h2. What is the Fluid Project?

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Fluid is an open-source software community that
* designs user interfaces
* builds Web tools
* teaches inclusive design
* integrates interface components into open source applications

Our community consists of an international team of partners, individuals, and institutions focused on designing flexible, customizable, user-centered interfaces.
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h2. Projects

* [Design Handbook]: Resources for user interface design, usability and accessibility.
* [Open Virtual Usability Lab] (VULab): A web-based tool for distributed user testing.

External Links to project websites
* [Infusion|http://fluidproject.org/products/infusion]
* [Floe|http://www.floeproject.org/]
* [Inclusive Learning Handbook|http://handbook.floeproject.org]
* [Decapod|http://sites.google.com/site/decapodproject/]
* [collectionspace|http://www.collectionspace.org/]
* [opencast|http://www.opencastproject.org/]


h2. User Experience and Design

* [User Experience]: Design, usability,
* [Accessibility Resources] and other resources.
* [Design Handbook]: Resources for user interface design, usability and accessibility.
* [Inclusive Learning Handbook|http://handbook.floeproject.org]: Learn how to make content more accessible and inclusive.

h2. Development

* [Development]: Developer resources and technical information.
* [Daily builds|http://build.fluidproject.org]: Links to our daily build with in-context demonstrations of Fluid Infusion components.
* [Source Code]: Access to the latest Fluid source code.

h2. Collaborative Project Resources

* [Meetings]: Meeting schedules, agendas, and archives.

h2. What Is Infusion?
Infusion is a different kind of JavaScript framework. Built for creating applications that are highly usable and accessible, Infusion provides a rich set of APIs for creating loosely-coupled models and views using a declarative and event-driven style.

Infusion includes:
* an application framework for developing applications with JavaScript and jQuery,
* a growing collection of user interface components, and
* a modular CSS framework that allows you to add, remove and mix classes to get effect you want.

Infusion embraces unobtrusive, functional techniques that promote less code and greater flexibility. Infusion takes the pain out of developing accessible, high performance, clean and nimble front-ends for applications that want to do more. Our approach is to leave you in control - it's your interface, using your markup, your way.

* Must provide a good user experience in any situation
* Must be completely customizable

h3. Core Component Requirements

* Accessibility (a11y)
** Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) primer ([http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-primer/])
** Accessibility on web in a nutshell ([http://www.alistapart.com/articles/wiwa])

* Usability
** Usability on the web ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_usability])
** Jakob Neilson (usability specialist) ([http://www.useit.com])

* Internationalization (i18n)([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization])
* DOM Agnosticism and playing safe
** Being DOM agnostic means further abstracting your code from the presentation and markup layers. This means the behaviour layer is made to accomodate many different situations (in the markup and behavioural layers) and deal with them all gracefully. Our components cannot make assumptions about the surrounding (x)html markup. They can be placed in situations where normal operation might otherwise break the environment (ie. its not safe to traverse the DOM when it's in flux). While being markup agnostic cannot happen perfectly 100% of the time, it is something for Fluid components to strive for.

* Customization
** Part of being DOM agnostic is to allow for extensive customization on many levels. Something Fluid components try to achieve is allowing the implementer to easily change as much about the component as possible, allowing for a simpler and safer integration process on their part.