Sunday 24 April 2005

GreaseMonkey + Flickr = Lickr

Lickr removes the need for Flash. It runs within the web browser Firefox, stripping the Flash before the user can even see it, and replacing it with an equivalent interface in pure HTML and Javascript.


Why? The webstie said
  • you often use operating systems where Flash doesn't work, or doesn't work well.

  • speeding up pageviews noticeably is important to you.

  • you're a web developer and you are interested in this bleeding-edge Ajax stuff.

  • using Flickr beta isn't extreme enough for you. You want to run some amateur code, triggered by a brand new framework, in an alternative browser, that tries to modify an often-changing beta interface.


In fact Lickr is the combination of three important concepts:
Flickr - a community for the photo addicts
Greasemonkey - a framework for intercepting the DOM of a website and modify accordingly
Ajax - an intermediate between the webserver and the user.
Instead of loading a webpage, at the start of the session, the browser loads an Ajax engine — written in JavaScript and usually tucked away in a hidden frame. This engine is responsible for both rendering the interface the user sees and communicating with the server on the user’s behalf. The Ajax engine allows the user’s interaction with the application to happen asynchronously — independent of communication with the server. So the user is never staring at a blank browser window and an hourglass icon, waiting around for the server to do something.


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1 comment:

Albert Ip said...

Thank George.

Yes, all the three technologies involved are not totally new to any web development. The combination is interesting.

BTW, I just quoted the sentence from the web site.

:=)