Friday, 21 January 2011

No I'm not going to title this post less is more

I have started to use less. No, I'm not completely useless. Less from lesscss.org "extends CSS with dynamic behavior such asvariables, mixins, operations and functions. LESS runs on both the client-side (IE 6+, Webkit, Firefox) and server-side, with Node.js."

So below is an example of how to get started. First, you need to download less.js from lesscss.org. Let's say that we are going to put this .js file, our HTML file and our css file all in the same folder.

Once downloaded, I tend to rename the file less.js.

We then need to create our stylesheet. Our stylesheet can be named however we like but it must have the .less extension, so let's call it style.less. Once created we'll add the following lines:
@nice-blue: #5B83AD;
@light-blue: @nice-blue + #111;
#header { color: @light-blue; }

You can see from the lines above, that we have created a variable called @nice-blue and assigned it a value of #5B83AD. We have then created another variable called @light-blue and assigned it the value of @nice-blue + #111. We have then assigned the variable colour of @light-blue to the property color for the selector #header, which we will be using in our HTML page.

As you can imagine, once you've declared your variables this way, it's easier to use them over and over again. An this is just the start. You can also use 'mixins' such as two or more css classes being combined into one greater class. You can add 'Parametric Mixins', allowing you to pass parameters to css classes. There is so much more so go to the website and have a look.

We are now about to create our HTML page. At this stage, I should warn you that it's very important what order you declare the stylesheet and the script tag, otherwise it won't work, so please follow the example.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=”en”>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Less example</title>
<link rel="stylesheet/less" type="text/css" href="style.less" />
<script src="less.js"></script>
</head>
<body>
<p id="header">This should now be a nice light blue.</p>
</body>
</html>

Tuesday, 18 January 2011

Using jQuery to create a dynamic Wordle button

Wordle is a great tool for creating interesting tag clouds. The example below contains a bunch of Lorem ipsum just so that there is some content to feed Wordle. This is followed by a button which creates a Wordle from the content. The jQuery takes the page content and applies it to the text field required by the Wordle service.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
 google.load("jquery","1");
 google.load("jqueryui","1");
</script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('#wordleParam').text($('#mainContent').text());
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
    <section id="mainContent">
<h1>HTML Ipsum Presents</h1>
<p><strong>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique</strong> 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. <em>Aenean ultricies mi vitae est.</em> Mauris placerat eleifend leo. Quisque sit amet est et sapien ullamcorper pharetra. Vestibulum erat wisi, condimentum sed, <code>commodo vitae</code>, ornare sit amet, wisi. Aenean fermentum, elit eget tincidunt condimentum, eros ipsum rutrum orci, sagittis tempus lacus enim ac dui. <a href="#">Donec non enim</a> in turpis pulvinar facilisis. Ut felis.</p>
<h2>Header Level 2</h2>
<ol>
  <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>
  <li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>
</ol>
<blockquote><p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vivamus magna. Cras in mi at felis aliquet congue. Ut a est eget ligula molestie gravida. Curabitur massa. Donec eleifend, libero at sagittis mollis, tellus est malesuada tellus, at luctus turpis elit sit amet quam. Vivamus pretium ornare est.</p></blockquote>
<h3>Header Level 3</h3>
<ul>
  <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>
  <li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>
</ul>
<pre><code>
#header h1 a {
display: block;
width: 300px;
height: 80px;
}
</code></pre>
<!-- The all important wordle button -->
        <form action="http://www.wordle.net/advanced" method="POST">
     <textarea name="text" id="wordleParam" style="display:none;">
     </textarea>
     <input type="submit" value="Submit content to Wordle">
</form>
    </section>
</body>
</html>

Wednesday, 12 January 2011

Semi-liquid Layout

The layout below offers 2 things. A liquid layout for the main content and a sticky header and footer. It works well across multiple screen resolutions including phones.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Semi-liquid Layout</title>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Droid+Serif' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<style type="text/css">
*
{
 margin:0;
 padding:0;
 border:0;
}
body
{
background:#C23F67;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
hgroup, nav, footer
{
font-family:Helvetica, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
}
h1,h2
{
font-weight:lighter;
margin-left:0.2em;
}
h1
{
font-size:4em;
margin-top:0.5em;
}
h2
{
font-size:3em;
}
nav
{
    text-transform:lowercase;
    text-align:right;
border-bottom:0.1em solid #FFFFFF;
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    top:0;
    width: 100%;
    _position: absolute;    
    height:2em;
background:#000000;
}
nav a
{
    margin-left:0.25em;
    margin-right:0.25em;
    text-decoration:none;
}
#mainContent
{
    height:auto;
    padding-bottom:2em;
    clear:both;
}
#mainContent p
{
font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif;
font-size:0.95em;
line-spacing:0.5em;
padding:0.5em;
text-align:justify;
}
img
{
margin:0.5em;
width:11em;
min-height:11em;
border-top:0.1em solid #FFFFFF;
float:right;
}
footer
{
    border-top:0.1em solid #FFFFFF;
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    bottom:0;
    width: 100%;
    _position: absolute;    
    height:2em;
background:#000000;
}
nav p, footer p
{
margin:0.25em;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<section id="container">
<nav>
<p>
   <a>Home</a>
   <a>Help</a>
   <a>About</a>
</p>
</nav>
     <hgroup>  
<h1 >header</h1>  
         <h2>sub-header</h2>
</hgroup>      
<section id="mainContent"><img />
<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. Quisque sit amet est et sapien ullamcorper pharetra. Vestibulum erat wisi, condimentum sed, commodo vitae, ornare sit amet, wisi. Aenean fermentum, elit eget tincidunt condimentum, eros ipsum rutrum orci, sagittis tempus lacus enim ac dui. Donec non enim in turpis pulvinar facilisis. Ut felis. Praesent dapibus, neque id cursus faucibus, tortor neque egestas augue, eu vulputate magna eros eu erat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Nam dui mi, tincidunt quis, accumsan porttitor, facilisis luctus, metus</p>
</section>
</section>
<footer><p>Contact information</p></footer>
</body>
</html>

Smartphone and upwards

This layout works on the basis that smartphones have a minimum width of 480px or 30em. And so, this layout will happily work on anything greater than that. The result, no need to check which device is accessing it.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Smartphone and upwards</title>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Droid+Serif' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<style type="text/css">
*
{
 margin:0;
 padding:0;
 border:0;
}
body
{
background:#C23F67;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
#mainContent, hgroup, footer p, nav p
{
margin:0 auto;
width:30em;
}
hgroup, nav, footer
{
font-family:Helvetica, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;
}
h1,h2
{
font-weight:lighter;
}
h1
{
font-size:4em;
margin-top:0.5em;
}
h2
{
font-size:3em;
}
nav
{
    text-transform:lowercase;
    text-align:right;
border-bottom:0.1em solid #FFFFFF;
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    top:0;
    width: 100%;
    _position: absolute;    
    height:2em;
background:#000000;
}
nav a
{
    margin-left:0.25em;
    margin-right:0.25em;
    text-decoration:none;
}
#mainContent
{
    height:auto;
    padding-bottom:2em;
    clear:both;
}
#mainContent p
{
width:18.5em;
float:left;
font-family: 'Droid Serif', arial, serif;
font-size:0.95em;
line-spacing:0.5em;
padding:0.5em;
text-align:justify;
}
img
{
margin-top:0.5em;
width:11em;
min-height:11em;
border-top:0.1em solid #FFFFFF;
}
footer
{
    border-top:0.1em solid #FFFFFF;
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    bottom:0;
    width: 100%;
    _position: absolute;    
    height:2em;
background:#000000;
}
nav p, footer p
{
margin-top:0.25em;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<section id="container">
<nav>
<p>
   <a>Home</a>
   <a>Help</a>
   <a>About</a>
</p>
</nav>
     <hgroup>  
<h1 >header</h1>  
         <h2>sub-header</h2>
</hgroup>      
<section id="mainContent">
<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. Quisque sit amet est et sapien ullamcorper pharetra. Vestibulum erat wisi, condimentum sed, commodo vitae, ornare sit amet, wisi. Aenean fermentum, elit eget tincidunt condimentum, eros ipsum rutrum orci, sagittis tempus lacus enim ac dui. Donec non enim in turpis pulvinar facilisis. Ut felis. Praesent dapibus, neque id cursus faucibus, tortor neque egestas augue, eu vulputate magna eros eu erat. Aliquam erat volutpat. Nam dui mi, tincidunt quis, accumsan porttitor, facilisis luctus, metus</p>
<img />
</section>
</section>
<footer><p>Contact information</p></footer>
</body>
</html>

Monday, 10 January 2011

jQuery Radio Buttons

Happy New Year!
It took me about 20 minutes to work out how to use radio buttons with jQuery. The examples I found were a bit rubbish, so I thought I would share this code with you to save everyone the time.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>jQuery Radio Buttons</title>
<style type="text/css">
html, body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
}
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script>
$(function ()
{
$("input[name='radioTest']").change(
function()
{
if($(this).val()=='yes')
{
alert('Yes');
}
else
{
alert('No');
}
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
Try this radio button<br />
Yes<input name="radioTest" type="radio" value="yes">
No<input name="radioTest" type="radio" value="no">
</body>
</html>

Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Two equal row layout beginnings

I wanted to get a liquid layout with 2 rows taking up 50% of the browser hight each. I saw this type of layout on a site recently. It was a very minimalistic design. So I started to replicate it and do my own version. I then started to run into difficulties. I did some surfing and couldn't come up with the answer. So then I made a cup of tea, really put my brain into action, solved it, and now I'm sharing it with you.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Two equal rows</title>
<!--[if IE]>
 <script src="http://html5shim.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script>
<![endif]-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/reset.css" />
<style type="text/css">
body
{
background:#FFFFFF;
}
#top
{
    height:auto;  
    clear:both;
}
#bottom
{
    color:#FFFFFF;  
    position:fixed;
    right:0;
    bottom:0;
    width:100%;
    _position: absolute;
    background:#FF0000;
    height:50%;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<section id="top">
Hello
</section>
<section id="bottom">
Hello
</section>
</body>
</html>

Thursday, 2 December 2010

How to set off multiple functions repeatedly using JavaScript

We are going to create an array of functions we'd like to kick off every 5 seconds. In this example I've used alerts, but this could make an excellent poll for changes to a file.

Once our array is created we can call a function which will perform the actions.

First we need to declare our function and stick it in the <head> of our page.
<script>

function runFunctions(funcArr, delay)
{
    setInterval(
        function()
        {
            for(i=0; i<funcArr.length; i++)
            {
                eval(funcArr[i]);
            }
        }, delay);
}

</script>

Now we can call our function from within the page <body> or just as easily in the <head>

<script>
            var myFuncs=new Array("alert('Mick')","alert('Mack')","alert('Paddy')","alert('Whack')");
            runFunctions(myFuncs, 5000);
</script>