One of those really useful elements is ‘jcarousel’, wich you should know [I mean, if you came here from google searching for a 'working circular carousel'!!!] but lack of a full support for circular carousel.
The example in the official document needs the content loaded on-the-fly, not covering the most usual case, where the content is put into the markup [<ul> <li> sequence] and I found nowere a working example for such case. Since I had to figure i out how to make it work for a project I recently come across, here you go.

The idea is quite basic: you use the callback functions to create on the fly elements that you put in the hidden area before starting the animation; the only thing I changed respect the original example is that i use the jcarousel.get() method to get the content from the existing list instead of getting it from WWW, I also added auto start, pager and other nice features, but of course your need may be different.

make good use of this one!!

I decided to extend Prototype Element’s properties so that it can become really easy to add resize handlers to a given element. The code is fully working, thoug some extra features still need some tweaking. you can have 1 to 8 handlers, a callback fired up upon the end of the resizing process, and a snap function [here i just copy/pasted scriptaculous code...].

what’s is still missing is:

• a better templating system for the handlers
• better handling for elements; you can resize a TD element, but the table remains somewhat corrupted [I know were to fix it, but i just have soo many things to do]
• complete the ‘mode’ selector, just like you jave in Osx, XP, Kde, you can choose wether resize the original element or a copy [or a wireframed div]

code is here, shall anyone like to jelp me finishing it, you’re welcome

Well, after all I think it’s really time to start writing some real stuff for my [our?!] visual IDE for webapps, so stay tuned and expect news in short time

Update: a really better method to’ resize element is by using jqueryui classes, so update tour bookmarks.

if yout blog really needs this kind of applet, well, it doesn’t really matters wether it is a 3d javascript object or a flash movie.

The only odd in the mentioned plugin is that you loose SEO opportunities, so, if you really, really, really, really want to try such thing, i’ve just come with a nearly fully functional  HTML only version of tht object. Just create your usual <ul><li> assign them the specific class (I’ll give you a hint… “tagcloud”) and call the proper constructor… on the mouseover all of youtr cloud will start to move around your layer.
There’s of course place to soo many customisazione, and the 3D functions that I’m using are still not perfect, so, if you come with a better version than mine, please let me know.

Update: after 6 onths from the original post, this is still the most visited btween all the other [5] post composing this blog. It makes me wonder if a javascript 3d library would be wellcome. something like a Prototype class or evena Jquery UI class… with a bit of tweaking and a little amount of css programming real fake 3d GUI elements could be created…

In the [real little] spare time I can give to this blog, I will try to create such library.

In the meantime a brand new side project idea is born.. All stats looking at the bleeding edge of the CMS/CMR/Framework panorama that I’ve encountered in the last month. None of them is really well suite for rapid application developement in  L(W)AMP environments. What is missing actually is a real visual IDE that fits into your browsers, and helps you deploy a consisten, secure, fast paced application starting from a simple set of tables/relations.

Something like the old visual basic stuff, but integrated with all the latest AJAX widgets and user experience. why should people still develop every single template/form/interface instead of simply concentrate in business logic?

so stay tuned, first lines of code are ready, as usual with prototype & usual suspects in the frontline.
I will publish one module/element/schema/idea per week, any help is greatly appreciated!!

window.onload=function(){
Event.observe(document.body, ‘click’, function(event) {
var element = Event.element(event);
if (’A’ == element.tagName){
if ($(element.target) != undefined){
new Ajax.Updater(element.target,element.href,
{method:”post”,evalscripts:true})
Event.stop(event);
}

}
});
formz=document.getElementsByTagName(”form”);
for (i=0;i<formz.length;i++){
if ( formz[i].target!=undefined && formz[i].id!= “”){
el=formz[i].id
tar=formz[i].target
Event.observe(formz[i].id, ’submit’, function(event) {
$(el).request({
onSuccess: function(t) {
$(tar).update(t.responseText);
}
})

});
}
}
}

After messing up with some application requiring a huge number of ajax calls, I ended up thinking about this little piece of code:

window.onload=function(){
Event.observe(document.body, 'click', function(event) {
    var element = Event.element(event);
    if ('A' == element.tagName){
        if ($(element.target) != undefined){
            new Ajax.Updater(element.target,element.href,
            {method:"post",evalscripts:true})
            Event.stop(event);
            }

        }
    });
}

basically, this 10-line worth trick sets an event listener on every click. If you click on a ‘a’ with a target attribute set up, it starts an Ajax.Updater call on it.
you can of course add GET parameters and feed .php, and of course javascript code is parsed as well..
the complete seed [just a .htm and .php example file added] can be downloaded here