A stand-alone software module that can be slapped onto an existing application to enhance it's function or performance.

This is typically a JavaScript file that can be linked in a vanilla web page to add -- at load time -- Rich Internet Application (RIA) behaviors to the existing UI controls.

A "pefect" barnacle would be effective without any other changes to the web page code (but would allow incremental additions of attributes to customize the behavior).
I found a smart-table barnacle script we can stick on our web page to make those tables sortable and filterable.

I wrote a calendar barnacle that automatically converts any input box with class="date" to a calendar picker field.
by jfkelley June 16, 2009
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