For the poor pathetic “right brainers” like me, Microsoft has made a download of Glimmer availble. I tried it out today and within seconds had walked through a wizard that allowed me to create a jQuery rotating banner. It generated all the HTML, CSS, and jQuery required to make it work. Even after cutting out the CSS I did not need an placing all the files into my file system I was up and running in minutes.
Seems like a pretty effective solution for frequently used jQuery effects. There is also a custom feature that allows you create your own, more involved Scripts.
http://visitmix.com/lab/glimmer
Web based applications are getting more and more sophisticated all the time. More often, designers are being asked to design more that just web sites. Increasingly we are being asked to lend our skills to the design of web based applications filled with forms and various pieces of complicated functionality. As experience engineers it is up to us to find solutions for applications that we never would have dreamed of delivering via the web several years ago.
This is my solution to one such problem. I was presented with a complicated application will with large numbers of forms in many many catagories. The challenge was to find a way to present all the required features in a way that presented like a cohesive application and not just a bunch of forms linked from web pages. For the solution I turned to jQuery and CSS.
The Expanding Application Window consists of a series of tabs and concertina-like sliding bars, it’s basically an expanding window navigation control on steroids with a tab navigation feature attached. Developers are able to take this framework and add any number of tabs or sliding windows to complete the client’s applications allowing for nearly infinite expansion as the application evolves.
The inspiration for this application window system came from the incredible work of John Resig and Stu Nicholls. In the work of both of these gentleman I was able to find pieces of the solution I was looking for. By combining them I was able to create a solution to my unique problem.
View a Demo | Get the code
