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BoxView is a suite of Open Source JavaScript libraries designed to handle the simultaneous visualization of multiple documents and multimedia objects.
BoxView splits the page in multiple “boxes” where each of them is a container in which any type of content can be visualized (a menu, a fragment of text, an entire html page, a video player, an image viewer and so on).
BoxView handles the boxes’ interactions, including automatically resizing them to fit the container, ordering, letting the user drag them around or collapse some of them.
BoxView as a Suite vs. BoxView as components
We designed BoxView with some sensible defaults in mind (e.g. all boxes will be resized to the same width per default) which you can use to quicky set up a working app, but there are a lot of options and configurations you can tweak to suit your needs.
Each BoxView’s plugin can be individually configured and has its own CSS for styling. However, if you choose to use them together, you can use BoxView’s “unique point of configuration” and use themes, a mix of options and CSS stylesheets, to style the whole suite at once.
Widgets
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As said before, you can put whatever content you like inside the boxes and define your own behavior: in the end it’s just an html container. Nonetheless we dropped in additional goodies into BoxView: widgets.
Widgets are boxes inside the boxes, where you can put, again, any type of content. The BoxView::Widgets plugin then handles some behaviors like drag and drop, collapsing and reordering single widgets inside a box.
Widgets can also include ad-hoc user-defined actions, like for example a button to highlight parts of its textual content, open a related box or widget and so on.
Anchorman (BoxView’s smart URL generator and shortener)
Anchorman’s task is to track how boxes and widgets are arranged in a page, at any given time. This means Anchorman will change the page URL to reflect the position and state (collapsed?) of the active boxes. The URL can then be saved, bookmarked and shared with friends and colleagues, who will see the boxes exactly how you arranged them. For example, if you just discovered an hidden relation between two ancient manuscripts and a piece of text, you can put the three boxes side by side, in the desired order, then just send the link to your colleagues to get their comments and reviews.
Anchorman is smart! It keeps track of your navigation history (dragging, collapsing, ordering, closing/opening, resizing…). You can go back and forward and even use the browser’s back button without fear, reopening that box you closed by mistake.
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Being so smart has its downsides: Anchorman’s modified URL may quickly become *very* long and difficult (if not impossible!) to read. Here’s where its URL shortener comes to the rescue: it makes that same URL short, readable and easier to bookmark or share.
Download: http://boxview.netseven.it
Already being used in several commercial and Open Source projects, BoxView matured to a stable 1.0 version, and it can be downloaded from http://boxview.netseven.it, its new home page, where you will find examples, documentation, latest release notes and more.
Please contact us if you want to contribute.
Documentation
How to create and customize a theme, here.
