Archive for the ‘Web Development Articles’ Category

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Self-executing functions in JavaScript

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

In Ryan Florence’s excellent post comparing jQuery’s approach to Mootools’, he makes a number of interesting comparisons about each framework’s approach.

One area where jQuery provides an elegant solution is its use of anonymous functions to set DOM properties, as shown in the following snippet.

This is something that I certainly missed when working with Mootools, but fortunately there’s an easy, quick solution.

Ryan proposes the use of the setEach plugin to solve this issue, but to me, this doesn’t seem necessary. You can work around the issue by using a function that executes immediately, as follows.

The key here is the extra pair of parentheses after the function definition, which forces the function to execute straight away. Simple, quick, and it gives the same functionality as the jQuery equivalent without having to add the overhead of a plug in.

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jQuery plugin to show and hide vertical menus

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

It’s very common for us to show and hide vertical menus when developing sites. This idiom is particularly common on sites with a lot of submenus, such as e-commerce shopping carts.

Since it’s a technique we use so frequently, we decided to write a little jQuery plugin to make life easier for ourselves. This plugin takes nested unordered lists and turns them into expandable and contractable menus.

The plugin has the following features:

  • Dual licenced under GPL / MIT licences – do what you want with this code (as long as you leave the licence intact!)
  • Lightweight (~2Kb packed)
  • Keyboard accessible, basic WAI-ARIA support. Usable with JavaScript switched off.
  • Easy to use and deploy
  • Configurable through CSS, callback functions and numerous options

Please note that this plugin optionally uses of Klaus Hartl‘s excellent jquery.cookie.js plugin.

You can download the plugin here, and view the docs, and an example here.

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So you’ve got an idea for a website?

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

If you have a idea for a website and an off-the-shelf system just won’t cut it, you might be in need of bespoke web development. As specialists in this field, we talk to a great many people who have ideas for online businesses, and in this article, I’d like to outline some points to help you get the most from your development experience, and your business.

Treat your online business like an offline business

“Information technology and business are becoming inextricably interwoven. I don’t think anybody can talk meaningfully about one without the talking about the other.” – Bill Gates

Before you even think about beginning development, it’s essential to research the market thoroughly, and one of the best ways to formalise this process is to write a business plan.

A business plan will encourage you to think about your business objectives and strategies, the markets in which it will operate, and its financial projections. In doing this, you’ll spot potential pitfalls earlier, and be better able to plan the future of the business. (And perhaps even decide whether you will proceed with the business or not!)

Once you’ve completed your business plan, it’s a good idea to gather feedback from neutral parties (in other words, not family members!) Banks, investors, and business partners are all good sources of feedback at this stage.

Most importantly, think about your unique selling point. What problem will your website solve? What can you do that your competitors can’t? These are age-old questions, and they are just as important when doing business online.

In addition, it’s a good idea to prepare everything you need to launch well in advance. Imagery, content, and stock all need to be readied prior to launch, as do any payment gateways. Make sure you’re ready to kick-off your website with a bang, just as you would launch a bricks-and-mortar business with a bang.

KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid!

“A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

The most successful websites have simplicity at their heart. Think about two obvious examples, Google and Twitter.


Although these sites offer some very complex functionality, their core actions could be described in a couple of sentences. This has an effect on the interface – key actions are thrust to the forefront of the user’s attention, giving the impression that the site is easy to use.

By keeping your application simple, you will also reduce development time, and therefore keep development costs low. So when you’ve thought about all the functionality you would like for your site, go through that wishlist again and cut out anything that doesn’t directly and obviously benefit the user. Be brutal – it can always be added at a later date if your users need it.

Also, reconsider any internal features that could be dropped to reduce costs while the business is starting up. For example, you might want your web site to integrate with an accounting package, but if you are only anticipating a couple of orders each week, could this data be migrated manually? If this feature could be rolled out at a later date, that’s money in your pocket right now that you can invest in marketing your website.

Whatever you do, be aware of the ‘kitchen sink’ mentality and avoid it!

Launch early, launch often

“I like to launch early and often. That has become my mantra” – Marissa Mayer (Google)

Some of the biggest and most successful companies espouse launching early and often. This means that websites and applications are launched as early as possible, even if some features are not in place. The main benefit of this is that you gain invaluable feedback at an early stage, allowing you to tweak your product based on what your user actually wants – not what you think they want.

Again, this mindset helps to reduce costs since you don’t spend time developing features that your users don’t…well…use!

Think about your post-launch strategy

“Business has only two functions – marketing and innovation.” – Milan Kundera

A common mistake is to consider your website ‘finished’ once it has launched. From online marketing to developing new features, you should always be thinking about how you can provide a better service for your users. Look at what your competitors are doing on a regular basis – think about what works for them and what doesn’t work for them.

Remember that these activities cost money, so don’t spend every penny of your budget before your site has launched.

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jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide review

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

In the interests of full disclosure, Packt Publishing sent me a copy of this book for me to review. There was no other compensation received for this review. I am reviewing this book for the benefit of the blog readers.

The recent release of jQuery 1.4 brought a plethora of new features and major performance improvements across the board. At the same time, the new jQuery API site was launched in an effort to improve the documentation and community spirit. Make no mistake, 1.4 is a milestone release for jQuery.

To mark this, Karl Swedberg and Jonathan Chaffer have released the jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide, an exhaustive tour of the functionality that jQuery 1.4 offers. There are eleven chapters, covering selectors, DOM traversal and manipulation, events, effects, AJAX, plug-ins, and more. In addition, there’s an alphabetical API reference guide and a couple of really useful appendixes providing lots of handy information.

As I mentioned above, each chapter groups together jQuery methods with a common theme. There are helpful code samples for each method, and they are explained thoroughly in the accompanying text. Occasionally, performance tips are mentioned, but as the book stresses early on, you shouldn’t worry too much about micro-optimizing code – your time as a developer is more valuable than that!

So who is this book aimed at? Well, as the name suggests, this is a reference guide. A familiarity with jQuery syntax is essential, and in some areas, a decent knowledge of vanilla JavaScript will be beneficial too. Although there are hints and tips peppered throughout the book, this is no tutorial book. If you’re not familiar with jQuery, you should pick up Learning jQuery instead, by the same authors.

As such, I would recommend this to the intermediate to advanced jQuery user. You will almost certainly learn something from the book, and a reference guide always comes in handy! Some of the major points I picked up were:

  • Many jQuery methods accept anonymous functions as parameters now – this is a really clean, practical way of writing code
  • There are more ways to measure elements than I realised – I knew about .height() and .width(), but not .innerHeight(), .outerHeight() etc. This has caused me problems in the past!
  • The Sizzle selector engine is really, really powerful and I’m not using it to its full potential.

The downside of a book like this is that it dates relatively quickly. For example, jQuery 1.4.2 introduced two methods – .delegate() and .undelegate() – which are not covered in the book. There’s no getting around this when the library itself is under heavy development, but it’s something that you should be aware of if you’re considering purchasing.

I also spotted one error  that I reported at the publisher’s website, so if you do purchase this book, you should keep an eye on the errata there.

However, if you’re looking for a jQuery reference guide, this is the book to own. The publishers will donate to the jQuery project for every copy of the book sold and you will learn something from this book, so it’s a win-win situation! The jQuery Reference Guide is on sale now, with a cover price of £24.99.

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jQuery UI 1.7 – The User Interface library for jQuery – reviewed

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

jQuery UI 1.7 by Dan Wellman

jQuery UI 1.7 by Dan Wellman

jQuery UI is the official interface library for jQuery, the leading JavaScript framework. Dan Wellman‘s book, jQuery UI 1.7 – The User Interface library for jQuery, is intended to be the ‘missing manual’ – fleshing out the online documentation with examples, tutorials, and an in-depth look at the API. The book is supported by many great code samples, which are available at Packt’s support site.

There are thirteen chapters in total, covering the high-level widgets (such as the accordion) and low-level widgets (such as the draggable and droppable interaction helpers.) In addition, the CSS and effects frameworks are covered too.

No knowledge of jQuery UI is assumed, although it is expected that the reader will have a decent grasp of HTML, CSS, and jQuery. The book is pitched at the beginner to intermediate level jQuery UI user, although I would think that even advanced users will find that it contains valuable information.

The structure of each chapter is similar. Starting with the most basic example to get you up and running, more options are gradually introduced to give you a greater level of control, with plenty of code samples to help you along. Most chapters finish with a more advanced scenario, showing some really imaginative uses in which jQuery UI shines. For example, the drag and drop chapter walks the reader through creating a simple game.

The book also takes the time to describe some of the rare occasions where cross-browser issues might rear their heads, along with the fixes. It would have been easy for the author to skip past those parts, but I appreciated this honest approach. It may not be the sexiest subject matter, but it’s something that we as web developers deal with on a day-to-day basis, so it was great to see it tackled in the book.

One of the major strengths of jQuery UI is its online documentation; there are several examples for each widget, and options and methods are well documented. I was initially a little concerned about what the book could add to this, but my concerns were unfounded. Every chapter revealed methods and options that I had missed, along with examples that used the library in ways I would never have thought of.

One of the biggest revelations to me was the chapter relating to the CSS framework. Although I’d used Themeroller before, I’d never appreciated the full extent to which it can be used, creating a consistent look and feel throughout your site and containing many valuable helper classes.

One area where I would have liked to see some information is that of extending jQuery UI. I would have liked to have read about writing your own widgets, inheriting from $.widget, but I appreciate that this would probably be out of scope for this type of book.

Although jQuery UI 1.8 is just round the corner, I would have no hesitation in recommending this book. There is a wealth of information here, and it is presented in such a way that the reader is given a real understanding of the library, meaning that you won’t have any problems when the next version rolls along. In fact, if you read this book now, you’ll be well prepared for all the goodies that 1.8 contains!

So if you’re looking for a jQuery UI book, you should definitely check this one out!

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Serving html5 videos with Apache

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Just a quick tip today – the solution to a bit of a ‘gotcha’!

While writing the jCaps plugin, we came up against an issue where .ogv videos were refusing to load, but bizarrely, only in Firefox. In its place was a grey box where the video should be, with a question mark in the middle.

After a little bit of head-scratching, we found the solution – Apache wasn’t sending the right MIME type with the video, resulting in a Firefox fail. The solution is to put the following AddType directive in your .htaccess or httpd.conf file (mod_mime is required):

AddType video/ogg .ogv

Make sure that you restart Apache if you put it in httpd.conf.

On another note, jCaps is nearing another release – hopefully this week. It will take into account some of Bruce Lawson’s wishlist, and includes a big refactoring of many elements of the plugin, including the API. It should be leaner, meaner, and easier to use! In the meantime, you can fork or download the project at Github.

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Atwood’s Law and browser features

Friday, February 19th, 2010

“Any application that can be written in JavaScript, will eventually be written in JavaScript.” – Jeff Atwood

Wednesday’s blog post introducing the jCaps plugin (which aims to provide accessible captions for HTML5 videos) sparked an interesting discussion with John Foliot on Twitter the other night.

John brought to my attention the WAI’s Media TextAssociations specification, which will tell browsers how to associate alternative content with rich media, such as video. Little did I know that while I was developing a “home-made JavaScript solution” (which the spec is specifically designed to counteract), the task force was carrying out a meeting to move the spec forward to the testing and implementation stage.

If there’s a W3C endorsed spec which will handle the issue, then great! My concern, though, is the length of time it will take for the specification to be implemented by browser manufacturers. Even if we’re only months away from a spec, it could be much longer until it is reliably implemented.

So in a similarly self-aggrandising way, I’d like to propose McCollum’s law: “If a browser feature which should exist, doesn’t, someone will write a javascript implementation.”

Witness the excellent jQuery UI library. HTML5 provides a datepicker element, a slider element, and native drag and drop functionality, but until these elements are natively supported across the majority of browsers, we’re stuck with home-made JavaScript.

Finding the right compromise between pragmatism and idealism is essential for modern web development.

What are your thoughts? How do you find a balance? Should jCaps development proceed, or should we wait until standards catch up?

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jCaps – easier html5 video captions with jQuery

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

It’s been a good year so far for html5 video. You might have noticed that YouTube and Vimeo have introduced their own player, and with the iPad’s lack of flash support, we are likely to see the tag used in more and more places, at least as an option alongside Flash.

Bruce Lawson of Opera recently showed off a proof-of-concept subtitling system for html5 video. It’s a great concept, and I’m happy to present the work I’ve done on the subject, turning it into a jQuery plugin, with a few extra enhacements. I hope that doing this will provide an easy API for front-end-developers.

Check out the demonstration here.

The latest version has the following features:

  • Multiple language support
  • Public methods to show, hide, or toggle captions
  • Ability to show full transcript in the selected language

The HTML

Make sure you’re using the HTML5 Doctype. Link to the stylesheet, jQuery and the plugin as below:

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<link href="jcapstyles.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4.1/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="jquery.jcap.js"></script>
</head>

Next, embed the video in the page, doing something like the following. I’m using Bruce’s slightly silly sample video here, since it has a multi-language transcription already!


<video id="myVid" width="400" src="http://www.360innovate.co.uk/blog/leverage-a-synergy.ogv" autobuffer controls>
<p>This page is to demonstrate open HTML5 video, so if you're not using a browser that can display the open Ogg Theora codec, there's not much to see. Sorry!</p>
</video>

Finally, create the transcript HTML.


<div id="transcripts">
<div lang="en">
<p>
<span data-begin=1 data-end=6>Hi, my name's Dr Archimedes Einstein and I'm a Doctor of Science at the University of Science</span>
</p>
<div/>
<div/>

Note that you must give the child div a ‘lang’ attribute.

The JavaScript

This is where the action happens. First, pass an anonymous function to jQuery to execute as a callback for when the document is ready. Then, call the jCaps plugin, with an object literal as a parameter. You should pass the following as a bare minimum, but there are other options that can be passed – see the code file for details.


$(function(){
$("#myVid").jCaps({
transcriptsDiv: $('#transcripts'),
language: $('select[name="changeLang"]').val()
});
})

Note that you must pass a transcripts div as a bare minimum. This will hide the transcripts div from view. By default, captions are not shown. You can switch it on by attaching the following methods to a click event on a button, or link for example:


$('#toggleCaptions').click(function(){
$('#myVid').jCaps.toggle();
});


$('#switchOn').click(function(){
$('#myVid').jCaps.switchOn();
});


$('#switchOff').click(function(){
$('#myVid').jCaps.switchOff();
});

switchOff() and switchOn() should be self-explanatory; toggle() will show the captions if they are hidden, and vice-versa.

You can change the language of the captions by calling the switchLanguage method:

$('select[name="changeLang"]').change(function(){
$('#myVid').jCaps.switchLanguage('ja');
});

There is one final public method at present: swapOut(). This shows the full transcript in the selected language when activated.


$('#transcript').click(function(){
$('#myVid').jCaps.swapOut();
});

That’s it! You can view the demonstration here.

Please note that this is very experimental, and might change or break at any time. You can download the source at github, and of course I would welcome any feedback or pull requests. Credit for the original script goes to Bruce Lawson, Philip Jägenstedt, and Daniel Davis.

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How we built 360innovate.co.uk

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

As you might be aware, we recently re-launched the 360innovate website. We thought that some of the geekier blog readers out there might be interested in the technologies we used to put the site together!

The 360innovate website marked a departure for us; it was the first website that we have built using Django, the Python based web framework. We’ve built many, many sites using PHP, so why did we decide to change that for this development?

Put simply, Django is a joy to work with. It combines superb flexibility with out-of-the-box features to provide a great platform to use as a base for bespoke web development. It espouses a DRY philosophy – “don’t repeat yourself” – which means that changes to the site can be quickly programmed and rolled out.

It also saves a great deal of time on back-end development, as it comes with an admin area that is totally customizable to the users’ needs. This means that more time and effort can be redirected to the front-end development – where the spit and polish provides a great end-user experience.

Speaking of the front-end, we once again used jQuery, jQuery UI, and a sprinkling of Flash to provide the interface for the site.

This combination of technologies wouldn’t necessarily be used for every project that we take on, but where it’s appropriate to do so, it allows us to provide a better site within the same budget.

So if you’re thinking about a bespoke web development project, please get in touch!

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Small changes, big results

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Back in 2008 we published a blog post on making your company recession proof with SEO and for 2010 we are going to keep the momentum going. Last year saw the demise of some big brands including Woolworths, FlyGlobeSpan, Zavvi and Borders; the B2B and SME’s were no different with many closures and struggles endured throughout the year of 2009.

Going forward in 2010 we at 360innovate are looking forward to working with new and existing clients helping them to create economies, increase sales and beat the recession using the opportunities available on the Internet.

In the past year we have helped a variety of businesses streamline their sales process and increase customer satisfaction helping them to save and make money. In one instance we developed an event booking and management system for a large organisation who had previously managed the booking of events offline through a form submission process. The new online booking system has saved our client money by allowing them to direct resources previously wasted on event administration to other areas of the organisation and its simple application process has resulted in an increase in the number of attendees at events.

This simple yet efficient addition to an existing website has helped to make life easier for our client and by making things easier for the customer it has paid for itself. Small changes can go a long way and in many cases a lack of time or knowledge will prevent people from seeking out a solution instead settling to carry on with a website which is not working to its full capacity and in these difficult times, when everyone is penny watching, we need to ensure that every aspect of your business is operating at it’s best.

So for 2010 take a look at your website and ask yourself whether you are getting the most you possibly can from it. Do you feel you should be; getting better sales, spending less time managing it, updating it on a more regular basis or integrating it more into the overall marketing mix? As well as this consider asking a friend, colleague or customer what their thoughts of the website are. Don’t be scared of any negative feedback; modifying or enhancing your website doesn’t have to be expensive. From enhancing the usability of your website, integrating mobile technology, refreshing the graphics to a one off email campaign… these are all small things which can pack a big punch and can be tailored to suit every budget helping you to make 2010 the year we beat the recession.

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