Mick Redman

Wednesday, 19 October 2011

I was forced to find an IE Tester

First post in a long time. I've been very busy.

Normally, by keeping to W3C standards, I can develop a site and then do some tweaks for IE at the end. Recently developed an application in which I tested for IE along the way. Or so I thought. I was in fact, testing in IE8. Not good enough. The application came out a total mess in IE7. This was one particular customers IT Department browser of choice. This seems like a ramble but I'm getting to the point.

I then discovered IE Tester at http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage. This is an excellent tool if you need to view your work in various versions of IE without messing up your existing install. It works stand-alone and also happily access pages delivered by your localhost.

Well done DebugBar!

Friday, 22 July 2011

Use PHP to get the current web address without the filename

Sometimes I need to grab the current web path without the current file name in order to pass a string in an email. As an example the current default location is http://www.effectivewebdesigns.co.uk/index.php, but in the future it may be http://www.effectivewebdesigns.co.uk/index.html or http://www.effectivewebdesigns.co.uk/default.html so sometimes I need to future proof.

<?php
$webAddress = 'http://'.$_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'];
$webAddress .= $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
$webAddress = substr($webAddress, 0, 0-(strlen(basename($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']))));
echo $webAddress;
?>

Lorem and Gibberish through PHP using the randomtext.me JSON API

Crikey! Is it so long since I did a post. OK. Here is yet another way of getting Lorem Ipsum or Gibberish to your page, while you test it out. There is a great generator at http://www.randomtext.me/ and they have helpfully supplied us with a JSON based API.

Below is an example ho grabbing 7 paragraphs of gibberish between 30 and 50 characters long. I then echo them to the page.

<?php
$data = json_decode(file_get_contents("http://www.randomtext.me/api/gibberish/p-7/30-50"));
echo $data->text_out;
?>

Monday, 4 July 2011

SIMPLE LAYOUT #38

This example makes use of the Google Font API, spacing shades of grey. It's not a bad starting position.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
<title>Design Template 38</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/reset.css" />
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Quattrocento&v1' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Oswald&v1' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<style>
body
{
font:0.9em/1.5em 'Quattrocento', arial, serif;
width:60em;
margin:auto;
background:#EEEEEE;
color:#333333;
}
h1, nav
{
font-family:'Oswald', arial, serif;
}
section
{
width:37em;
margin:0 0 0 4em;
}
header, section, aside
{
float:left;
}
aside, footer
{
clear:both;
}
nav
{
float:right;
text-align:center;
margin:0 0 2em 0;
}
aside
{
width:19em;
}
img
{
margin:0 0 0 0;
}
p
{
text-align:justify;
margin-bottom:1em;
}
h1
{
color:#0693E2;
font-size:4em;
text-transform:lowercase;
margin:0.75em 0 0 0;
}
h1 .last-letter
{
color:#AAAAAA;
}
nav a
{
display:block;
float:left;
width:6em;
text-decoration:none;
padding:4.4em 0 0 0;
color:#333333;
}
nav a:hover
{
color:#FFFFFF;
background:#94D5F8;
}
footer
{
padding:1em 0 0 0;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<header><h1>Header <span class="last-letter">1</span></h1></header>
<nav>
<a href="#">home</a>
<a href="#">services</a>
<a href="#">portfolio</a>
<a href="#">contact</a>
</nav>
<aside>
<img src="images/bigl.png" />
</aside>
<section>
<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>
<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>
</section>
<footer><p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</p></footer>
</body>
</html>

Tuesday, 28 June 2011

PHP, JSON basic example using Topsy Otter

Topsy Otter

Otter API is a RESTful HTTP web service to Topsy. Topsy is a search engine that ranks links, photos and tweets by the number and quality of retweets they receive. The quality of retweets is determined by the influence of the Twitter users.

Below I have used PHP to display results of an Otter call which returns JSON. The results are for the most popular stories on wired.com today.

<?php
$data = json_decode(file_get_contents("http://otter.topsy.com/search.json?q=site:wired.com&window=d"));

foreach ($data as $name => $value)

{

echo $value->total.'<br />';

getAllItems($value->list);

}

function getAllItems($iarr)
{
foreach((array)$iarr as $itemName => $itemValue)
{
echo $itemValue->content.'<br />';
}
}
?>

SIMPLE LAYOUT #37

This example makes use of borders and spacing. It's not a bad starting position.

See demo.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge,chrome=1">
<title>Design Template 37</title>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/reset.css" />
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Quattrocento&v1' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<style>
body
{
font:0.96em/1.5em Sans-serif;
width:60em;
margin:auto;
color:#333333;
}
header, nav, section, footer, aside
{
margin:0.5em;
border:0.5em solid #EEEEEE;
}
header, nav, section, footer
{
padding:0.5em;
}
header, section
{
width:36.5em;
}
header, section
{
float:left;
}
nav, aside
{
float:right;
}
section, footer
{
clear:both;
}
nav
{
text-align:center;
width:18em;
height:3em;
padding-top:2em;
background:#94D5F8 url(images/bluefade.png) repeat-x;
}
aside
{
width:19em;
}
img
{
margin:0 0 -0.35em 0;
}
p
{
text-align:justify;
margin-bottom:0.5em;
}
h1
{
color:#0693E2;
font:4em 'Quattrocento', arial, serif;
text-transform:lowercase;
}
h1 .last-letter
{
color:#AAAAAA;
}
nav a
{
margin:0.5em;
text-decoration:none;
color:#FFFFFF;
}
nav a:hover
{
text-decoration:underline;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<br />
<header><h1>Header <span class="last-letter">1</span></h1></header>
<nav>
<a href="#">home</a>
<a href="#">services</a>
<a href="#">portfolio</a>
<a href="#">contact</a>
</nav>
<section>
<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>
<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>
</section>
<aside>
<img src="http://lorempixum.com/291/300/technics" />
</aside>
<footer><p>Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas.</p></footer>
</body>
</html>

PHP, JSON basic example using delicious

Here is an example of extracting and displaying JSON results through PHP. In this instance, I am using my delicious feed.
Having received the data and decoded it into an array, I like to see the structure of the data. This is where the <pre> tags come in handy. Once you have seen the structure, you know how to traverse and pick out the values you need. Given that the code below is so small, I have commented it.

<?php
/* Get the data and put it into an array */
$data = json_decode(file_get_contents("http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/json/guitarbeerchocolate"));

/* Display the structure of the data so that we know what to extract */
/* Comment out once understood */
echo '<pre>';
print_r($data);
echo '</pre>';

/* Traverse the array, picking out the values you need */
foreach ($data as $name => $value)
{
echo $value->u.'<br />';
echo $value->d.'<br />';
getAllItems($value->t);
echo $value->dt.'<br />';
echo $value->n.'<br />';
echo $value->a.'<br />';
}

/* Some values in this case, tags are themselves arrays so traverse those too */
function getAllItems($iarr)
{
foreach($iarr as $item)
{
echo $item.', ';
}
echo '<br />';
}
?>