Yahoo Releases a Couple New Things

The Yahoo Developer Network has announced a couple of new products that are about fifty feet over my head, but maybe y'all get some use out of them.

The first thing is the Yahoo! User Interface Library. The library, about which you can get more information at http://developer.yahoo.net/yui/, is free for developers' use and available under an open-source license. The page notes that in order to use the various components of the library you'll have to install them on your server -- Yahoo does not host them. The Y!UIL Components fall under two categories -- core utilities (animation, drag and drop, event, etc.) and UI controls (calendar, slider, TreeView.)

The second thing is the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library, available free and released under a Creative Commons license. It's at http://developer.yahoo.net/ypatterns/. Actually this one is not so over my head. It shows a series of solutions to problems in Web design and user interaction -- breadcrumbs, instant rating, search pagination, etc. Each page includes a little movie of how the solution is used on a Yahoo property, rationale for using it, and hints for accessibility. Be sure to look at the right side of the page which includes pointers to where the solution is used on Yahoo, blog article, etc. (Yahoo User Interface blog: http://yuiblog.com/blog/.)

A couple of times I wanted more information than was available. For example, when I read about the solution of auto-completing forms, I thought, "Hey, sounds great, but I have no idea how to do that." Look to the right side of the nav bar. Code Example Coming Soon! Um, yeah. Actually I could have done with many more pointers to coding the solutions, or to introductions to Web design from-a-usability-point-of-view.

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