Topics About Web Development

Dec 04, 2008 How to style HR elements with decorative horizontal rules

There are many ways to make your online writings accessible and more pleasant to read: multi-tier headings, short paragraphs, justified text alignment, spacious line-height and clean gutter spacing. There is, however, one additional element that always seems to be forgotten when it comes to online publishing: The horizontal rule.

Oct 21, 2008 How to make google video and youtube players W3C Xhtml valid

How to make google video and youtube players W3C Xhtml valid You may have noticed that if you copy the flash embed code from youtube, it is not actually standards-compliant and will break your W3C validation. Here is the proper way to embed google video and youtube videos.

Oct 21, 2008 Shorthand PHP IF statement without the else notation

Shorthand PHP IF statement without the else notation In an earlier post I explained how to do Ternary shorthand if/else statements in PHP. One of the major benefits of using a shorthand if/else statement is that you can use it inline with a string. But what if you only need to do in inline if statement, without the else?

Oct 19, 2008 How to fix var-use-before-def-global PHP5 error within included files

How to fix var-use-before-def-global PHP5 error within included files If you make use of the code analyzer available in many modern IDE environments when coding strictly to PHP5 standards, you may have noticed that you will get errors thrown at you for using variables before they are declared in included files. For example, lets say you have two files, header.php and index.php.

Oct 11, 2008 How to insert text into a textarea where the cursor is

How to insert text into a textarea where the cursor is This javascript function will allow you to easily inject text into a textarea wherever the caret/cursor is currently at. In addition, it also makes sure that the cursor and textarea scroll amount are in the correct place after the insertion. I have tested and verified this works in Firefox, IE7, Opera, Flock, Safari, and Maxthon.

Oct 06, 2008 How to grab thumbnails for youtube and google video

How to grab thumbnails for youtube and google video Today I modified my blog topic listing layout from just a simple link list to a more traditional blog style with a summary for each topic. It was a major improvement but I felt that it was a little too bland and decided that thumbnails of the videos and images contained within each topic would make it more appealing.

Jun 02, 2008 37 Amazing jQuery plugins

37 Amazing jQuery plugins As one of the commenter's reply states, "And again, another 37 reasons I only use jQuery for all UI development." That prett much sums it up! 37 Amazing jQuery Plugins

May 30, 2008 Yahoo web 2.0 stencils for designers

Yahoo web 2.0 stencils for designers Yahoo has released an interesting designer stencil kit that allows you to specifically design around the widgets, dialogs, and tools provided by Yahoo's YUI javascript library.

Feb 29, 2008 Web-safe fonts for linux viewers

As a website developer, one of the first things that I noticed when I switched over to Linux as my primary operating system, is that the default fonts available are quite different than the set I was used to in Windows. This, unfortunately, causes a lot of webpages to render as something resembling a pile of shit.

Feb 22, 2008 How to create Ctrl+Key shortcuts in Javascript

Everybody loves shortcuts, so why should you deny your users of this guilty pleasure when it comes to your javascript-driven web application? Giving your users the ability to execute commands with simple shortcuts can make all the difference in the usability of your application.