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MooTools

MooTools (My Object-Oriented Tools) is a lightweight, object-oriented JavaScript framework. It is released under the free, open-source MIT License. It is used on more than 4% of all websites, and is one of the most popular JavaScript libraries.

MooTools is a collection of JavaScript utilities designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer. It allows you to write powerful and flexible code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent APIs.

MooTools code is extensively documented and easy to read, enabling you to extend the functionality to match your requirements.

— Official MooTools site.

History

Valerio Proietti first authored the framework and released it in September 2006 taking as his inspiration Prototype and Dean Edward’s base2. MooTools originated from Moo.fx, a popular plug-in Proietti produced for Prototype in October 2005, which is still maintained and used.

Whereas Prototype extended—prototyped—many of JavaScript’s native String, Array, and Function objects with additional methods, Proietti desired a framework that (at the time) further extended the native Element object as well to offer greater control of the DOM.

Components

MooTools includes a number of components, but not all need to be loaded for each application. Some of the component categories are:

Core: A collection of utility functions that all the other components require.
More: An official collection of add-ons that extend the Core and provide enhanced functionality.
Class: The base library for Class object instantiation.
Natives: A collection of JavaScript Native Object enhancements. The Natives add functionality, compatibility, and new methods that simplify coding.
Element: Contains a large number of enhancements and compatibility standardization to the HTML Element object.
Fx: An advanced effects-API to animate page elements.
Request: Includes XHR interface, Cookie, JSON, and HTML retrieval-specific tools for developers to exploit.
Window: Provides a cross-browser interface to client-specific information, such as the dimensions of the window.

Browser compatibility

MooTools is compatible and tested with:

Safari 3+
Internet Explorer 6+
Mozilla Firefox 2+
Opera 9+
Chrome 4+

Benefits

MooTools provides the user with a number of advantages over native JavaScript. These include:

An extensible and modular framework allowing developers to choose their own customized combination of components.
MooTools follows object-oriented practices and the DRY principle.
An advanced effects component, with optimized transitions such as easing equations used by many Flash developers.
Enhancements to the DOM, enabling developers to easily add, modify, select, and delete DOM elements. Storing and retrieving information with Element storage is also supported.

The framework includes built-in functions for manipulation of CSS, DOM elements, native JavaScript objects, Ajax requests, DOM effects, and more. MooTools also provides a detailed, coherent API as well as a custom downloads module allowing developers to download only the modules and dependencies they need for a particular app.

Emphasis on modularity and reusability

Every JavaScript framework has its philosophy, and MooTools is interested in taking full advantage of the flexibility and power of JavaScript in a way that emphasizes greater modularity and code reuse. MooTools accomplishes these goals in a way that is intuitive to a developer coming from a class-based inheritance language like Java with the MooTools Class object.

Class is an object of key/value pairs that can contain either properties or methods (functions). Class is effortlessly mixed and extended with other Class instantiations allowing for the greatest focus of MooTools: Code reuse achieved through maximizing the power of JavaScript’s prototypical inheritance, but in a Class object syntax more familiar to classical inheritance models.

Object-oriented programming

MooTools contains a robust Class creation and inheritance system that resembles most classically based Object-oriented programming languages. For example, the following is MooTools’ equivalent of the examples in Wikipedia’s polymorphism page:

var Animal = new Class({
  initialize: function(name) {
    this.name = name;
  }
});

var Cat = new Class({
  Extends: Animal,

  talk: function() {
    return 'Meow!';
  }
});

var Dog = new Class({
  Extends: Animal,

  talk: function() {
    return 'Arf! Arf';
  }
});

var animals = {
  a: new Cat('Missy'),
  b: new Cat('Mr. Bojangles'),
  c: new Dog('Lassie')
};

Object.each(animals, function(animal) {
  alert(animal.name + ': ' + animal.talk());
});
 
// alerts the following:
//
// Missy: Meow!
// Mr. Bojangles: Meow!
// Lassie: Arf! Arf!

Source:

MooTools. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
MooTools. MooTools official site.