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February 11, 2006

WebWork makes web apps easier to use

Posted on Ajaxian.com today, there is a good argument that applications that use AJAX for validation are easier to use. WebWork has built in support for this style of validation, so give it a shot and see if your users find your application is easier to use now!

Ajax Case Study - Simple Validations Reduce Costs/Increase Usability:

In a follow-up to his previous post, Jesper Rønn-Jensen looks yet again at business uses of Ajax technologies - specifically a 'case study' looking at one of his recent usability issues.

As a followup to my earlier post ‘AJAX performance stats, ROI, and business value‘, I decided that I’d share with you some considerations on a recent project I was involved in.

Anyways, I want to give you some of the details on why we decided to implement AJAX validations in this particular web application. We had a complex interface where the user had to enter a lot of information about a lot of users. In this particular solution, the typical usage scenario is that an employee has data about multiple users to enter: That could for example be name, age, social security numbers etc.

He mentions the two models that they looked at - the 'Edit one object at a time' idea and the 'Edit multiple objects at the same time' school of thought. For each, they give an example, including a sample screenshot of the method.

While both methods had their strengths, the real time-saver came in the form of the Ajax-based validations on the data that was being entered. Spotlighting an incorrect field with a red highlight reduces the guesswork without detracting from their entry work.

(Via Ajaxian Blog.)

February 04, 2006

WebWork 2.2.1: Released

OpenSymphony and the WebWork team are proud to announce the release of WebWork version 2.2.1 (download now). WebWork 2.2.1 is a bugfix release for the 2.2 release a month ago. (full release notes):

  • Improved QuickStart tool makes development easier than ever
  • Tons more documentation with over 900 PDF pages!
  • Improved Client side validation using AJAX or plain JavaScript
  • Updated JSR168/Portlet support for several popular Portal servers, including Pluto, IBM WebSphere, eXo Portal...
  • New Tags: Debug, UpDownSelect, Tree
  • Added Maven support
  • More and better webapp samples

Thanks to the entire WebWork team for all their hard work, especially during these last few weeks as the final touches were put in place.

Special thanks to Nils-Helge Garli for contributing his portletwork project which now forms the core portlet integration code.