the highlights.
Dojo core features missing:
- before and around advice (for dojo.event.connect)
- explode animation
Did I miss anything really important?
Wait! There's more.
Do you remember YouOS?
dijit.MenuBar has been required.
And some people(including I) needs FloatingPane(has maximize and dock buttons) and TaskBar widget.
Do not desert us, please.
See also http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/examples/colorpicker/colorpicker-fromscri...
MenuBar etc.
OK let me add these to the list above. You might be able to use Toolbar instead of MenuBar.
Thank you very much! But...
>You might be able to use Toolbar instead of MenuBar.
I see.
But menubars made from Toolbar seem dirty from these points.
1. When a menubar item is active, you cannot switch menus by moving cursor on menubar or pushing arrow keys.
2. Menubar items look not menubar items but toolbar buttons.
3. Their source code looks dirty and annoys us to write.
I've knwon that MenuBar widget is to be removed in 0.9.
But MenuBar widget might be small.
So I desire you to join MenuBar to dijit in 0.9 or 1.0.
sure
Sure, we need to add keyboard support to Toolbar in any case. And I agree about the styling, although you can adjust styling yourself. We might end up with both a MenuBar and a Toolbar widget but I suspect they will be based on the same code. I'll try to get it into 1.0.
good overall summary
For those of us who aren't tracking all the changes as they happen. Thanks.
And sure enough, I'm waiting for the filtering table, since that's a core piece I need before porting my application over.
-Jon
theme compatibility
Will the 0.4 default theme be available for 0.9? I'd love to upgrade, but changing visual parts of a customer's site just doesn't sound too good.
soria
Good question. Unfortunately the soria theme isn't ported to 0.9 (I guess it was never finished in 0.4 anyway). Dante said he is working on porting it though so maybe 1.0. I will add this info to the notes above.
Charting is out?!
Dojo.charting is one of the major reasons to use Dojo over its competitors!
Do you mean that Dojo 0.9 will not include Dojo.charting, or simply that this specific component will not conform to the new "standards"?
missing
It means charting isn't ported to run against Dojo 0.9 yet. Since it's part of dojox it can be released at any time (as a stand alone component), unrelated to the release of dojo 0.9, but no guarantees as to when.
You might consider starting up a wishlist for......
For those things yet to be added to 0.9 or still just a 'twinkle in the eye' so to speak, you might consider collecting 'wish lists' from folks of features, capabilities they would like to see. I am sure that , the FilteringTable fan club would be happy to kick it off ;-)
If there are any useful suggestions, they may even be easy to implement at the construction stage.
AOP is also missing....
To much of my sadness..
Looks like AOP based 'before', 'after' and 'around' advice for dojo.connect will not make it in dojo 0.9
Is there anyway I can hack around the situation?
Regards,
Vijay Dharap
AOP
Well the good news is that we have after advice. That's what dojo.connect() does. And I hear before and around advice will be added to DojoX soon by Alex. I'll add AOP to the list above.
Editor2 a11y?
Is Editor2 now called Editor?
I just wanted to know what the status of accessibility was on the rich text editor widget. Right now, there's no way to provide alt text to the button controls. That would be a welcome upgrade for Editor in 0.9/1.0
Editor A11y
The 0.9 rich text editor has not been updated for a11y, yet. That will be coming soon. The short answer to the question is that alternative text will be provided for the "default" toolbar buttons. If you create a custom button via the editor plugin architecture, the command name will be used as the text alternative.
The toolbar buttons provided for the editor do have text alternatives for the command. Note that it is a text alternative rather than an actual alt attribute - this is because the buttons on the toolbar are not created using img elements. The buttons on the toolbar have a title attribute and support an appropriate description for screen readers through the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) specification (ARIA roadmap is here: http://www.w3.org/TR/aria-roadmap/). When Dijit detects high contrast or images off mode, the icon for the buttons are replaced by the actual text which is what provides the alternative text.