Minimalist cacheable jQuery/javascript library for iPhone?

Question

Given the iPhone's 25k limit for caching of files, I'm wondering if there's interest in an iPhone optimized javascript library that makes caching a top level goal. Since it'd be iPhone only it could get rid of most cross-browser cruft and rely on safari specific capabilities, hopefully cutting down some of the girth and staying with 25k.

John Resig discusses this briefly, although mostly to dismiss it, it seems. He does mention:

if you're particularly excited about breaking jQuery down into little chunks you can grab the individual pieces from SVN and build a custom copy.

Anyone tried that?

Dojo implements a 6k version that seems to rely on deferred loading. I'm mostly a jQuery user so I haven't given it a try, but it looks interesting.

Overall: what do you think about a safari/iphone specific javascript library that implements, say, the top 90% most used APIs in jQuery (or your other favorite library)?

Answer 1

I think it would be fantastic, but it would be hard to match the testing and reliability of jquery unless someone really picks it up and runs with it. If there was a lightweight, safari only version of jquery that was completely compatible with the plugins and documented methods, it would be a godsend.

Answer 2

Given the increasing popularity of the iphone, I think it would be a really useful thing, it might be possible to remove the cross browser stuff and get it down to size.... however, it would be even more useful if the iphone had a more realistic cache limit.

It does make me wonder if the cache limit in the iphone was determined by the capacity of the hardware or the business needs of the carriers. A 50K cache limit would reduce a lot more carrier usage...

Answer 3

You should check out QuickConnectiPhone. It may do what you want. It can be found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/quickconnect/. It also lets you write your app in JavaScript, CSS, and HTML and yet install it on a device.

There is an API that will allow you to make calls down to the Objective-C layer as well for phone vibration, GPS locations, accelerometer information, and some more. You can even extend this to other native phone behaviors as well.

The development blog for the framework is found at http://tetontech.wordpress.com

Answer 4

Found XUI, looks like what I was looking for, although I haven't given it a try yet.

Answer 5

I'm experimenting with XUI as well, looks promising, seems to follow JQuery-way of doing things.

The same people also created 'lawnchair' for persistant storage of data in json format, XUI+lawnchair looks like a great combination for cross-platform (as in at least iphone+android, maybe webos, symbian, blackberry and ms as well) mobile development.