As part of the lead-up to the conference I've been busy re-designing our web site. It's a case of practising what we preach, so the new web site is totally Ajax-based using the EWD Ajax Framework. It's a work in progress, so some of the tabs will still take you back to old parts of the site, but the eXtc Web Developer (EWD) section is fully re-designed.

The EWD section is worth exploring - the version of EWD you can now download is the very latest one, bringing in many new features including:

- loads of new Ajax capabilities
- some built-in Yahoo YUI widgets
- WebLink Developer integration
- support for WebLink as a compilation target
- GT.M support

Although not a formal documented part of this release, the latest EWD can be used to design and build PHP applications that use mySQL as the back-end database. This is the first step towards making EWD a completely technology-independent web application development and design framework. As another example of practising what we preach, when you download EWD you'll be running an EWD application that is running PHP and mySQL on our new, shiny leased virtual server (which of course came with PHP and mySQL for free, so why not use it!).

The web site is also an example of the use of EWD's Ajax Framework for static pages and fragments, and it's also a "hybrid" EWD Ajax site where a static "container page" is taken over by a dynamic EWD Ajax application (where the EWD application consists of nothing but "parasitic" fragments). The site is a good example, then, of the kind of things I'll be referring to in my talk at the conference.

You'll find that all the information you need to get going with EWD is now available online in the web site including lots of working examples (complete with fully commented source code). I think the multi-tabbed layout lends itself much better to documenting all the potential compilation technology options supported by EWD - do let me have your comments!

I'm always interested in suggestions and if you have or would like more examples, just let me know.

So get onto www.mgateway.com and start exploring!