I'm writing this post to the mailing list to inform the MooTools
community about what the developers have been doing these days, and
what is to come for the framework. We are all getting tired of
answering the same questions over and over again, so I hope this
clears some things up and we can stop seeing the same thing, over and
over and over again in the mailing list.
1. What's up with the site?
Many of you think we discarded the old MooTools site in exchange for a
bland boring alternative. The reason we've upgraded the site to the
new beautiful, simple, not-flashy-at-all site is because we want
people to understand what MooTools is before they attempt to use it.
We love the new site, and it's exactly what we want it to be. The old
site did not convey the right image for the framework. MooTools was
never meant to be a script that you drop in and paste some code from
an example to add some crazy effects to your site, even though you
know nothing about JavaScript. It is a framework for javascript
developers. If that makes us sound eliteist, well then so be it, but
understand that's not our goal. That being said, we also understand
that no matter what we tell anyone, we cant force them to learn
anything, and many people will use the tools we develop the wrong
way... that's fine, they are open source for a reason.
3. What's up with the forum?
We like the mailing list format a lot better, as it's what all
developers around the world use, and we can view it from our own mail
clients at our leisure. Please stop asking us to bring the forum
back, or feel free to switch to another framework that provides their
users with an official bulletin-board like forum software... (keep in
mind, all other frameworks, including jQuery use a mailing list. None
have an official forum, and none of their users complain about it)
That being said, there are other solutions. If you've never heard of
Nabble, check it out. http://n2.nabble.com/MooTools-Users-
f660466.html It's basically a forum interface for the mailing list.
Also, the guys over at mooforum.net are doing a great job, better than
we could ever have done with the mootools forum, so sign up there and
use it instead of the mailing list if you wish.
To the developers and moderators at mooforum.net, if you ever need
anything, or think there is an important post any of the MooTools
developers should check out, please let me know via email, and i will
get right back to you. Thanks for all your hard work over there, we
all appreciate it.
2. What's up with the blog?
Valerio and I have spent this entire week since Fronteers 2008 (more
on that in a minute) working on the new MooTools blog. Mephisto has
given us tons of problems, and cannot be styled properly like the rest
of the site so we had to ditch it. This was no easy task, but as soon
as it is done, (by the end of this week) I myself and the other
developers will be posting to it regularly with more updates / useful
information. We are actually ditching all the subdomains for simpler
alternatives, and a faster, less problematic site. Check for updates
at mootools.net later this week.
3. Fronteers what?
Last week I spoke at a conference in Amsterdam called Fronteers about
Object Oriented Design in JavaScript, and how we use some principles
in MooTools. Valerio attended the conference with me, and while we
were there, we talked about MooTools... a lot.
4. What about other frameworks?
As the other speakers / developers at Fronteers and i chatted about,
we are all on the same team! We love the other frameworks, and the
contributions they make to the JavaScript community, and we want all
of you to also. We are not competing with any of them. If you think
jQuery is better suited for your current project, by all means, use
it! It is a well tested, well rounded framework. I also want the
framework wars to stop. If the developers are all cool with each
other, then so should the users be. No more bashing other frameworks,
okay everyone?
5. What's next?
We are working to release 1.2.1 very very soon. The biggest issues
that need to be addressed lie in Class.js, but for anyone who has
looked at and understood the code, it's not exactly trivial stuff. I
have been working on rewriting Class.js to work again in Safari2, and
work in Opera without an ugly hack. I'll let you know when we are
finished and everything is tested. 1.2.1 will also contain many other
bug fixes, and at this point, will be a drop in replacement for 1.2.
There is one Reqeust issue which im looking into that might require us
to make a minor change to the API. If this does happen, I will let
you know how to address the minor change when we release.
After 1.2.1, we will be developing MooTools 1.3. If there are any
other changes we decide must be released, we may release one or two
more minor releases, but we will decide if they are necessary as we
develop. 1.3 will include a few new features, though we havent
decided on them definitely yet. I will make some blog posts about new
stuff as it's finished, and when you can expect to start using it.
If the blog was live, i would have made this a post, but i figure this
is good enough to give the MooTools users a little official insight
into what's been going on, and what's happening. If there are any
other questions that i didnt answer here, let me know and i'll address
those too.
Thanks all, and happy moo-ing,
- Tom Occhino
