Mick Redman: 2010

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>

<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>

Complete mess up of the Moodle layout

I have been adding the Google Feed reader to my Moodle setup. One line which has been repeated a few times in the standard CSS makes a real mess of things. The culprit is white-space:nowrap. I shall be avoiding using this line in my own CSS.

Unexpected CSS3pie issue

I have shifted between using CSS3pie and not over the past year from http://css3pie.com. I really appreciate all the work that's gone into it. Sometimes it just doesn't work for me. This morning, I started to look at why it was not working on my portableCMS. I started to gradually remove elements and discovered that if I removed the colour from my body background ie from:
background:#FFFFFF url(images/bodyBackground.png) repeat-x;
to
background:url(images/bodyBackground.png) repeat-x;
I got partial site of my rounded corners etc.

Then I found this blog post. http://www.jakobloekkemadsen.com/2010/10/how-to-make-css3pie-work/
So I put, position:relative; in the CSS call to my selector which used PIE.htc and hey presto!

Wednesday, 1 December 2010

Two lessons learned about IE from the coal face

Yesterday was a difficult day. It's my own fault. I should have started testing my portableCMS in IE earlier. I came across 2 problems which took more time than I was prepared for in debugging.

So here is tip number 1. Don't even think of trying to refer to JavaScript constants in your jQuery calls. It's just not worth the hassle.

Tip number 2. As well as referring to a html5 reset, (I use http://html5resetcss.googlecode.com/files/html5-reset.css), add your own HTML 4 reset. Mine is listed below. You will still have problems, but less.

{

margin:0;

padding:0;

border:0;

outline:0;

font-size:100%;

vertical-align:baseline;

background:transparent;

}

body

{

font-family:Sans-serif;

font-size:1em;

}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6

{

margin:0;

padding:0;

font-weight:normal;

}

p, th, td, li, dd, dt, ul, ol, blockquote, q, acronym, abbr, a, input, select, textarea

{

margin:0;

padding:0;

}

blockquote

{

margin:1.25em;

padding:1.25em

}

{

font-style:italic;

}

acronym, abbr

{

cursor:help;

}

small

{

font-size:.85em;

}

big

{

font-size:1.2em;

}

a, a:link, a:visited, a:active, a:hover

{

text-decoration:none;

}

table

{

margin:0;

padding:0;

border:none;

}

form

{

margin:0;

padding:0;

display:inline;

}

label

{

cursor:pointer;

}

.clear { clear:both; }

.floatLeft { float:left; }

.floatRight { float:right; }

.textLeft { text-align:left; }

.textRight { text-align:right; }

.textCenter { text-align:center; }

.textJustify { text-align:justify; }

.blockCenter { display:block; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; }

.bold { font-weight:bold; }

.italic { font-style:italic; }

.underline { text-decoration:underline; }

.noindent { margin-left:0; padding-left:0; }

.nomargin { margin:0; }

.nopadding { padding:0; }

.nobullet { list-style:none; list-style-image:none; }

Monday, 29 November 2010

At long last a proper mobile simulator

http://iphone4simulator.com/
If you know of another good one let me know.

Friday, 26 November 2010

portableCMS

My updates have not been as frequent or as detailed lately because I've been writing a CMS which I have so far name portableCMS. So far I have been able to:

Create a set of configuration files
Create a method of providing CSS to the correct devices
Hold editable content data without the need for a database
Minimise the requirement for developers to code beyond the HTML body if required
Provide a method of creating plugins
Provide the opportunity to enhance the CMS with external Functional PHP, OOP PHP, jQuery and JavaScript sources

At the moment I am working on delivering real-time data.

Thursday, 25 November 2010

Some of my favourite free stuff

For those of you not subscribed to my delicious feed at http://www.delicious.com/guitarbeerchocolate, I thought I would share with you some of my favourite links to free tools and content. Happy clicking!

http://colorschemedesigner.com/
http://html-ipsum.com/
http://snipplr.com/
http://search.creativecommons.org/
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
http://code.google.com/

Friday, 19 November 2010

PHP API call to Summarity

Summarity at http://www.summarity.com/ is software which summarises items of text. They helpfully provide an API for developers to use. There is an example of how to call the API using python on the website. I don't use python. I use PHP. So I went about writing the API call in PHP. So below is an example of how it's done. You will need to get your own API key. I hope it's obvious where to add your text string.

<?php

$url = 'http://summarity.com/apiV1';

$data = 'summarity_api_key=yourAPIkey';

$data .= '&text='.urlencode('Just some text for testing');

$ch = curl_init($url);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, 1);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

$response = curl_exec($ch);

curl_close($ch);

echo(json_decode($response));

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>

Monday, 8 November 2010

jQuery to split your strings into classes

This next example simplifies, but pays reference to some excellent work done on http://daverupert.com/2010/09/lettering-js/. I have taken this idea but used it to create the same class across all the letters in my title. You'll be able to see why when you copy the code into a file of your own. Essentially , in this case, I have put boxes around each letter to give you an idea as to what you can do.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Splitting Letters</title>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script>
$.fn.spanTheChars = function()
{
var returnString = '';
$(this.text().split('')).each(function()
{
returnString += '<span class="chars">'+this+'</span>';
});
$(this).empty().append(returnString);
}
jQuery(function( $ )
{
$('h1').spanTheChars();
});
</script>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
font-size:62.5%;
}
h1
{
text-align:center;
font-size:2em;
text-transform:uppercase;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
.chars
{
display:block;
float:left;
width:2.8em;
min-height:2em;
background:#5CCCCC;
margin:0.2em;
padding-top:1em;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Split Title</h1>
</body>
</html>

Font combinations test #2

As promised the example below is a good way to test out which web safe font combinations are going to work. You simply need to comment out the fonts you don't want to use from the font-family tags in the CSS. In the case of the headers, you should also consider changing the font-weight to bold. Once you are happy. You need to think about colours. I get my colour combinations from the excellent http://colorschemedesigner.com.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>

<head>

<title>Font Combination #2</title>

<style>

body

{

/* font-size:62.5%; */

font-size:80%;

}

h1, h2, h3, h4

{

font-family:'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;

font-family:'Times New Roman', Times, serif;

font-family: Georgia, Serif;

font-family:‘Lucida Console’, Monaco, monospace;

font-family:'Courier New', Courier, monospace;

font-weight:normal;

}

h1, h2

{

text-transform:uppercase;

}

{

font-size:5em;

}

{

font-size:4em;

}

{

font-size:3em;

}

{

font-size:2em;

}

p, blockquote, strong, ul, ol, input, small, span

{

font-family:Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif;

font-family:Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;

font-family:Century Gothic, sans-serif;

font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;

font-family:'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;

font-family:'Arial Narrow', sans-serif;

font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;

font-family:Copperplate / Copperplate Gothic Light, sans-serif;

font-family:Gill Sans / Gill Sans MT, sans-serif;

font-family:'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

font-family:‘Lucida Console’, Monaco, monospace;

font-family:'Courier New', Courier, monospace;

font-style:normal;

font-variant:normal;

font-weight:normal;

letter-spacing:0.1em;

}

blockquote

{

text-indent:-0.8em;

font-size:1.5em;

}

{

font-size:1.25em;

margin-top:1.25em;

margin-bottom:1.25em;

}

input

{

font-size:1.0em;

}

small

{

font-size:0.75em;

}

span

{

font-style:italic;

}

strong

{

font-variant:small-caps;

}

p.justified

{

text-align:justify;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<h1>Heading 1</h1>

<h2>Heading 2</h2>

<h3>Heading 3</h3>

<h4>Heading 4</h4>

<p>Paragraph. 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>

<blockquote>Blockquote. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</blockquote>

<strong>Strong. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</strong>

<ul>

<li>Unordered list. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>

<li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>

<li>Vestibulum auctor dapibus neque.</li>

</ul>

<ol>

<li>Ordered list. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>

<li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>

<li>Vestibulum auctor dapibus neque.</li>

</ol>

<small>Small. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</small>

<span>Span. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</span>

<p class="justified">Paragraph justified. 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>

</body>

</html>

Font combinations test #1

The example below is a good way to test out which web safe font combinations are going to work. You simply need to comment out the fonts you don't want to use from the font-family tags in the CSS. In the case of the headers, you should also consider changing the font-weight to bold. Once you are happy. You need to think about colours. I get my colour combinations from the excellent http://colorschemedesigner.com. I'm going to follow this blog up with a similar example, this time reversing the sans-serif and serif fonts.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=”en”>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Font Combination #1</title>
<style>
body
{
/* font-size:62.5%; */
font-size:80%;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4
{
font-family:Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif;
font-family:Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-family:Century Gothic, sans-serif;
font-family:'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;
font-family:'Arial Black', Gadget, sans-serif;
font-family:'Arial Narrow', sans-serif;
font-family:Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
font-family:Copperplate / Copperplate Gothic Light, sans-serif;
font-family:Gill Sans / Gill Sans MT, sans-serif;
font-family:'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-family:‘Lucida Console’, Monaco, monospace;
font-family:'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-weight:normal;
}
h1, h2
{
text-transform:uppercase;
}
h1
{
font-size:5em;
}
h2
{
font-size:4em;
}
h3
{
font-size:3em;
}
h4
{
font-size:2em;
}
p, blockquote, strong, ul, ol, input, small, span
{
font-family:'Palatino Linotype', 'Book Antiqua', Palatino, serif;
font-family:'Times New Roman', Times, serif;
font-family: Georgia, Serif;
font-family:‘Lucida Console’, Monaco, monospace;
font-family:'Courier New', Courier, monospace;
font-style:normal;
font-variant:normal;
font-weight:normal;
letter-spacing:0.1em;
}
blockquote
{
text-indent:-0.8em;
font-size: 1.5em;
}
p
{
font-size:1.25em;
margin-top:1.25em;
margin-bottom:1.25em;
}
input
{
font-size:1.0em;
}
small
{
font-size:0.75em;
}
span
{
font-style:italic;
}
strong
{
font-variant:small-caps;
}
p.justified
{
text-align:justify;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<p>Paragraph. 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>
<blockquote>Blockquote. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</blockquote>
<strong>Strong. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</strong>
<ul>
<li>Unordered list. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>
<li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>
<li>Vestibulum auctor dapibus neque.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
<li>Ordered list. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>
<li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>
<li>Vestibulum auctor dapibus neque.</li>
</ol>
<input type="text" name="name" id="name" value="input" tabindex="1" /><br />
<small>Small. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</small>
<span>Span. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</span>
<p class="justified">Paragraph justified. 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>
</body>
</html>

Wednesday, 3 November 2010

jQuery Google Feed Plugin

This plugin provides a nice easy way for developers to implement the Google Feeds API in their site. In the example below, I've also added some ugly style elements to help show how the appearance can be manipulated.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>jQuery Google Feed Plugin</title>
<style type="text/css">
*
{
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
font-size:62.5%;
}
#feeds
{
margin:0 auto;
width:80em;
background:#CCCCCC;
}
.gfc-control
{
width:40em;
font-size:1.2em;
}
.gfc-tabsArea
{
background:#FF9200;
}
.gfc-tabHeader.gfc-tabhActive
{
font-weight:bold;
}
.gfc-tabHeader.gfc-tabhInactive
{
font-style:italic;
}
.gfc-resultsbox-visible
{
background:#D3EDFC;
}
.gf-title
{
font-weight:bold;
text-decoration:none;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://jquery.malsup.com/gfeed/jquery.gfeed.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('a.feed').gFeed(
{
target:'#feeds',
max:3,
tabs:true
});
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="feeds">
<a class="feed" href="http://jquery.com/blog/feed/">jQuery Blog</a>
<a class="feed" href="http://www.learningjquery.com/feed/">Learning jQuery</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

Three equal height columns using jQuery

I've seen lots of CSS solutions to this. They all seemed a little over the top and unreliable to me. So I decided to write my own solution using jQuery. There may be a better way to go about this using jQuery and I'd love to simplify what I've done, but it does work.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Three Equal Columns using jQuery</title>
<style type="text/css">
*
{
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
margin:0 auto;
width:800px;
font-size:62.5%;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
#column1, #column2, #column3
{
float:left;
padding:10px;
font-size:1.2em;
}
#column1, #column2
{
width:180px;
}
#column1
{
background:#FF0000;
}
#column2
{
background:#000000;
}
#column3
{
background:#CCCCCC;
width:380px;
}
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://github.com/malsup/corner/raw/master/jquery.corner.js"></script>
<script>
$.fn.getBiggest = function(param, biggest)
{
if($(param).height() > biggest) return $(param).height();
else return biggest;
}

var currentlyBiggest = 0;

$(document).ready(function()
{
$('div').each(function(index)
{
currentlyBiggest = $(document).getBiggest($(this), currentlyBiggest);
});
$('div').height(currentlyBiggest);
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div id="column1"><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 id="column2"><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></div>
<div id="column3"><p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</p></div>
</body>
</html>

Cross-browser minimum-height

Of course, so many things require hacks to work on all browsers. It's been the way of the web world for years. Actually since the emergence of IE. The example also points to a new trend in my designs to use em for sizing things other than just fonts.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Cross-browser minimum-height</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
}
section
{
margin:0 auto;
width:50em;
background:#FF0000;
color:#FFFFFF;

/* The minimum height stuff */
min-height:10em;
height:auto !important;
height:10em;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<section>
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
</section>
</body>
</html>

Monday, 25 October 2010

Centre a DIV, interpret font sizes and snipplr

I have been subscribed to http://snipplr.com recently. It's very good. It's a sort of social networking site for coders. Below are a couple examples of things I got from the site this morning contained in the same page. The first technique is how to centre a DIV inside another DIV. Very useful.
The second technique is to set the font size within the body CSS body reference to 62.5%. The result is that when you apply font-size:1em later, this translates to 10px. font-size1.2em is equal to 12px etc. Very useful too.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Centre a DIV inside a DIV</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
font-size:62.5%;
}
#outer
{
margin:0 auto;
width:800px;
background:#000000;
}
#inner
{
   width:50%;
   margin:auto;
   background:#FF0000;
}
p
{
  font-size:1.2em;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div id="outer">
<div id="inner"><p>Hello World!</p></div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Thursday, 21 October 2010

Using jQuery corners and simple grids to begin interesting layouts

Here, I have taken techniques from 2 of my previous posts to create a layout. It doesn't look great, but you should be able to see the potential. I have once again, used the jQuery rounded corners plugin at http://jquery.malsup.com/corner/

See demo.

Copy and paste the code into a HTML file...

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Simple Layout #14</title>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<style type="text/css">
*
{
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
body
{
margin:0 auto;
width:800px;
margin-top:100px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
.twoCol
{
float:left;
width:398px;
}
.boundry
{
height:100px;
}
.content
{
height:200px;
}
.left
{
background:#FF9200;
}
.right
{
background:#000000;
}
.first
{
margin-left:0;
clear:left;
}
h1, p
{
padding-left:20px;
padding-right:20px;
}
h1
{
font-size:5em;
}
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://github.com/malsup/corner/raw/master/jquery.corner.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('#tl').corner('cc:#FF9200 tl 100px');
$('#br').corner('cc:#000000 br 100px');
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div class="left twoCol first boundry"></div><div id="tl" class="right twoCol boundry"></div>
<div class="left twoCol first content">
<h1>This is my title</h1>
</div>
<div class="right twoCol content">
<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 id="br" class="left twoCol first boundry"></div><div class="right twoCol boundry"></div>
</body>
</html>

jQuery Text Shadows

The latest text-shadow attributes of course, don't work in IE. There is a way of producing text shadows without using images and that is through a jQuery plugin. You can get the plugin from here http://justinshearer.com/solidShadow/
It's not subtle. There is no opacity, but if you are careful about the width, direction and colours of your shadow, the appearance is very useable. Here is an example of how to use it...

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Text Shadows</title>
<style type="text/css">
h1
{
text-align: center;
font-size: 8em;
}
</style>
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script src="http://justinshearer.com/solidShadow/jquery.solidShadow.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('h1').solidShadow('inline','#000000','#CCCCCC','right',3);
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Header 2</h1>
</body>
</html>

jQuery rounded corners

Until recently I had been using CSS3 Pie from http://css3pie.com/ to add such things as rounded corners and drop shadows to elements of my pages. I was adding some rounded corners today to boxes on a website. I checked that they would be working in IE and D'oh! No rounded corners. So, I went in search of something which would work and after several tests of different hacks, plugins and scripts, I finally found this one at http://jquery.malsup.com/corner/ which works very well, so I'm sticking with it for now....

See demo.

Below is an example of how to use it.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>jQuery Corners</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
}
.myBox
{
background:#FF0000;
width:200px;
margin:10px;
padding:10px;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://github.com/malsup/corner/raw/master/jquery.corner.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('.myBox').corner();
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<div class="myBox">
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Basic font stack

Here is an example of a basic font stack using tried and tested design principles. They are a great start to a web design. Essentially, all you would need to do for your own site is change the font-family references with the CSS to fonts you like and you are away. Then you can start addressing colour, but the sizes are a good idea to keep, maybe just play with the overall font-size within the body declaration. Have fun!

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Font stack Using Design Principles</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
margin:0 auto;
   width:800px;
   line-height:140%;
   font-size:85%;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4
{
   font-family:Georgia, Times New Roman, Times, serif;
   font-weight:normal;
}
h1, h2
{
   text-transform:uppercase;
}
h1
{
   font-size:5em;
}
h2
{
   font-size:4em;
}
h3
{
   font-size:3em;
}
h4
{
   font-size:2em;
}
p, blockquote, strong, ul, ol, input, small, span
{
   font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
   font-style: normal;
   font-variant: normal;
   font-weight:normal;
   letter-spacing:0.1em;
}
blockquote
{
   text-indent: -0.8em;
   font-size: 1.5em;
}
p
{
   font-size: 1.25em;
   margin-top: 1.25em;
   margin-bottom: 1.25em;
}
input
{
   font-size: 1.0em;
}
small
{
   font-size: 0.75em;
}
span
{
   font-style: italic;
}
strong
{
   font-variant:small-caps;
}
p.justified
{
   text-align:justify;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Heading 1</h1>
<h2>Heading 2</h2>
<h3>Heading 3</h3>
<h4>Heading 4</h4>
<p>Pellentesque habitant morbi <small>tristique senectus et netus et malesuada</small> 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>
<p class="justified">Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. <strong>Vestibulum tortor quam,</strong> 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>
<blockquote>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</blockquote>
<ul>
   <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>
   <li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>
   <li>Vestibulum auctor dapibus neque.</li>
</ul>
<ol>
   <li>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit.</li>
   <li>Aliquam tincidunt mauris eu risus.</li>
   <li>Vestibulum auctor dapibus neque.</li>
</ol>
</body>
</html>

Simple Grid Layout #2

I have extended the simple grid layout here to include rows of differing sizes within columns.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Simple Grid Layout 2</title>
<style type="text/css">
body
{
margin:0 auto;
width:800px;
font-family:sans-serif;
}
.oneCol, .twoCol, .threeCol
{
float:left;
margin-left:20px;
}
.oneCol
{
width:780px;
}
.twoCol
{
width:380px;
}
.threeCol
{
width:247px;
}
.threeCol.first
{
width:246px;
}
.first
{
margin-left:0;
clear:left;
}
.row
{
background:#CCCCCC;
margin-bottom:20px;
height:20px;
}
.twoRowHeight
{
height:60px;
}
.threeRowHeight
{
height:100px;
}
</style>
</head>
<body><br />
<div class="twoCol first">
<div class="row">Column 1 of 2 columns. Row 1.
</div>
<div class="row">Column 1 of 2 columns. Row 2.
</div>
</div>
<div class="twoCol">
<div class="row">Column 2 of 2 columns. Row 1.
</div>
<div class="row">Column 2 of 2 columns. Row 2.
</div>
</div>
<div class="oneCol first">
<div class="row">Column 1 of 1 column. Row 1.
</div>
</div>
<div class="threeCol first">
<div class="row">Column 1 of 3 columns. Row 1.
</div>
<div class="row">Column 1 of 3 columns. Row 2.
</div>
<div class="row">Column 1 of 3 columns. Row 3.
</div>
</div>
<div class="threeCol">
<div class="row">Column 2 of 3 columns. Row 1.
</div>
<div class="row twoRowHeight">Column 2 of 3 columns. Row 2.
</div>
</div>
<div class="threeCol">
<div class="row threeRowHeight">Column 3 of 3 columns. Row 1.
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Applying Social Bookmark Links to your website

I wanted to create more links to my website for SEO purposes. To make it easy for people to add links to my website from social networks. I wanted to do this with the minimum amount of coding and updating. I therefore used http://www.addthis.com/
All I had to do was create an account (which was free).
Click on the "Get Your Button", button.
Copy the code.
Paste it into an appropriate location in my web page.

The code looks something like this :


<div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style">
<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=yourusername" class="addthis_button_compact">Share</a>
<span class="addthis_separator">|</span>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_1"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_2"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_3"></a>
<a class="addthis_button_preferred_4"></a>
</div>
<script type="text/javascript">var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true};</script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#username=yourusername"></script>

I did 2 things beyond this. I created a div wrapper around it thus:
<div id="socialWrapper">

<a href="http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250&username=yourusername" class="addthis_button_compact">Share</a>

</div>

</div>

I then, applied some style to my wrapper in the stylesheet thus:

#socialWrapper

{

position:fixed;

top:0px;

right:1%;

background:#FFFFFF;

}

This way, the social bookmarks would always appear at the top right of my browser window and would not clash with the page content.

See demo.

Monday, 18 October 2010

Cross browser rotating divs using jQuery

Below, I have used the jQuery plugin called rotate at http://code.google.com/p/jquery-rotate/
Normally, I like to refer to these online, but for some reason, it didn't work, so you'll have to download it as I have done in the example below. Another unfortunately, is that I had to create a wrapper for IE. The code is still quite small.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang=”en”>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Rotate text</title>
<style>
body
{
font-family:Sans-serif;
}
#wrapper
{
margin:0 auto;
width:300px;
height:300px;
}
#container
{

width:200px;
height:200px;
background:#FF0000;
color:#FFFFFF;
border:2px solid #000000;
}
</style>
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi"></script>
<script>
google.load("jquery", "1");
google.load("jqueryui", "1");
</script>
<script src="scripts/jquery.rotate.js"></script>
<script>
$(document).ready(function()
{
$('#container').css('rotate',6.1);
});
</script>
</head>
<body>
<br /><br />
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="container">
<h1>Hello World!</h1>
</div>
</div>
</body>
</HTML>