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Paragraft gets iOS Markdown editing right
I just discovered Paragraft, a text editor for iPad and iPhone that boasts some ingenious Markdown features (if I've lost you already, check out the TUAW Markdown Primer for a crash course). The good parts of Paragraft blew me away enough that I'm able to overlook an ugly icon and some bad interface decisions to deliver a fairly glowing endorsement: this is the first app I've found that has really allowed Markdown on iOS to make sense. There's no shortage of Markdown-enabled apps on any Apple platform right now, and I love that. I love Markdown, and while it's far superior to writing HTML or dealing with Rich Text in an iOS environment, I always miss the Markdown speed I can achieve in TextMate and other text editors on the Mac. Nebulous Notes has the flexibility to start getting there, but you have to build all the macros yourself. Other apps handle auto-continuing lists, maybe adding bold and italics, but still leave you digging through multiple levels of iOS keyboards to get to some symbols. TextExpander Touch can help quite a bit, too, but none of these really tap the capabilities of the iPhone and iPad. Paragraft has made me begin to rethink the possibilities.
Mozilla's Webian Shell interface will cloak your OS in a browser (video)
With Google's fleet of Chromebooks making their way to market, Mozilla Labs has decided to release a similarly browser-based desktop interface, known as the Webian Shell. As of now, the prototype app consists of a screen-encompassing web browser, which essentially replaces your desktop interface. There's an address bar running across the top of the screen, a clock in the bottom right corner, and a tab button for all your web apps. Developed as part of the company's Mozilla Chromeless project, the tool was written entirely in HTML, CSS and JavaScript and, unlike Chrome OS, is designed to run on top of existing operating systems, rather than replace them. For now, the Shell is still in an early phase of development, looks pretty spartan and can't control a system's hardware. Mozilla, however, says it has plans to incorporate multiple home screens, split screen views and an on-screen keyboard, among other features. Windows, Linux and Mac OS X users can download the Shell now, from the source link. Otherwise, you can just head past the break to see a brief demo video.
Google Apps is moving on, you'll need an HTML5 browser to go with it
HTML5 beckons the world with its dashing logo and also, we suppose, all the clever little things it can do. Desktop notifications in Gmail and folder-dragging in Docs already refuse to work with anything less -- and before long that will apply to the entirety of Google Apps. Come August 1st, you will find that Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites are all unsupported unless you're using either the current or last major release of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari. An older browser won't suddenly stop working with Google Apps, but it will begin a steady descent into oblivion. Hey, being popular means you don't have to be nice.
Get email design chores under control with equinux Mail Designer
If you've ever had to code together a complex HTML email then you know how painful it usually is. It's like taking a trip back to 1999 before the web discovered standards and everyone was still doing table-based design -- only with the addition of cumbersome inline CSS, and the challenge of dealing with scores of different mail clients and their divergent HTML rendering. Unless you do this every day the process can be unwieldy at best and a downright nightmare otherwise. For most of us, learning to code our own email is way more work then it's worth. That's where Mail Designer, a new application from equinux, comes in; it provides a rich graphical email composer that goes far beyond what you'll be able to do in your preferred email client's editor. Mail Designer takes an iWork approach, focusing on a balanced feature set that makes it easy to use and hides all the technical bits in the background before sending your email to Apple Mail for delivery.
The World's Biggest Pac-Man game takes over the internet, your life
It's officially the weekend, which means you've got two choices: one, mimic iTr3vor and toss up a YouTube video of yourself dancing in an Apple Store, or two, blow your own mind with the magic of HTML5. In between hour-long Pica-Pic sessions, we'd recommend killing time in The World's Biggest Pac-Man game, which can be "played for fun" or linked to your Facebook account for those who savvy statistics. We'd bother telling you more, but we're fairly sure you're already firmly occupied with the source link. You're welcome. Or, we're sorry.
Man steers R/C car with his hands, not to mention an HTML5-based web app (video)
With the right Arduino board, an R/C race car, a couple paperclips and the MacGyver spirit, we imagine most anyone can hack together a creative remote control these days... but how many can open-source an HTML5 web app that'll do the deed from any tablet, phone or PC? Gaurav Manek crafted just such a thing, and he'll demonstrate it for you on an Apple iPad in the video immediately above. What's more, he's also got a Kinect hack that uses Microsoft depth camera (with Code Laboratories' NUI SDK) to control the very same with the wave of a well-placed hand -- we're already envisioning fisticuffs should he and a lab partner try for some head-to-head racing action. That said, you don't need to wait for an illustrious creator to have all the fun. Why not download his source code at our links below and give it a go yourself?
Ask TUAW Video Edition: bulk emailing
Jerry writes to us this week asking how to send mass emails and have them personalized. Software shown this week: MaxBulk Mailer - retails for US$50-60 dollars Remember, you can leave us questions in the comments! The video is on the next page.
Adobe outs experimental Flash-to-HTML5 conversion tool, calls it Wallaby
Ah, if only we could flip a big happy switch and convert all the web's Flash content into (functional) HTML5 code. It's a dream shared by many and, funnily enough, the company pushing to make it a reality is none other than Adobe itself, the owner and proprietor of Flash. Its Labs research team has just released an experimental new dev tool, dubbed Wallaby, that's targeted at taking Flash-encoded artwork and animations and turning them into a more compatible mix of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Of course, the intent here is not some magnanimous move to free us from the shackles of Flash -- Adobe openly admits that the initial goal for the new tool will be to help convert animated banner ads so that they work on the iOS platform -- but hey, even bad tools can be used for good sometimes, right?
Microsoft releases H.264 plug-in for Google Chrome, vows to support WebM video in IE9
Hard to believe that the infamous "fragmentation" term is now being bandied about in the web browser world, but sure enough, it's Microsoft using the term today to describe the brave new realm we're living in. If you'll recall, Google defended its decision to not include H.264 support natively in Chrome, but maintained that WebM plug-ins were coming to Safari and Internet Explorer 9. Today, Microsoft's kinda-sorta returning the favor. Following the outfit's release of a Firefox add-on to bring full H.264 support to Windows machines, the outfit is releasing a plug-in for Chrome (only the Windows version for now) that provides support for H.264. Furthermore, it's committed to supporting third-party WebM video plug-ins; to quote, users "will be able to play WebM video in IE9." It's fairly obvious that Microsoft's taking this golden opportunity to push its browser as one that supports everything (rather than just its own preferred format), but regardless of the motives, we're just happy to see differences put aside and compatibility finding priority.
New York subway schedule turned into a beautiful, musical visualization (video)
HTML5, JavaScript and a tiny pinch of Flash. Those are your ingredients for building one of the neatest, simplest websites we've come across in a long time. Conductor, as its maker Alexander Chen dubs it, is a visualization built on New York's publicly available subway schedule API. It shows the progress of the Big Apple's underground carriers throughout the day and garnishes the experience with a delightful musical trick every time two lines cross. You can see it on video after the break or just hit the source link and experience it for yourself.
HTML5 gets a brave new logo for this brave new world
The lynchpin for all discussions of open web standards, HTML5, has been spruced up with a dedicated logo from its parent organization, the W3C. We'd wax poetic about it, but that job has already been done: "It stands strong and true, resilient and universal as the markup you write. It shines as bright and as bold as the forward-thinking, dedicated web developers you are. It's the standard's standard, a pennant for progress. And it certainly doesn't use tables for layout." [Thanks, Matt]
Kinect Hacks: Flash, HTML, Unity and Silverlight integration
Blitz, an interactive marketing agency, has released its source code and scripts for a Kinect mod that outputs data compatible with Flash, HTML, Unity and Microsoft Silverlight. The company, which helped launch Halo: Waypoint with Microsoft and 343 Industries, explains that the device's standard C++ programming language was too limited for budding Kinect hackers. Hit the jump for the tutorial video.
Apple iAds Producer helps you produce iAds for iOS devices
We know how it is, you want to be a hotshot developer, but all that coding sounds like daunting work. Never mind, Apple's got your back with its new iAds producer, which automates all the HTML5 and CSS3 stuff into the background and leaves you to focus on the crucial task of picking out templates and components for your perfect iAd. To be fair to this new dev tool, it does more than merely dumb down the design process. It also includes "sophisticated" JavaScript editing and debugging, a built-in simulator for testing your creation, and a project validator that checks your code for common errors. Hit the source link to give it a try.
Sour's 'Mirror' browser-based music video is absolutely wild
Is Japanese band Sour's "Mirror" music video the single best thing we've ever seen in a browser? It probably is. Load it up in Safari or Chrome and make sure you connect your Facebook, Twitter, and webcam -- we tried it out and it's totally fine. In fact, it's more than fine. It's stunning. Why can't HTML5 and Flash always play this nicely together?
Edito, Markdown editor for iPad
Edito is a new Markdown text editor for iPad. It's a simple app that does one thing well, and that's edit Markdown (a plain text markup language with a simple syntax, which can render text to myriad formats including HTML, LaTeX, and PDF). It adds a few features to the mix: An extra row of keys on the keyboard for Markdown syntax, including pairs for square brackets and parenthesis, asterisks, and other keys, which are vital but a pain to get to on the iPad keyboard iTunes file sync A desktop-like UI A built in Web browser for copying links The ability to mail the plain text or HTML rendering of your document A variety of CSS styles for preview and render Built-in Markdown cheat sheet TJ recently covered MarkdownMail, which does much the same thing, but it's sorely lacking the extra keys on the keyboard. He and I (and several more at TUAW) are Markdown fans (I'm editing this post in Markdown right now), so we have a keen interest in these applications. Personally, I have a wishlist.
Opera gets serious about TV widget content, releases CDK
Norwegian software company Opera first waded into the TV app game when they released an SDK for widgets back in 2008. Now they've taken another serious step by releasing the Opera Devices Content Development Kit to help HTML, CSS, XML, and Javascript savvy developers create content using technologies they're already versed in. For those who don't live and breathe in The Matrix, Opera's hope is to lower the barriers of entry for bringing online content into the living room, since the software eliminates the need for physical devices to test on. It also supports W3C, HbbTV (Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV), OIPF, and CEA-2014 specifications -- meaning it's capable of running on a wide range of hardware from variety of manufacturers. For more details read the PR after the break or watch Opera's video from 2009 on the subject, which unfortunately isn't on par with its previous potato boiling jabs at Google. Still, learning about "Oprah's" new widgets makes it definitely worth a watch.
Firefox Tab Candy groups your tabs, but that's just for starters (video)
Although Firefox already has a strong selection of tab management helpers like TooManyTabs, which gives you extra rows and memory-preserving options, or Tree Style Tab, which shifts things to a tree-based vertical menu, Mozilla has rolled up its scaly sleeves and decided to rethink the whole thing. Tab Candy starts off much like Safari's TabExposé, by showing you all the tabs you currently have open in thumbnail form, but from there it allows you to organize them into separate groups (with sub-groups promised for the future), which then act in very much the same way as opening a new Firefox window. Yes, it's folders within the browser, and it's all based on good old fashioned HTML, CSS and JavaScript, so no pesky additional downloads will be required once this Alpha-stage code gets added to Firefox's official release. If you want to give it an early spin, hit the source link below, but don't neglect the video after the break to see what else Mozilla is thinking of cooking up with Tab Candy.
CBS suits up, promises iPad-friendly HTML5 video for all content by this Fall
Visit CBS.com from your iPad right now and all you'll get is a full episode of Survivor and clips from various other shows. By the start of the Fall season, however, CBS Interactive SVP Anthony Soohoo is promising content parity between its Flash-based website and HTML5-compliant iPad portal. While on the subject, he also notes that the video strategy will be entirely web-based, with no plans for an app à la ABC Player. Flash isn't being subjected to a veritable slapsgiving, however, as it'll remain the desktop technology of choice. Soohoo notes HTML5's toolset for measurement and encryption isn't quite at the same level yet. Full video interview after the break, and iPad users? This fall, expect something quite legen -- oh, you know where we're going with this, but still we'll pause for dramatic effect -- dary.
Symbian^3 web app development tools come out of beta, aim for standardized simplicity
Has the Nokia N8 made a Symbian^3 believer out of you? If so, you'll be glad to know the beta tag has been peeled off the web application development tools for the platform, which -- according to Executive Director Lee Williams -- provide "an ideal entry point" for coders of all skill levels. This is because the primary languages spoken are HTML, CSS and JavaScript, familiar to almost anyone who's tried to create for the web, and with just a little extra JavaScript exercise, you're promised access to the phone's contacts, camera, accelerometer, and location. It sounds all kinds of refreshing, but the usefulness of this tool set and the entire environment will be determined by what people produce with it -- and to that end we've provided you with a link to the downloads page (Windows, Mac and Linux users are all being served) where you can get your Symbian dev career started in earnest.
AdLib: Apple's secret web app weapon
MobileCrunch noticed something interesting about the iPad User Guide hidden in the iPad Safari's bookmarks. It's a web app, but it doesn't feel like a web app -- the views scroll independently and smoothly, "clicking" is exact, and the whole thing runs much more like a native iPad app than anything web app developers have been able to put together yet. Why? Apple's got a secret -- Done21 is calling it "AdLib," after a file found somewhere in the source code, and apparently it's a library that connects UIKit to HTML, CSS, and Javascript. It's a go-between framework that has no documentation in the code at all, and uses practically unlabeled variables. In other words, Apple is putting their own magic into web apps, and while the code is there to see, they aren't interested in sharing. At this point, it's not much more than a novelty -- Apple obviously is depending on Xcode and the iPhone OS SDK for developing iPad and iPhone applications, and there's no need for them to share the code magic that's making this happen. But it's interesting when you think of the original emphasis that Apple placed on web apps way back in the early iPhone days. If all of those web apps we had were as well-coded and responsive as this -- in other words, if they'd actually had ties into the UI -- then maybe web apps would have been just enough.
