Scriptaculous 1.7.1 Beta Compressed

The compressed version of Scriptaculous 1.7.1 beta is available for download directly from my wiki page on Compressed Javascript Libraries. Because the combo has been popular in the past, I put up a version with just prototype, builder, and effects as well as a version with everything save the unit testing code.

I'm thinking I should probably build one without sound support too. We'll see if anybody actually asks for it.

Scriptaculous is getting a bit heavier. I originally thought it was getting lighter, but judging from some of the other versions the growth is substantial. The Prototype library has grown, and in my mind it has matured a great deal. I really wish that one of the big guns out there would host a javascript library so that we could all include the master files from a google or yahoo domain. That would make it so that the files could be cached on everybody's PC and we wouldn't have to worry about page load times for first time visitors. I've thought about implementing a project myself, but I simply couldn't put up anything that could deal with the massive traffic without significant investment. There's also the issue of localized caching, which for me would mean having at least 4 or 5 servers throughout the US and running some sort of BGP or GEO-IP based dns or redirection solution. It's a viable project, but the management would be difficult and the personal benefit would be minimal. For a big player like Yahoo - or even someone like easynews it could be a very worthwhile project. Running the servers that host files for 10s of thousands of websites does a lot for branding - even if there is no attribution on each of the sites. Heck, everybody knows who Akmai and Viacom are and you almost never see a link to either of their sites.