Jitsu

Jitsu is a next-generation user interface toolkit for building rich web applications.

Jitsu contains an integrated set of tools to enable developers to build and deploy sophisticated user interfaces for web applications. These include an Xml markup language, page compiler, data binding engine, JavaScript runtime, control library, runtime inspector, animation engine, cross-platform library, Ajax, and back button support. Jitsu apps use DHTML and run in most modern web browsers.

This site is an early-access preview of Jitsu, intended to generate commentary and feedback. Information on the site is liable to change rapidly over the coming months. See the Roadmap for more on our release plans. Check back often!

Another Ajax Framework?

When our team at ATTAP Technologies started building a new breed of consumer web browser application in 2004, we identified three technology requirements:

1. Designer friendly.

ATTAP is building consumer web apps, so good design is crucial. But its hard to find designers who code JavaScript (or Java). Conversely, designers seem relatively comfortable with XHTML. So we wanted a framework that used XHTML as the page authoring language, with added Xml tags for richer functionality. But our tests showed interpreting Xml was too slow. We would need a compiled xml solution.

2. Rapid iterations.

User interface designs change quickly, and we didn't want to spend lots of cycles rebuilding JavaScript/HTML/Perl for every iteration. We knew we wanted to separate our application's data model from its presentation, so we could iterate on one quickly without changing the other. We've developed frameworks with markup and client-side data binding before, we knew this would provide the power we required.

3. Low cost per user.

As a startup with a consumer focus, our budget for software is minimal. We like free and open-source technologies like Apache, Linux, MySql. We wanted our front-end framework too be open source too...

Unfortunately, in 2004 we couldn't find any open source Ajax frameworks that supported compiled Xml and data binding. So we built our own!


See it in action

Download version 0.1

See it in action

News

June 26 We've uploaded a set of JSON data service examples. link.

Highlights

Jitsu Xml

  • For User Interfaces Define pages and controls using a mix of XHTML and namespaced Xml elements.
  • For Data Define application types and datasets in Xml.

Jitsu Compiler

  • Compiled Xml Our compiler converts Xml source markup to a fast JavaScript representation.
  • Optimizers Speed up templated controls and crunch JavaScript.

Jitsu Control Library

  • Core Controls include: Templated List, CardDeck, DockPanel, DatePicker, Slider, Popup, etc.
  • Markup Controls Create flexible controls whose appearance can be customized through markup, without writing code.

Jitsu Runtime

  • Cross-platform JavaScript DHTML runtime works in FireFox, IE6, Safari.
  • Data Binding Wire up controls to data using a full client-side data binding engine that keeps controls and data model in sync.
  • JSON Messaging Client-side changes are automatically communicated to the server using a JSON messaging protocol.