DOMAssistant 2.6 released

Last week Robert Nyman updated the DOMAssistant JavaScript library to version 2.6. As always with a new version of anything there are a number of new features and performance enhancements, but this release also marks a couple of other changes for DOMAssistant.

First a couple of words about performance. In DOMAssistant 2.6, the performance of CSS selectors has been improved a lot—run the SlickSpeed Selectors Test to see just how fast it is. Opinions on the usefulness of the SlickSpeed test vary, but no matter how you spin it, DOMAssistant’s CSS selectors are really fast.

A new feature is support for plugins, which among other things will enable people to add stuff like animations and superfluous visual bling bling. The plugin model can of course be used to add useful functionality as well :-).

In order to make DOMAssistant a little less of a one man show and more of a community, Robert also asked a few people, including myself, to join the DOMAssistant Team. Sure, the community around DOMAssistant is still small when compared to that of the major JavaScript libraries on the market. I don’t think that’s a problem really, since I’m not so sure that massive amounts of forum or mailing list traffic automatically means that something is good.

For Robert’s own, more detailed, description of the news and changes in DOMAssistant 2.6, read his post on the DOMAssistant development blog: Releasing DOMAssistant 2.6—overall fastest CSS selectors, plugins and more.

If you’re like me and are more interested in building websites than trying to emulate desktop applications in the browser, DOMAssistant should appeal to you. Give it a try. If you like it, great! If you prefer another library or framework, good for you. Just be aware of the options.

Posted on February 26, 2008 in JavaScript