Per and I are working hard on getting Umbraco 4 ready for Release Candidate and as a part of testing, we've added some additional "Nitro" packages for testing to get a better feeling on how the whole new Boost/Nitro (still codenames which is will change) concept works.
So yesterday we added Dropdown menus and Gallery - both using jQuery and both are very clean and integrates very smooth with the barebone Boost templates. The Gallery supports multiple albums and you can either upload pictures manually or simply upload a zip file with images on the album itself. An event handler will then create all images in the zip as photos in your album.
It's been lots of fun to make these new packages and even more fun to test them and discover how smooth they work. From creating them using nothing but umbraco objects, to package them using the new package creator bundled with Umbraco 4 to submitting them to the central repository and finally install them on a clean umbraco install.
Extra credit also goes to jQuery which I simply love more and more everytime I use it. As you probably know if you've followed us on Twitter, jQuery is the new black in the umbraco UI and we're updating (almost) all old client script code to use jQuery where it make sense. We also like to encourage package developers to use jQuery and there's no better way to encourage this than conventions. So yesterday we added a new method to the umbraco.library that you can call from XSLT (or .NET): AddJquery(). It'll simply add a reference to the jQuery javascript in the header of the page if it's not already there. It only works in the latest nightly, so our latest nitros doesn't use this before RC.
We need your help
While two additional Nitros is cool, we want more and we think this is an area where the community can help a lot. We've created two free videos on umbraco.tv that describe how to build and submit Nitros as well as a pdf with documentation on the different Actions that a Nitro can use. If you want to help with this let me know on nh AT umbraco . dk. Feel free to add ideas to usefull nitros in the comments - on my own wishlist for new Nitros is:
- News list (including automatically add year/month folders)
- FAQ (including submit a question)
- Event Calendar
- Job postings
- Polls
For inspiration on referring css/js in your nitro xslt, take a look at the gallery or the dropdown menu nitros - it's very easy and without limitations. It's a lot of fun to see functionality you've build install very smoothly on a clean install and it's loads of fun to make a clean install of umbraco and just add a few clicks in checkboxes and see a complete, customized site ready for styling in a couple of minutes. Let's work together on making this a success!