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CSS Compatibility and Internet Explorer

IE over the versions is getting better with supporting CSS but it always seems to fall short or at very least doesn't try to push itself too much.

With that Microsoft have released a document stating which version of Internet Explorer (back to IE5) supports which rules, combinators, selectors, etc.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc351024(VS.85).aspx

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My blog has moved

Please update your bookmarks and feeds for my site.

I now have a Mango Blog at:

http://www.andyjarrett.com/blog

Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/andyjarrett

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Creating a new DOM element with jQuery

I've been using jQuery for a while now keep meaning to blog about the little bits I use often. One is creating a DIV object on the fly and loading content in to it.

view plain print about
1$(document).ready(function(){
2    // Your URL of the page to be loaded
3    u = "/index.cfm?event=contactme";
4
5    // We're creating a div element to load the URL contents into
6    div = $("<div>");
7
8    // When the element is displayed at first we could leave it blank
9    // or a loading image, or in this case the wording loading......
10    div.html("Loading......");
11
12    // We now load our file and inject it into the DOM.
13    div.load(u);
14
15    // With the DIV getting its content we need to put the DOM on the page
16    // and in to the body. $.prepend will put our content at the top of
17    // of the <body>
18    $("body").prepend(div);
19})

Instead of having "Loading...." being displayed you can delay showing the content of the DIV until loading is completed.

view plain print about
1// Your URL of the page to be loaded
2    u = "/index.cfm?event=contactme";
3
4    // We're creating a div element to load the URL contents into
5    div = $("<div>");
6
7    // We now load our file and inject it into the DOM.
8    div.load(u);
9    
10    // By default we're going to hide the DIV until the content is loaded
11    div.hide();
12
13    // Before the DIV gets its content we need to put the DOM on the page
14    // and in to the body. $.prepend will put our content at the top of
15    // of the <body>. But this will be hid.
16    $("body").prepend(div);
17
18
19    // Now we load the content into the DOM and as a CALLBACK function
20    // we SLIDEDOWN the div. This could be FADEIN or something else.
21    div.load(u, {limit: 25}, function(){
22        div.slideDown();
23    });

Both sets of code will load on document ready. Usually I tie this kind of process to a click event to load in a page dynamically when needed.

Also don't forget you can chain these methods too and cut down on code. Taking the first example it could be written as:

view plain print about
1u = "/index.cfm?event=hermes.contactSeller";
2    div = $("<div>").html("Loading......").load(u);
3    $("body").prepend(div);

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Minify your Javascript and CSS

I've just came across scriptalizer.com which is well worth sharing with all.

This site takes your multiple CSS files or Javascript files and compresses them into just one file.

So your CSS goes from:

view plain print about
1<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style/longstylesheet.css" type="text/css" />
2<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style/anotherlongstylesheet.css" type="text/css" />

to:

view plain print about
1<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style/scriptalizer.css" type="text/css" />

Or your Javascript from:

view plain print about
1<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery/jquery.js"></script>
2<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/jquery/jquery.form.js"></script>
3<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/myOwnScriptFile.js"></script>

to this:

view plain print about
1<script type="text/javascript" src="/js/scriptalizer.js" ></script>

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Eclipse local help system

Update: This appears to be on a different port for others. As Jax pointed out you can go: Eclipse, select Help -> Help contents to get there as well :o)

I was just going into some help files of Aptana when I came across the local address for the Eclipse Help system at: http://127.0.0.1:58041/help/index.jsp

In there was a wealth of information I just didn't know was on my hard drive ... though I suppose it depends on what plug-in's you've got installed but for me I had:

[More]

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CSS Layout techniques

Anyone who has read my blog for a while will know that I like changing it around. I've tried alot of different CSS techniques over the past few years but when it comes to tried and tested layouts check out Glish.

Layouts covered inclue:

http://www.glish.com/css/

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Open source CSS template sites

More of a reference than anything else but below is a list of sites that offer FREE, open source, css website templates - and good ones too!

Check out more about these sites and the shake ups that have gone on in the Wikipedia

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Will the browser apply the CSS rule(s) you want!

If you are a developer and designer, or generally just do a lot of CSS this will be helpful!

http://centricle.com/ref/css/filters/

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Browser Incompatibility

A friend was asking me about web developing coming from a design background and what limitations you have to face. They had done a lovely design using font X which only for a specific platform and wanted to know why I couldn't put it on the website in the same format. I worded a lengthy (for me) reply about the issue and thought someone else might find it helpful.

In regards to the typeface a particular font will only appear in a readers browser if they have that font installed on their computer. A prime example is Helvetica which is only available to Mac users. To get around this, the best idea is to use common fonts and group them together by similarities across different platforms i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux etc. Because of this restriction you are limited to what fonts you can use for text which is why typeface will appear different.

When developing a website you must remember that though you might have a Mac and your browser is Safari that doesn't mean that you end user(reader) has got the same set-up and that is were lies some restrictions in formatting. Browser incompatibility and display differences really comes from:

  • Different Browsers
  • Different Browser Versions
  • Different Computer Types
  • Different Screen Sizes
  • Different Font Sizes

Because of this you really want to make sure you have access to the following browsers on the follow platforms:

Platforms:
Windows, Mac, Linux (though I tend to worry least about Linux)

Browsers: Internet Explorer, version 6,7
FireFox, version 1.5 upwards
Opera, version 8 upwards
Safari, version 2 upwards

Now before anyone says anything about my site not being 100% compatible, I don't really care. Not to be harsh, but I don't have the time to make sure everyone in every format can read this. I presume that if you are reading my site you are a tech head and have access to at least one descent browser/platform combo.

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Change Link Color Via Javascript

Im playing around with a pure HTML site recently (no server side tech at all) and OMG how akward is the simple stuff. To make my life a little more easier I have been using Dreamweaver's templates which make managing layouts easier especially when you have forgotten a navigation link.

One thing I have been trying to do is change the colour of a selected navigation link. i.e. The navigation links are all blue except for the link to the section you are currently in which is white. I was about to do this with DWMX templates conditional statements, which can get a little messy, and awkard when putting them inline to change the href class atrribute. Doing this with CFMX or PHP is simple and thats what I wanted.

[More]

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Firefox allows refresh in source view

Now and then, mainly when im creating huge forms I get CF to generate HTML.

The process is usually simple

[More]

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Your site through the eyes of a web spider

This site give the chance to see exactly how a spider will see your site when it crawls through.

It also give you a chance to break down the data into the following categories

  • Page title
  • Meta keywords
  • Headers
  • Total and unique word counts
    • Case-insensitize words
    • Ignore words with numbers
    • Ignore common words
  • Display word list
    • with Count
    • with Keyword Density
    • Ignore common words

Via [Foget Foo]

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Scrutinize your site

Site to me by a friend The Scrutinizer allows you to analyze your site against validators, Accessibility, Alternate Access, site access and load times, Browser Compatibility etc etc.

From the site:"Rather than creating direct links to various validators and link analyzers, one link can be used to submit to all of them. It simplifies the task of figuring out which application needs what type of URL (Domains only/HTTP/No HTTP) and also saves time and space by freeing up the code from unneccessary URLs."

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Css, Js and <tr>

Why is it the simple css/xhtml code takes the longest problems to solve sometimes.

I've been creating a table and for each table row there is a hidden row (<tr>) which spans the 13 columns. The idea is that when you click on the row the table expands to shows the hidden <tr> and pull in data via Ajax about that record.

Initially i was using the following css to hide the row

view plain print about
1display:none;

This is fine for IE and Firefox when it comes to hiding a table row but when you then apply "display:block" to bring the row back IE renders it fine, but Firefox doesnt quite get it right. This is because you need to use:

view plain print about
1display:table-row

I've test this in both IE 7 (beta) and FF and all seems fine, I will hopefully try this in some other browsers when I get back home.

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Setting up and using windows HOST file

Host files used in windows to describe many-to-one mapping of device names to IP addresses. Using this file is helpful when developing locally as it allows you to assign the URL of the site to a local IP.

First, find you host file:
Windows NT/2000/XP Pro c:\winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Windows XP Home c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

The HOST file doesn't have an extention and can be opened with notepad.

** Before we go any further make sure you back this up - just in case ***

[More]

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Yahoo! release design components and design pattern librarys

Yahoo! have made available a set of UI components written in Js (AJAX) for use in "richly interactive web applications".

http://developer.yahoo.net/yui/

Also they have released some information on design patterns, which relates back to the UI code

http://developer.yahoo.net/ypatterns/index.php

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SmartFTP ver 2 released

SmartFTP is an excellent, free for personal use FTP client. Not only that, but for £20 ($36), it well worth the purchase too.

Whats new:

  • New GUI (Tabbed Windows, Docking Panes, Full Customization)
  • Workspace Manager
  • Auto Layout for Windows
  • New Local Browser
  • New Remote Browser
  • Automatic Backup of Settings and Data
  • Requirements: Windows 98/ME (Limited Support), Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003, Windows Vista
  • Native 64bit version for Windows x64 Editions

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Website Creation Process

A friendly, photo process diagram of the website creation process
http://www.pingmag.jp/2005/12/09/the-website-development-process/

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Free CSS / Site Templates

Open Source Web Design

Template:css

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1st Page 2006 finally released after 5 years development

After a 6 year wait 1stPage 2006 (previously know as 1st Page 3, 1st Page 2003 etc) has finally made it to a beta release and is available for download here. Sadly though it looks like this has taken too long and missed the boat (It went to beta originally in June 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010630173719/http://www.evrsoft.com/)

After a quick, small download, about 6mb, i installed and opened up the eagerly awaited app only to find bugs all to quickly. I know this is a beta application, and maybe its because of the quality of betas (by Google, Macromedia, Bradsoft) tend to take a lot more abuse to crash. My first crash happened just by initiating the tag insight on a CF tag. The whole application froze, then just closed down. The second crash happened after re-opening and checking out the design mode.

It looks like it might be a nice package, but as a Web IDE DWMX 8 has come too far in terms of stability, speed, and CSS integration. Along with compatibility with other server side languages. And as a coding tool for CF developers CFEclipse is coming on strong and getting better with every release. 1st Page 3/2006 has a long way to go before it has an impact as strong as its predecessor, 1st Page 2000

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