Raphael is a wonderful Javascript library, used for creating vector graphics, and interacting with SVG/VML elements through Javascript. Raphael allows the developer to interact with these elements through a number of complex animations. 

Until now, the only speed for an animation was a linear movement from one state to another. This plugin extends the animation of Raphael to allow for easing animations. Derived from jQuery Easing Plugin (version 1.3): http://gsgd.co.uk/sandbox/jquery/easing/.

In Brooklyn, many of the neighborhoods have very active e-mail lists. I live in Boerum Hill, a very pretty historic district lined with brownstones and trees. In general, the prettier an area is, the worse allergy season is for those who live in the path of various types of pollen. And Boerum Hill gardeners are a very prolific gardening bunch.

Recently, a mother on the Boerum Hill e-mail list asked about tips and experiences with eye allergies. Being a sufferer myself (having spent many Spring seasons holed up inside, coding instead of playing sports outside and laying lazily underneath the shade of horrible, horrible budding trees), I gave my experiences. My hope is that somebody out there googling for experiences in the eye allergy department will stumble across this and find some use.


I am a 24 year old male living in Boerum Hill (at Pacific and Bond). I have suffered eye allergies for the past 20 years, landing in the hospital due to pain, redness, swelling, and other oddities. I have taken a number of drugs, including steroids (called cortico-steroids). For the most part, while eye steroids are potentially dangerous, I took a few after rather severe reactions to my allergies. They were extremely helpful, but, for the most part, I found that discipline (i.e. not scratching) and prescription allergy eye drops were key.

First and foremost: No scratching. Even in the shower (where my worst pains came from, since I figured, hey, it's clean in here). At the slightest hint of pain/itchiness, use drops. They are cooling and usually reduce the itch immediately. If scratching is absolutely necessary, put a thick object (towel, pillow) between your hands and your eye. You will actually relieve the worst desire to itch (by itching "through" the pillow) without injuring the eye, and I have found that it works by taking 5 minutes to just get over the eye itch (after drops are applied, of course). I have also found that asking my girlfriend to physical restrain me when I start to itch has been helpful at times. Although, when you're in the heat of a good scratch, the last thing you want to see out of the corner of your eye is a girl running angrily towards you with intent to disarm.

Secondly, I tried a number of drops. Some are better than others. Patanol (and its chemical-sibling, Pataday) are nearly worthless to me. I took them for a few years, even when it was new on the market, and it hardly works. Alrex, made by B&L, is pretty good, but availability is now limited and doctors aren't as eager to prescribe it. Optivar gave similar results. What works the best, though, is Alamast. I recently switched to Alamast and have never been happier.

Between Alamast (which is non-steroidol, yet available only by prescription) and being highly disciplined in not scratching (and taking a breather when I can hardly control the urge), my eyes have been manageable. They are a light shade of red for the better part of allergy season. I have narrowed the time where I cannot wear contacts to roughly mid-April to June 1st.

Anti-histamines may or may not help. I have no idea because I have never noticed any relief whatsoever that came in the form of a pill.

Best of luck.

The SVG Open 2009 is in October at Google's campus in California. I recently submitted my proposal for a course on writing SVG through Javascript and the Raphael Javascript Library. Below is my proposal. Let's hope it is approved and I am able to continue work in SVG.

I am proposing to teach a course about building an interactive SVG module on the web through the use of the Raphael Javascript Library. From start to finish, the course will walk attendees through the process of creating an interactive widget, with a number of features ranging in complexity from basic layout to event-driven interaction. The widget will be a moderately complex application consisting of parts SVG, Javascript, jQuery, and HTML. While Javascript experience is expected, it is not necessary, considering the syntax of Javascript in this capacity is not far different than many other languages.

The widget, which will be used to demonstrate a number of techniques in creating both interactive and layered elements in SVG, is a "People Connection" module which shows a graph of how various people are connected to each other. See Figure 1 and Figure 2 for illustrations, and see http://www.daylife.com/topic/Barack_Obama/beta#title=Connections for a demonstration.

The 150 minute course will consist of 3 parts, with questions taken throughout:

• Introduction to Raphael (35 min)
  • 5 minutes: Introduction and Overview of the People Connection widget
  • 10 minutes: Looking at the Raphael JS Library's methods and documentation
  • 10 minutes: Setting up data for the module to be used in drawing
  • 10 minutes: Loading data into Raphael
• Drawing the widget (45 min)
  • 10 minutes: Images
  • 15 minutes: Shapes
  • 20 minutes: Lines, straight and curved (quadratic and bicubic)
• Interaction model (60 min)
  • 20 minutes: Handling user/triggered events
  • 15 minutes: Animation
  • 25 minutes: Interacting with the DOM and jQuery

There is a time buffer built into each part, and if there is extra time, I will be prepared to discuss:

• Raphael versus other SVG/Javascript libraries
• Other projects built on Raphael
• Browser compatibility with Raphael

For each section of the course, I plan to discuss:

• Implementation and coding conventions
• Potential pitfalls with certain techniques (browser incompatibilities, misconceptions, and common mistakes)
• Building the widget by coding in real-time (and not using blobs of code already written).

The flow of this walk-through course will be aligned with the building of the People Connection widget, where I will start with a empty file and progress over each step used in creating the overall effect and feel of the finished widget. Each piece of the widget puzzle will be complemented with a demonstration of the incremental improvement. At the end of the course, a complete widget, with all of its pieces, will be fully functional and fully explained.

A week into April and the next cool feature is being started. Collaborative document editing, along with revision history and rollbacks, publishing, and synchronization is now starting to be developed. Good news, since this is easily one of the most important features to date.

February, while slower than previous months, was host to a new of improvements, as well as the beginnings of some bigger features.

I've been busy. Oh boy, have I been busy. During the past two weeks, I have been designing a number of new features as well as working on fixing and maintained older features, including modifying a ton of smaller items, such as:

• Revised relative dates -- Now dates read as "2 weeks, 6 days ago" or "2 days, 4 hours ago". This is a finer granularity without being a useless exact date.
• User stats -- This listing of # of projects, friends, followers, followings, visitors, visits, posts, and comments--all depending on what type of page you are at--is starting to show how users and projects will be able to keep track of their vitals.
• Activity Feeds -- There have been a number of changes:
• • the aesthetic has been cleaned up; colors & sizes are now standardized.
  • deletion of activity feeds can be undone
  • if an activity is by a friend, a following, or a project you are in or are following, the type is displayed in the activity feed.
• A number of other image refinements have taken place, as you may see in the Getting Started module, the What is SunRayLab module, as well as in a few other places.
• Profile images have been upgraded to allow all users (including new) to select one of 18 pre-made profile images. New users even have the choice of uploading their profile image during registration.
• A number of bugs have been squashed, such as blog archives, previewing and adding comments, cropping images, and activity feed types.
• The 'People' tab has been updated to show more details.
• Your personal profile is starting to show some person effects, such as your profile photos (all of them), personal bio, stats/vitals, and your friends, followers, and followings. Privacy controls will be introduced later on as I start to figure out what else will be in the profile.

As soon as I finish up my to-do list (about a dozen items), I will begin to implement the forums and photo galleries. Expect me to get that far in the next month.

I've been hard at work adding in new activity feeds, as well as working on completing user profiles and relationships. I am also planning to finish user profiles by the end of the week, as well as begin project profiles and discovery.

As usual, I have been keeping myself busy implementing new features like the profile photos, user profiles, and the beginnings of the social network. But the coolest part is that no matter where you go on SunRayLab, you always know where you are, and it doesn't take you very long to get there.

Alright, activity feeds are done. They now work for Everybody (as shown on the Home page and your Me page), your friends and follows on your Me page, and for projects on each project's Collaboration Overview page.