SafetyNet is an annual conference hosted by Pulsiam and is focused on trends in software for the safety industry. Because of our expertise in shaping the modern web and our ongoing work with Pulsiam’s application development efforts, I was invited to deliver a keynote about the past, present, and future of the web, as this industry begins to transition to web-based solutions.

It’s been over a year since the release of dgrid 0.4, which brought about some major changes, including integration with the new dstore API. Since then, we (and others) have used it in numerous applications, and we’ve continued to refine it.

For the dgrid 0.4 release we added a new demo and helper utility, the dgrid Laboratory. This is more than just a demo, as it allows you to quickly explore and build different dgrid configurations, returning boilerplate code for efficiently including dgrid within your application.

Throughout the course of June, the dgrid StackOverflow tag saw a series of questions regarding usage of dgrid and dstore with the Django REST Framework. Based on the flurry of closely-related questions that popped up, I became quite curious as to the actual level of difficulty involved with this integration.

We have released dstore version 1.1, which features a new set of stores for local DB storage. This feature provides the ability to store data locally in browsers, and use high-performance querying capabilities through the disparate technologies of IndexedDB and WebSQL (and localStorage), through the consistent dstore interface.

Dijit and dgrid provide a powerful set of user interface components, allowing for fast construction of sophisticated web applications with excellent performance and interactivity. However, one particular configuration of dgrid that can impact memory and performance: heavy use of persistent Dijit editors within grid cells.

While a more recent advancement allows us use the HTML5 file API to retrieve contents from files, this approach is not universally supported in web browsers as yet. Instead, we will access data from user-uploaded CSV files using the following steps: Upload a file to the server Retrieve the file from the server Load the data into an easy-to-use format Traditional file uploads from within a form are only permitted when the entire form is submitted to the server and a new page is returned.

Dojo’s store API is a common interface for providing data to user interface widgets, such as dgrid, Dijit Select, and Dojo Charting. The beauty of having a consistent API is that once you’ve defined an interface for a data source, that data becomes easily available to all widgets that support the store API.

dgrid is SitePen’s lightweight, modular, and easily extensible modern grid component, designed for use with AMD and Dojo. The Selection and CellSelection mixins enable selection of rows or cells, both from mouse or keyboard actions and programmatically.

In our recent post on dgrid and Dojo Nano, we showed a technique of using nested require statements in order to make use of optimized layers using the Dojo build system. As a refresher, a layer is Dojo’s terminology for a file that combines many JavaScript resources into a single file.

Juan Carlos Galindo Navarro of Venezuela-based RIATeam shares his early dgrid experience with SitePen. Here’s what he had to say.

Want an easy way to keep up with SitePen efforts on Dojo, dgrid, AMD, JavaScript, and the open web? Then click the Keep In Touch button at the end of this blog and sign up now! To see what types of things you can expect, check out the July edition of the SitePen Insider! With the SitePen Insider, we provide a concise monthly recap of things that are new and noteworthy. It’s targeted at software engineers and technical managers.

SitePen was contacted by FieldAware when CTO Andronikos Nedos was tasked with building a highly interactive, bespoke, work scheduler widget using Dojo. Through our consultation, it was discovered that in order to integrate all of the features required, from user-configurable zoom levels to drag-n-drop to timeline mappings to fast rendering times, a custom JavaScript widget would need to be built.

Linus Ekström of Stockholm-based EPiServer shares his early dgrid experience with SitePen. Here’s what he had to say.

We have been providing JavaScript and Dojo support to freelancers, start-ups and Fortune 500 companies for nearly a decade. As we intently watch enterprise organizations everywhere begin to roll out AMD (read about why AMD matters) and the associated code improvements, we are thrilled with the industry’s direction toward toolkit interoperability! Why? Because! Our masterful engineering team, consisting of influential members of various open source communities, positions SitePen perfectly to offer full-on, front-end web development support to the world! Getting right to the point, (The Official Point!), we are pleased to announce the expansion of SitePen Support to officially include more than fifteen popular open-source JavaScript toolkits! Now supporting the following JavaScript toolkits: Dojo Persevere packages dgrid Curl.js CometD Twine jQuery Backbone underscore RequireJS PhoneGap/Cordova MooTools jQueryUI Wire Socket.IO Express In addition to toolkits, we will continue to support your custom JavaScript source code, as well as key underlying technologies and formats, including JSON, HTML5, WebSockets, SVG/Canvas, Mobile Web, Server-Side JavaScript, AMD, Node.js and many more.

As a SitePen customer, Øyvind Aaraas of KLP decided to try out dgrid on one of his company’s web applications.   When asked about his early experience with dgrid, here’s what he had to say! SitePen: How did you learn about dgrid? KLP: We follow the SitePen blog and learned of it there. SitePen: Why did you choose dgrid? KLP: Because dgrid was easy to work with, easy to style and extend and has very quick rendering in all browsers.

You’ve likely read that the new dgrid can be as small as 32KB gzipped when including just its minimal dependencies. However, if you use the standard settings for the Dojo Web Builder or a standard Dojo build profile, you end up with a build that’s closer to 100KB gzipped.

The new dgrid is a powerful, but lightweight grid component. It is specifically built to be easily styled with CSS, rather than relying on programmatic properties and changes.

Welcome to 2012 – The Year of Dojo!  We are expecting an amazing year! Make SitePen your one stop shop for all of your web application needs: Dojo workshops, JavaScript support and web app development.  Together, with SitePen, you will meet your 2012 goals!  When you’re happy, so are we.

Notice: This post is now several years old and covers early versions of dgrid prior to 1.x. We recommend starting with the dgrid tutorials to leverage dgrid 1.x.