Mick Redman

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>