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Dojo updates for faster, better apps

  
A newer version of the Dojo toolkit is provided in RBD 8.0.1.2. Dojo version 1.6 offers several improvements that are great for rich UI developers.
 
Project updates
The Rich UI widget, Dojo widget, and Dojo runtime projects have all been updated. When you create a new Rich UI project, the updated versions of the Rich UI widget project (com.ibm.egl.rui_4.0.0), the Dojo widget project (com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.widgets_2.0.0), and the local Dojo runtime project (com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.local_1.6.1) are loaded into your workspace. To use these projects with an existing rich UI application, you can modify the EGL Build Path. 

Browser support
Newer browsers such as Internet Explorer version 9 and Firefox 4 are supported by the Dojo 1.6.1 runtime. You can use either the local runtime or the Google remote CDN (com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.runtime.google_161). As of today, the AOL Dojo runtime (com.ibm.egl.dojo.runtime.aol_1.6.0) is at Dojo 1.6 level, though we expect they will update soon. Dojo 1.6 already supported Firefox 3.6 and IE 6, 7, and 8, Safari 4, 5, and Chrome 8. Other browsers levels may still work, but they may not be tested.
 
Performance
Many performance tweaks were made to the dijit widgets by the Dojo team. You'll particularly notice improved performance on older browsers like IE 6 and IE7, though your rich UI apps should seem snappier on all browsers. In addition to the work that the Dojo team did to improve performance, the EGL team also made some tweaks and fixed some bugs resulting in better performance and faster application load times. And although it's not a Dojo widget, if you use GridLayout which is part of the default Rich UI template, you'll also see a performance boost particularly when there are many widgets on the page.
 
Widgets, Properties, and Events
In the updated Dojo widget project, you'll see some changes to widgets, such as DojoTree's new showRoot property that controls if there is a root node or not on your tree widget. Speaking of properties, the Properties view has been revamped to show the supported properties and events for each widget. You can make more use of the Design view by editing the Properties and seeing the change in the visual editor right away.  Find a property or event we missed that you want to use? Let us know by posting a comment to this blog or the EGL forum. Plus, if you haven't tried them yet, the DojoTextArea widget and DojoTextField widget along with input validators were introduced in RBD 8.0.1.1. 

The Dojo sample application (com.ibm.egl.rui.dojo.samples_2.0.0) has also been updated and shows the Dojo widgets in action. To get the Dojo sample, click on the "EGL Rich UI Dojo sample" link from the Welcome page, or go to select Samples>Technology Samples>EGL>EGL Dojo widgets in the Help.  For more information about the Dojo widgets, see the Dojo widgets section of the RBD information center
 
We hope you enjoy using this updated version of Dojo. Go work your Dojo mojo! 

Theresa