Kevin Haverlock

Most of the challenges in developing Ajax applications is dealing with the development lifecycle of creating applications for the various browsers. Despite the fact that Dojo attempts abstracts away the pecularities of the various browser platforms, there are still going to be cases where it works on one browser and not the other. So here is a list of some of the tools that I use and feel free to add your own as well.

Firebug 1.0 for the Firefox browser. Where would we be without Firebug? Dojotoolkit.org thinks the same thing since they made a nice donation to the Firebug project this January. Firebug is a Firefox plug-in that has a wealth of features for the weary Javascript developer: Inspect and edit HTML, CSS update and visalization metrics, monitor network activity, and of course debug features. I've only listed a few of the features, but you should look at this amazing project.

I was pretty much resigned to the fact that I was going to have to use IE's MS Script Editor to do anything meaningful on IE, but then along came the IE Developer Toolbar which integrates into IE 6 and IE 7. It's in Beta 3 right now so there are few problems, but it's a step in the right direction.

Aptana The Aptana IDE is a free, open-source, cross-platform, JavaScript-focused development environment for building Ajax applications using the Eclipse IDE. It features code Assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. There is also a Javascript debugger. It's valuable plugin if your doing any Javascript development in Eclipse.

Ajax Tools Framework If your doing J2EE development and attempting to combine Ajax on the browser side, you might also consider the Ajax Tools Framework which was recently added as a sub project of Eclipse.org. The ATF can be used with a number of Ajax offerings, including Dojo, Zimbra, Rico, and others. The tool can also be used to create J2EE artifacts such as WAR files which embed a Javascript toolkit on the server side.