Scripting Layer for Android (SL4A, formerly known as Android Scripting Environment or ASE) brings scripting languages to Android by allowing you to edit and execute scripts and interactive interpreters directly on the Android device. These scripts have access to many of the APIs available to full-fledged Android applications, but with a greatly simplified interface that makes it easy to get things done.

In this JSF 2 fu installment, you'll find out how to combine JSF 2 with Contexts and Dependency Injection (CDI) to implement an Ajaxified wizard. You'll see JSF's templating and Ajax in action, and you'll learn how to use CDI's dependency injection and conversation scope.

For a while, there has been a struggle for the future of markup on the web, a struggle between the W3C's XHTML 2 and HTML5, developed by the major browser vendors under a separate organizational umbrella. First, the W3C took over HTML5, and now it recently announced the sunset of the XHTML 2 effort. This makes a significant difference to the future of XML on the web, and furthermore, because of HTML5's momentum, it is now a technology that every XML developer already has to deal with. But fans of XML need not despair: HTML5 supports a proper XML serialization. Learn about the XML form of HTML5 including some key differences from older XHTML conventions and learn how to practically apply this vocabulary in modern web browsers.

Developing a rich application for manipulating large amounts of data used to be the exclusive domain of desktop applications. Now it can be done in a web application, and you don't have to be a JavaScript guru to do it. Learn how to use the Dojo toolkit to create eye-popping, data-centric web applications and hook them up to a back end based on the JavaEE standards such as JAX-RS and JPA. These technologies allow you to leverage convention over configuration principles to easily wire together complex applications in no time at all.

The Lebowski framework is a test automation framework for applications built on the SproutCore framework. Compared to unit testing frameworks that are perfect for testing individual objects and functions, Lebowski is an automated test framework designed for full feature, integration, and regression testing of an application.

A whole lot of people seem to be moving from web page development to building RIA-s these days. But while the emergence of the new client side technologies is easy to notice, with names like Flex, Silverlight or JavaFX appearing more and more often in the context of web development, the move to RIAs also affects the server side coders.

PHP_CodeSniffer is a PHP5 script that tokenises and "sniffs" PHP, JavaScript and CSS files to detect violations of a defined coding standard. It is an essential development tool that ensures your code remains clean and consistent. It can also help prevent some common semantic errors made by developers.

A key part of any Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax)-based web application is the communication layer between the client and the server. To implement this layer, you need to understand the various communication mechanisms that browsers provide, as well as each mechanism's pros and cons. In this article, learn to make the correct match between the specific communication needs of an application and the appropriate mechanism. Detailed examples show you how to create a communication layer that can meet these different client-server communication needs.

In this article, learn how Apache Struts 2 can help you handle dynamic data for your Web-based applications. Walk through a few of the most common use cases with examples and sample code. Explore how the powerful Action, Interceptor, and Results features help you set up UI fields with database data. Also learn about modularizing the application by setting the data value when the application loads from a list of values and about pre-filling fields with the desired data.

Many of your Android applications will need to interact with Internet data, which comes in a variety of formats. In this article, build an Android application that works with two popular data formats—XML and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)—as well as the more exotic protocol buffers format from Google. You'll learn about the performance and coding trade-offs associated with each format.