I have been working with this client of a few years now and have a great rapport with them. For this most recent project they have no requirements about which JavaScript library to use just as long as it has the functionality which is required by the project. This left me in a little bit of a dilemma, which JavaScript library should I use?

I have tried many libraries in the past and had used the Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI) extensively for a previous project. Although it’s a good library I have had the urge to try out Dojo. I first learned about the library when it came coupled with the Zend Framework. After a few small personal projects I never really used either again.

Doing a little research on Dojo’s current capabilities and verifying that it has the functionality required for my project, I have decided to use Dojo and document my experience here. I’m hoping that even if you currently use a different JavaScript library that this set of posts will inspire you to try something new for a change.

My first task will be to build something similar to the ‘Suggest’ functionality on Google. This afternoon I attempted to find a good tutorial explaining how this is accomplished in Dojo, but could not locate exactly what I wanted. The problem seems to be that all the combo box / auto complete tutorials for dojo create a select menu rather than a simple text box and since this is going to be implemented for a search engine the select menu option is not actually an option. (Get it ’select menu’, ‘option’…programming humor my wife loves it.)

Over the next few days I will be working on this project and will have one or two more posts detailing how I implement the functionality. If anyone has not heard of Dojo or has never used it here are a few links to get you started.

Dojo Links

• Homepage
• Download
• Documentation
• Hello World Tutorial

My next post will assume you already have Dojo installed and have worked through the ‘Hello World’ tutorial. Here are some brief notes about installing Dojo.

Dojo Installation

When installing Dojo you have three options

• Load the toolkit directly from AOL’s Content Distribution Network (CDN) or from the CDN of Google.
• Download and store the toolkit on your server
• Checkout a copy from the SVN repository (maybe not the greatest idea if your implementing on a live site)

I believe the first two options are completely viable for a live website and each have their pros and cons. I choose to download the toolkit and keep it on my server. The upside is that since I have the files locally I can open them up and browse through the code whenever I would like (you can learn a lot this way).

In my opinion…

When attempting to update an existing site with the newest gadgets available, it is best to take slowly. Implement a few updates at a time, without forcing the users to change the way they use the site. The response received from the users will tell you what is worth it and when you’ve gone too far.