Mick Redman

Monday, 6 February 2017

How to install less css on Ubuntu

sudo apt install npm
sudo npm install -g less
sudo ln -s /usr/bin/nodejs /usr/bin/node

Monday, 15 August 2016

PHP resize image before base64 encoding

It took me a while to work this out, but it was worth it. base64 encoding can be really useful in presenting and storing images on the web. However you don't want to add a 2000 pixel width base64 encoded image to your database. Here's how to resize the image before it goes in.

<?php
$file = 'mypic.jpg';
$image = imagecreatefromjpeg($file);
$image = imagescale($image , 100);
ob_start();
imagejpeg($image);
$contents = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
$dataUri = "data:image/jpeg;base64,".base64_encode($contents);
echo '<img src="'.$dataUri.'" />';
?>

Wednesday, 10 August 2016

Using jQuery FormData to include files when making POST request

In this example I create a form, with a text, and file input field. When I submit the form, contents from all input fields are submitted through the 'FormData' class. The results from the called script are returned to a div. Finally, the fields are then cleared.
<html>
<head>
   <title>jQuery File Upload</title>
</head>
<body>
   <form action="upload.php" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
       <input type="text" name="myname" />
       <input type="file" name="fileinfo" multiple="" />
       <button type="submit">Submit</button>
   </form>
   <div id="result"></div>
   <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.1.0.min.js"></script>
   <script>
   (function()
   {
       $('form').on('submit', function(e)
       {
           var theDiv = $('div#result');
           var thisForm = $(this);
           var action = thisForm.attr('action');
           var method = thisForm.attr('method');
           $.ajax(
           {
               url: action,
               type: method,
               data: new FormData(this),
               processData: false,
               contentType: false
           }).done(function(datareceived)
           {
               thisForm.find('input, textarea').val('');
               theDiv.html(datareceived);
           });
           e.preventDefault();
       });
   })();
   </script>
</body>
</html>

To test if it works I use upload.php. See
<?php
$str = NULL;
foreach($_FILES as $file)
{
    if(move_uploaded_file($file['tmp_name'], $file['name']) == FALSE)
    {
        $str .= $file['name'].' not uploaded<br />';
    }
}
$str .= '<br />POST items include : <br />';
foreach($_POST as $postitem => $value)
{
    $str .= 'Name : '.$postitem.' Value : '.$value.'<br />';
}
echo $str;
?>

Monday, 25 July 2016

Ratings field within Bootstrap using Font Awesome stars

I looked around for a nice easy rating field using stars. Just like the ones you find on tripAdvisor. All the solutions looked a little CSS or JS heavy and needed images which are more HTTP connections.
So my solution uses only a little CSS, a small amount of jQuery and font-awesome. You'll have to get font-awesome for it to work.
See below.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
    
    <title>Font awesome stars</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-1q8mTJOASx8j1Au+a5WDVnPi2lkFfwwEAa8hDDdjZlpLegxhjVME1fgjWPGmkzs7" crossorigin="anonymous">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="font-awesome/css/font-awesome.min.css" />
    
    <style>
    .star-selected
    {
      color:pink;
    }
    </style>
</head>
<body>
<form method="POST" action="someaction.php">
      <div class="form-group">
        <input type="hidden" name="stars">
        <i class="fa fa-star" aria-hidden="true" value="1"></i>
        <i class="fa fa-star" aria-hidden="true" value="2"></i>
        <i class="fa fa-star" aria-hidden="true" value="3"></i>
        <i class="fa fa-star" aria-hidden="true" value="4"></i>
        <i class="fa fa-star" aria-hidden="true" value="5"></i>
      </div>
      <button type="submit">Submit</button>
    </form>

    
    <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.6/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-0mSbJDEHialfmuBBQP6A4Qrprq5OVfW37PRR3j5ELqxss1yVqOtnepnHVP9aJ7xS" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
    <script>
    (function()
    {
      var theStars = $('form').find('i');
      $('i').on('click', function()
      {
        theStars.removeClass('star-selected');
        var theStarIclicked = $(this);
        var highVal = theStarIclicked.attr('value');
        theStarIclicked.addClass('star-selected');
        $("input[name='stars']").attr('value',highVal);
        theStars.each(function(i)
        {
          if($(this).attr('value') < highVal)
          {
            $(this).addClass('star-selected');
          }
        });
        console.log('Star selected '+$("input[name='stars']").attr('value'));
      });
    })();
    </script>
</body>
</html>

Wednesday, 6 April 2016

jQuery plugin to insert external content

This jQuery plugin takes 2 parameters:

The location of an external website
The element within that location which contains content you would like to insert in yours

See the code here

Wednesday, 23 March 2016

jQuery plugin which takes and receives form data

This jQuery plugin to take all form data, pass it to a named script and return a message to a named HTML element. Particularly good with Twitter Bootstrap.
See the code here.

Use jQuery to handle GET requests in a Twitter Bootstrap page

Today, I created a jQuery plugin. It takes GET requests via apage URL and passes the content to declared HTML elements.
See the code here.