Developer discussion for Creative Commons technology and tools

[Asheesh Laroia <asheesh AT creativecommons.org>]

(This is cross-posted to 
http://techblog.creativecommons.org/2007/08/01/internet-explorer-and-internationalized-jswidget-03/ 
except for a special note at the bottom.)

The scrubbing bubbles have been at work again on JsWidget. JsWidget is an 
attempt to let web application developers insert the Creative Commons 
“Choose a license” questions into their application by just including one 
file from creativecommons.org.

I just released a new pre-release version of JsWidget, version 0.3 
<http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?release_id=529136&group_id=80503>. 
You can read about the project on its wiki page 
<http://wiki.creativecommons.org/JsWidget>, including learning how to use 
it.  There are some interesting new features:

First of all, it’s compatible with Internet Explorer. My generated 
JavaScript code was suffering from a correctness issue that using XHTML in 
Firefox showed me, and fixing that made it render in Internet Explorer. 
(Then I had to switch 
<http://nathan.ashleafmedia.com/2007/onclick-not-onchange/> from using 
onChange to onClick, again a subtle correctness issue.)

Secondly, it supports a cool form of internationalization called HTTP 
Content Negotiation. Web browsers optionally (but usually) send a header 
to the web server indicating the sort of content they can accept, 
including what languages the user wants to read. In addition to the old 
?locale= form of specifying a language, the text should be translated to 
the user’s native language. (Unfortunately not all of the strings are 
translated yet, but try hovering over an info box or looking through the 
list of jurisdictions. In all cases where we don’t have a translation, we 
fall back to US English.)

Finally, it supports a feature called “license seeding.” By default, the 
UI offers the user the Attribution license in the generic jurisdiction. By 
passing in a URL, you can change that starting point. This is especially 
useful for letting a user revisit a license choice he made in the past and 
consider changing it.

You can read more about these features on the wiki page for this project, 
and if you’re sly you could even look at your plan for the future. But the 
most fun thing to do always is to play with our demos!  Now there are 
three:

* Standard use - 
http://labs.creativecommons.org/jswidget/tags/0.3/example_web_app/
* With “seeding” a license - 
http://labs.creativecommons.org/jswidget/tags/0.3/example_web_app/with-seed.html
* With “seeding” a license whose version is upgraded - 
http://labs.creativecommons.org/jswidget/tags/0.3/example_web_app/with-seed-old-version.html

Since you cc-devel people read this far, let me tell you something you 
won't find on the blog: the future!  The next version should be 
fully-tested in Safari and Opera and have all identifiers in JS, HTML, 
and CSS prefixed with cc_js so that it does not interfere with your 
apps.  At this point, the API should be stable, so let me now if there are 
features you want before I stop working on features at all!

-- Asheesh.

--
You can't run away forever,
But there's nothing wrong with getting a good head start.
                -- Jim Steinman, "Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through"