Mick Redman

Thursday, 18 November 2010

PHP to get current file name without the extension

This little function will return the file name which calls it minus the .php extension.

<?php

function getCurrentFile()
{
   $currentFile = $_SERVER["SCRIPT_NAME"];
   $parts = Explode('/', $currentFile);
   $currentFile = substr($parts[count($parts) - 1],0,-4);
   return $currentFile;
}
?>

jQuery line to reflect h1 in page title

Quite often you want the title tag of your page to be the same as your title. This little jQuery line will do that for you.

$('title').text($('h1:first').text());

How to get all the content from a directory using PHP

I've been developing a small CMS. It solves a small problem. Some of our customers would like to edit small amounts of text on a page. I don't want to create a CMS database for this. I just want to use text files. There is a tiny CMS which does this, but your website has to be in root, there is an install and it's a bit of a pig to configure.
My CMS is much simpler than that.
Anyway, to cut a long story short I created a PHP function for it which I wanted to share. It takes a directory name as a parameter then looks at that directory and reads all the files within it. Obviously missing out those ugly . and .. at the beginning. Manipulate at will.

<?php
function getDirContents($dirLoc)
{
   foreach(array_slice(scandir($dirLoc),2) as $fileEntry)
   {
   echo file_get_contents($dirLoc.'/'.$fileEntry);
   }
}
?>

Use of Bokeh

Bokeh are those pictures we see of blurred spots of light. They are a very useful texture, common among good web designs. Below is an example of how they can be used.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Use of Bokeh</title>
<style type="text/css">
*
{
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
html, body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
font-size:0.96em;
background:#000000;
color:#CCCCCC;
}
#container
{
margin:0 auto;
width:920px;
}
#navigation, #content, #highlights, #footer
{
display:block;
}
#navigation, #footer
{
height:40px;
}
#navigation
{
text-align:right;
}
#navigation a
{
color:#CCCCCC;
text-align:center;
text-decoration:none;
width:80px;
height:40px;
padding-top:10px;
padding-left:10px;
padding-right:10px;
display: inline-block;
}
#navigation a:hover
{
background:url(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/4995562250_2dfe171a8d_t.jpg) repeat-x;
}
h1, h2
{
font-family: Georgia, Serif;
font-weight:lighter;
font-style:italic;
}
h1
{
font-size:4em;
}
h2
{
text-align:left;
font-size:3em;
}
#content
{
background:#000000 url(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4153/5000536973_2d2634aba3_b.jpg) no-repeat right top;
margin-left:20px;
margin-right:20px;
padding:10px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
#content p
{
text-align:justify;
width:400px;
}
#highlights
{
margin-left:10px;
}
.highlight
{
float:left;
width:260px;
margin:20px;
}
.highlight p
{
text-align:justify;
}
#footer
{
clear:both;
}
#footer p
{
text-align:center;
padding-top:10px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="container">
<div id="navigation">
<a href="#" class="subMenu">home</a>
<a href="#" class="subMenu">products</a>
<a href="#" class="subMenu">services</a>
<a href="#" class="subMenu">about</a>
</div>
<div id="content">
<h1>Important Header</h1>
<h2>Less important header</h2>
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae, ultricies eget, tempor sit amet, ante.</p>
</div>
<div id="highlights">
<div class="highlight">
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae, ultricies eget, tempor sit amet, ante. Donec eu libero sit amet quam egestas semper. Aenean ultricies mi vitae est. Mauris placerat eleifend leo.</p>
</div>
<div class="highlight">
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae, ultricies eget, tempor sit amet, ante. Donec eu libero sit amet quam egestas semper. Aenean ultricies mi vitae est. Mauris placerat eleifend leo.</p>
</div>
<div class="highlight">
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Vestibulum tortor quam, feugiat vitae, ultricies eget, tempor sit amet, ante. Donec eu libero sit amet quam egestas semper. Aenean ultricies mi vitae est. Mauris placerat eleifend leo.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div id="footer"><p>This could be a very long footer.</p></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Tuesday, 16 November 2010

Using css3pie with on HTML5 for cross browser effects

I have been using css3pie from http://css3pie.com/ for some time now. In order to run the test below, you will have to download it. You could put it in a scripts folder as I have but it doesn't matter. The example below contains a few elements which will make it work cross browser.
Firstly, I have added the html5.js reference at the top.
Secondly, I have reset the * and body values.
Thirdly, I have use em insted of px.
Finally, I switched the gradient around on the -pie-background call.
Enjoy!

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>CSS3pie test</title>

<style>
*
{
margin:0;
padding:0;
border:0;
}
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
color:#FFFFFF;
font-size:1em;
line-height:140%;
}
section#borderRadiusExample
{
background:#6BC2E8;
width:10em;
padding:0.62em;

/* rounded corners */
border-radius:0.62em;
-moz-border-radius:0.62em;
-webkit-border-radius:0.62em;

/* Shadow */
box-shadow:0.3em 0.3em 0.3em #CCCCCC;
-moz-box-shadow:0.3em 0.3em 0.3em #CCCCCC;
-webkit-box-shadow:0.3em 0.3em 0.3em #CCCCCC;

/* Linear gradient */
background-image:-moz-linear-gradient(90deg, #6BC2E8, #ABDEF3);
background-image:-webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#6BC2E8), to(#ABDEF3));
-pie-background:linear-gradient(90deg, #ABDEF3, #6BC2E8);

behavior:url('scripts/PIE.htc');
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<section id="borderRadiusExample">
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</p>
</section>
</body>
</html>

Monday, 15 November 2010

HTML5 tags I am currently using

Why would I write this article?

It's just to give you a flavour of the HTML5 features I have found to be reliable and how I use them. There is a simple template below, but essentially they are <header></header>, <footer></footer>, <section></section>, <article> </article> and <aside></aside>.
Of course, you may be thinking, he's not using proper HTML5 html and meta tags. That's because the new ones are not currently accepted by the W3C Validators.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<head>

<title>HTML5 example</title>

body

{

font-family:Sans-serif;

}

#mainPage, header, footer

{

margin:0 auto;

width:30.8em;

*width:30em;

}

#leftContent

{

float:left;

}

#rightContent

{

float:right;

}

footer

{

clear:both;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<h1>My header</h1>

</header>

<article>Article 1</article>

</section>

<aside id="rightContent">Content on the aside</aside>

</section>

<footer>Footer</footer>

</body>

</html>

Tuesday, 9 November 2010

Pixel to em calculator

These days we need to use the most flexible means of sizing elements in our web content. Our websites have to cope with different devices, different resolutions, different user preferences, accessibility, etc...

Step forward em. This can, not only be used for font sizes, but layout too. We are used to sizing elements of our pages using pixels. To be more flexible, and get in the swing of thinking about em instead of pixels, in the early stages we need a converter. Now of course, IE certainly early versions of it need to be covered, if we want our pages to be rendered consistently. For this we should put an * before our properties.

The example below, provides you with a converter and an example of how to use it.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Pixel to em calculator</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
}
#mainPage
{
margin:0 auto;
width:30.8em;
*width:30em;
}

</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script>
jQuery(function( $ )
{
$("#button").click(function()
{
$('#emlVal').val(parseFloat($('#pixelVal').val()*0.0625).toFixed(2));
$('#emForIEval').val(parseFloat($('#emlVal').val()*1.1).toFixed(2));
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="mainPage">
Pixel value<br /><input type="text" name="pixelVal" id="pixelVal" /><br />
Em value<br /><input type="text" name="emVal" id="emlVal" /><br />
Em for IE value<br /><input type="text" name="emForIEval" id="emForIEval" /><br />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" id="button" />
</div>
</body>
</html>