Posts Tagged ‘JavaScript’

Utilizing Google AJAX APIs CDN

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

jqueryWhen using JavaScript libraries to perform a function on a public-facing web site, the traditional way of referencing your library is using something like this:

<script src="/js/jQuery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Here, we are loading a jQuery library in to the HTML header for future use on the web page.  This means each time you want to use the jQuery library (or any other JavaScript library) on your new web site, you must download the latest version, upload it to your server, and then reference it here.  This technique works well enough, but lets explore a better way to perform this same library load.  We’ll do it in a way which will help us with version control, decreased latency, and better caching. How? By utilizing a CDN (content delivery network).

Below is an example on how to go about using the Google AJAX Libraries CDN, using jQuery as the library to load. (more…)

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Google Chrome is at it again

Monday, January 18th, 2010

IEChromeOver the weekend I was researching some new web technologies and stumbled across a new plug-in for Internet Explorer (IE). It’s called Google Chrome Frame, and it solves some big problems in the current development cycle for web apps.

Many people don’t know this, but a lot of time is devoted entirely to making IE (especially older versions) behave properly with W3C standard based browsers (Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera, etc.). This makes developing for the web more complex than it needs to be because most browsers function as you would expect them to. Unfortunately, IE is used by most users across the planet, so the fact that it isn’t based on current standards and behaves oddly isn’t something that we developers can ignore. This is where Google-Chrome-Frame comes to the rescue.

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Build A Better Dialog Box With jQuery

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

dialogboxfailLet’s face it…  JavaScript “alert” notifications are boring and can be annoying.  They are ugly and make ding-y sounds when appearing. However, you still need to notify the user upon certain events.  What is a better way to display a dialog box to web users?  Using  jQuery, of course!

EXAMPLES:

First, let’s have an example of the “old” way of doing things with an alert box.  Click Here

Now, the new hotness example:  Click Here

The script is fairly simple, and requires very little code to implement.  No additional images are required, although they can be added on the DIV for an even more-stylized look. The effect is very smooth in comparison to the traditional alert box.  Also, this event can be applied to nearly any HTML element, including links, divs, images, buttons, etc. (more…)

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Flash Camera

Monday, December 14th, 2009

The Flash plugin is required to view this object.

On a recent project (which will be revealed later this week) we needed to save an image created in a Flash application, using AS3 and PHP. It turned out to be really easy. Here’s how we did it…

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Back to the Basics

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

iStock_000005624791XSmallWe have an intern coming in next week to hang out with us nerds. He’s a highschool student that would like to see what the day to day tasks of a web programmer are. I’ve talked to him about what he will be doing and what to brush up on. Here are a list of sites that I recommended him click through to brush up on some of the basics of the tools that we use. These are in no particular order.

  • HTML Goodies – This site was one of the first that I used to help me understand HTML and JavaScript. A little outdated, but still great for fundamental learning.
  • Tizag PHP Tutorial – Basics of PHP. This website does an amazing job of putting complex concepts into words that everyone can understand.
  • MySQL Introduction – From the MySQL website, an introduction.
  • W3Schools – Straight from the people who make the standards we love and use, you can learn a bunch on their site about the RIGHT way to do things. Topics in PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, jQuery, CSS and XHTML are where you can learn the tools we use.
  • PHP Screncasts – Some good free video screencasts that show you some of the basic aspects of PHP. Buy it for the advanced videos.

There are more places online that can teach you our toolset. Google is great if you know what you are searching for. The internet is a great thing, and can teach you just about anything you want, especially if it relates to computers and programming.

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Google Chrome: Missing JavaScript Event

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

chromeA quick note to any/all web developers out there who read our Code Logic posts:

After battling a weird bug that we couldn’t quite find in Google Chrome, we thought we’d share a little inside information to help you save some time and headaches. While Firefox and other browsers were responding to a call we were making, Chrome just wouldn’t bind the right information to an onclick event. Granted, it was on an element that we don’t usually bind events to, but still.

The element in question was an <option>. Inside of a select box, we had two groups of data and wanted a hidden form field to be updated to a certain value when you choose an option from group A, and a different value when you choose an option from group B. It worked great in other browsers, but not in the latest build of Chrome for Windows.

Just a heads up. Hopefully now you don’t need to lose a bunch of time because your JavaScript isn’t working.

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