This is a simple example that shows how to extend a standard "out of box" window widget and implement nice looking shadow. This article contains step-by-step instructions for how to use this 'shadow window' in your own Backbase projects, for both the Chameleon and the System skin. This is a screen capture of the widgets:

Backbase Enterprise Ajax 4.2 Client Edition brings many new features and improvements, ranging from CSS selectors to improved data binding and redesigned skins and Widgets. Please scroll down to read the details.

Performance of browsers is a hot topic nowadays, and Ajax Toolkits are always busy squeezing out those last milliseconds. Internally at Backbase we also have a performance testing framework which tests every release for possible performance degradation. Normally we only compare different versions of Backbase, but what if we compare different browsers? And what if we compare it to IE8 beta 1 (released today), Firefox nightly, and Safari nightly builds?

Many websites have interesting new ways of displaying menu items or sets of images. Popular among these is the fish eye. We describe in this blog how surprisingly easy it is to define a fish eye using using the Backbase Tag Definition Language (TDL), very similar to this demo: http://demo.backbase.com/3rdparty/dojo_fisheye/.

We've just sent out the new Backbase Ajax Newsletter, which is now also available online. It includes highlights of the BDN, interesting Ajax news and Backbase company news.

A good understanding of the Backbase Debugger boosts development productivity. Therefore, we have published a short video tutorial that explains how to get the most out of the Debugger.

The widgets (aka "components" or "controls") in the Backbase 4 BTL namespace come in two skins out of the box: system and chameleon. Although that at least gives you some choice, chances are you still want to customize a widget's skin a bit.

This article outlines the various approaches one can take in customizing the look of Backbase 4 widgets, and discusses the pros and cons of each approach. Although it uses BTL widgets as an example, the techniques discussed apply to any Backbase 4 widget.

We get a lot of questions from architects, lead developers and e-business experts, about the benefits and best practices of implementing an Enterprise Ajax architecture. Key areas of interest are: OO design, re-usability, governance, developer productivity, standards support, and how to do back-end integration.

Attached you find a deck of slides explaining most of these topics in great detail. Just drop us a line if you have questions or if you like to schedule a web meeting with one of our Ajax experts.

Speaking at AJAXWorld in Santa Clara, CA, last September, Jouk Pleiter and Richard Kernahan from Backbase give an update and demo's on Backbase's Enterprise Ajax platform and the new Backbase Rich Applications.

SYS_CON.TV:

http://www2.sys-con.com/webinararchive.cfm?pid=wc_aw7w_d2_s7_t1_backbase...

If you want to learn more about "the big picture" this might be a useful video (40 minutes)

Recently a feature request was reported on our bug tracking system with the following description;

The bjsf:menubarItem enables the user to load new views in an application. Currently when a new view is loaded we cannot go back to the previous view using the browser back button. It would be great if of could have this feature.

Is this not something we can all ready do, without even tough the current bjsf:menubarItem implementation? The answer is yes! Within this article you find code snippets showing how to achieve this request.