A little known fact is that Sitecore 6 comes with Prototype and Firebug lite preinstalled. Prototype is a mind saving javascript library, and firebug lite is a helpful javascript instrumentation console replacing dozens of alert(“I’m here”) calls.

We’d do it for ourselves anyway, but what does it mean for you?

Prototype

Prototype javascript library is automatically included in Sitecore shell applications – both native, such as Content Editor, and the custom ones.

This means you can safely use prototype both in your Sitecore customizations, such as custom fields, and in your own applications. (If you look closely enough, you’ll see that custom FieldTypes I’ve made for Crestone shamelessly use prototype whenever possible).

Needless to say that prototype is great and saves a lot of brain cells if you do any javascript at all. Some great alternatives, such as jQuery, do exist – but if you don’t use anything at all, I really wonder why.

If you’re new to prototype and javascript frameworks in general – they have very solid documentation at http://prototypejs.org/.

Even more, prototype’s cousin – Scriptaculous, a javascript UI controls and effects library is also shipped with Sitecore, but is not included automatically. If you need it, it’s at /sitecore/shell/Controls/Lib/Scriptaculous.

Firebug Lite

Firebug lite is a cross browser javascript console – the fact that it works in Internet Explorer is of biggest interest to Sitecore developers. I’ve praised it before, but now it’s one key press away in Sitecore shell applications.

Press F12 and the firebug lite console will pop up from the top:

This means you can use console.log and other instrumentation methods to debug your javascript.

Sitecore UI has a lot of IFrames, so pay attention where you click before opening the console – each IFrame is a separate javascript realm, and therefore has its own firebug console.

The Website is Safe

I’d like to stress again that both Prototype and Firebug lite are only included in the Sitecore shell applications. Technically, if the sitecore.js javascript file is loaded, the prototype and firebug are also inlcuded.

We don’t add anything to the frontend sites – it’s your decision.