Contents
Anniversary
Recent Enhancements
Contribute to Make JSClasses Better
Anniversary
Yes, it was exactly on August 25 of 2010 when the JSClasses site was launched. It was planned many years ago but only in 2010 it was possible to launch this sort of fork of the PHPClasses site.
Several important milestones were reached during one year of age. The site reached 6,500 registered users, of which 39 submitted 82 JavaScript packages there were published during this year.
It is not as impressive as the PHPClasses site that has reached over 1 million registered users and over 6000 packages published by more than 3,000 PHP developers in 12 years of age. But for a baby like JSClasses, it is not bad at all.
Other interesting sections were opened like the JavaScript Professionals Directory, the JavaScript Jobs board and we also have a regular podcast named Lately in JavaScript.
Recent Enhancements
Recently the JSClasses has benefited from several interesting enhancements that make the user experience better either for regular users as well developers that contribute their components.
One of such enhancements is the possibility to import packages from CVS and SubVersion repositories. GIT repository import will be supported too soon.
This feature allows importing large packages automatically with much less effort than using the traditional upload method which required to submit one package file at a time.
Now that large packages can be imported easily, the traditional way of listing the package files became awkward. Therefore a new method of listing package files is provided to show them in a more convenient way.
Files now appear under a tab based user interface showing one directory at a time with links to other tabs that show the files in sub-directories.
These enhancements were also made available in the PHPClasses site. A new blog post was published to explain in more detail how these package browsing enhancements work, as well to mention other future browsing enhancements.
Contribute to Make JSClasses Better
The JSClasses is growing at a nice pace but it would be better for everybody if it could grow at a faster pace. Let me tell you how you can help to make it better.
The JSClasses site shares the same code base as the PHPClasses site. So in theory all features of the PHPClasses site can be made available in JSClasses. Some features are intentionally disabled in the JSClasses site.
One feature that is available in the PHPClasses site but not yet in JSClasses, is the Programming Innovation Award. This is a sort of contest that happens in the PHPClasses site every month since 2004. It aims to distinguish all PHP developers that submit innovative components each month. All nominees may earn prizes and public recognition.
The reason why the Innovation Award initiative is not yet available in the JSClasses site is because it still has a small number of components, so almost all components published here are innovative.
That initiative will be started in the JSClasses site when the majority of the components is not so innovative, so the nomination of the innovative authors is meaningful. The launch of that initiative may happen sooner or later.
If the rate of new components increases significantly, the Innovation Award may be launched sooner in the JSClasses site.
So, if you have interesting JavaScript components that you could submitted here, do not leave it for later. The sooner you do it, the more you will be helping to start the Innovation Award sooner. Not to mention that you can start getting interesting feedback and recognition from the JavaScript components that you submit now.
Anyway, if you have other reasons that may be holding back your submissions, I would certainly would like to know, so I can see what can be done about it. Feel free to post an comment on this article, or use the contact link at the bottom of the site pages so you can tell me about it privately if you prefer.
