Beginnercode.com » General Site Maint

Javascript: Focus() on a textbox

^Lestat — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:09:47 +0000

A dirty way to run js script inline and bring focus to an element:




    
         Login:

Notice that both the form and form element have an ID

Return key doesn’t play nice in web form using Internet Explorer

^Lestat — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 20:40:00 +0000

I ran across an interesting situation where some users of mine were complaining that a form I created “didn’t work”. Kind of strange to get this complaint after almost a full year of operation. I remember testing the xhtml and css design in both firefox and IE browsers and it all checked out. What I didn’t think of checking was the behavior of browsers when one presses the return key. With the help of Fiddler (thanks to Casey Williams for the Fiddler suggestion) this is what I discovered:

	IE	Firefox
Submit Button Clicked	All inputs $_POSTed	All inputs $_POSTed
Return Key Pressed	All inputs $_POSTed except form buttons	All inputs $_POSTed

(For a larger, more detailed image click here)

As you can see, when my IE users were pressing the return key, the button itself was not being $_POSTed. So what right? Well what if you were checking if the submit button was pressed before doing any processing? Like so…

< ?php
if(isset($_POST['button_name'])){
    // validate the user entries...
}
?>

This would fail if the user hit the return key in IE7. I haven’t tested earlier versions.

View the example. Test it in both browsers.

Right now the only thing that was suggested to me was to add a hidden field to mimic the submit button in your form like so:

That works just fine.

From perusing irc and several forums, the only response as to WHY this happens are comments like “It’s IE, what do you expect?”. I’m already annoyed that IE doesn’t think it has to adapt to web standards, but this ont really caught me off guard.

I’m wondering if any readers might have some input on my inputs ;P

Talk like a pirate day 2008

^Lestat — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:46:35 +0000

Ahoy there!
Just a reminder that today is talk like a pirate day! Arggghhh!

All posts and comments for today will be translated in to pirate speak by using the nifty text plugin from Dougal Campbell. It looks like it hasn’t been updated in a while, but it still works. At least in version 2.1.3.

So what are you waiting for people!? Let’s have some fun in the comments!

Screen shots a snap with Vista snip tool

^Lestat — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:50:33 +0000

I was searching my Vista accessories for hyperteminal and stumbled upon a built in screen shot tool in Vista called Snipping Tool. I’m sure to most it’s nothing new, but coming late in the game leaves for more surprises!

You can find it in the start menu -> all programs -> accessories.

By default there is an outline around any window space that you choose to grab. This can be turned off by clearing the check box in the options ->“Show selection ink after snips are captured“.

You can take snips of menus and the like this:

Open Snipping Tool
Press Escape
Navigate to the menu, or start menu area
Press Ctrl + Print Screen (PC)
Use the snip tool

Of course to take screen shots of the snipping tool, I needed to use the old stand by Screen Grab Pro. Otherwise it took a selection of the desktop behind the app.

Technorati Tags: Vista,snip tool,screen shot

Site Upgrades

^Lestat — Fri, 11 May 2007 18:39:06 +0000

I went for it. I upgraded (finally) from WP v1.2 to v2.1. Along with it I chose a new theme for beginner code. I really like that its very symmetrical. I didn’t want to change partly because it’s something different. But why not.

Upgrading Word Press was fairly easy. Just follow the steps outlined at the WP blog.

Then I chose this simple-tech theme from the Word Press Theme viewer. I chose it because it looks easier to tweak for the adsense heat map. It was hard to find themes that I liked visually, that also had a left column out of the box.

Blog Traffic Surfing Sites

^Lestat — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 16:15:31 +0000

I’ve tried a few of these blog traffic surfing sites. Some have been successful. They have given me traffic etc. Some visitors come back again outside of the realm of the ’surf bars’. It’s nice to have a few regular readers. Unfortunately what I haven’t seen from this type of traffic is any affiliate or adsense revenue.

I have noticed some things. I noticed that over at BlogClicker, the credits I receive for surfing have started to ‘lessen’. Over at blogAdvance I’ve had times where my account shows I’ve earned manual credits, but I was unable to transfer them or allocate them in the control panel. The control panel would show I hade none, yet the surf bar would show at least 10 credits. At BlogExplosion I’m pretty pleased.

I haven’t gone one day without winning some mystery credits. The user interface is pretty easy. I was able to assign surfing credits and banner credits intuitively. I’ve voted for blogs in the ‘battle of the blogs’ contest. (I’ve won and lost some of those battles as well). You can even rent your blog, or have your blog rented. The rentor gets a position on another bloggers page for a fee of credits. That also generates some traffic. I saving up my credits for a reputable page to hopfully rent some space. There are many opportunities to gain credits.

Today I received a newsletter from BlogMad. I signed up there after finding out they haven’t launched yet. After all the experiencees I’ve been having, I’m quite curious how well their service will work. I hope it isn’t a letdown. They are promising a 1:1 ratio! The newsletter included some screenshots of the soon to be launched site.

News and main page	Directories
Your referral Page	IRC chat Page

The newsletter also included a list of sites that will be Beta testing. I would really like to be part of that. It would be nice to be able to give input from a ‘users’ point of view. They are including a mascot naming contest which the prize is of course some credits and bragging rights. They are also still accepting signups with bonus credits for referrals. As far as the irc thing goes, I’m not too sure about that. Iv’e seen quite a few channels get taken over. Hopefully that no longer happens. If your still interested in signing up, you can still get in on the early referral credits. Just give the button a click

Blog Traffic With BlogMad

^Lestat — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 18:12:17 +0000

A new service is about to launch similar to the services of Blog Explosion. I’m not quite sure what’s all involved in it. They are allowing free signups right now before the launch, promising credits before the launch. I’ll give it a go and report on it. Click the banner to get in now.

BlogMad, Blog Traffic

Add a puzzle to your site

^Lestat — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 20:55:42 +0000

Thanks to TDavid for finding this cool game at Custom Quizilla!. Have a little fun with this Blog Explosion Puzzle. It’s real easy. You can upload an image, or link to one if you like. Fill in the blanks, and viola! They give you the code to paste!

Puzzle

WP Spam Comment Plugin

^Lestat — Sun, 18 Dec 2005 04:10:19 +0000

So I gave the Battle of the blogs a go over at BlogExplosion. IT was fun. I won some, and lost some. The cool thing was that it definately brought traffic my way. The bad news is that it brought traffic my way. Saturday morning when I logged in, I found 79 comments waiting for moderation. Each and every one was spam. I’ve had comments like that before, but not 79 of them!! It was time for action!

I downloaded and installed Spam Karma 2.0. The install was pretty typical. Unzip the package, and install it in your plugins folder. Then access, and activate it in the plugins screen of the WP manager. I noticed it listed all previous comments that I marked as spam, the date it occurred, and the comment. Honestly, it’s way over my head… but all Iknow is that for now, it works.

Wordpress plugins, comment spam

Book Publishers Sue Google

^Lestat — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 19:20:20 +0000

From InternetWeek –

Google Inc. on Wednesday was sued by a major publishing association for digitizing library books without the permissions of copyright holders, the second such suit filed against the search engine giant

I didn’t even know about Google Print(Still in Beta) until I read this. So I went and checked it out. It pretty much looks and works like the google web search, except it searches for books.

I thought I would give it a run. I typed in ‘cats’. The usual list pops up including a color photo of the front cover of each book. I randomly chose a book about why cats paint. (Didn’t know they could). From there I could see a few pages. Table of contents, and a couple of other pages. From there you could search even deeper into the book. I typed in ‘color’. I was presented with about 10 links to several pages within the book. After being prompted to login with my google account, each link would show me a page, and a page or 2 forward or backward in the book. I’m not sure how far is too far with copyrighted content.

They do reference the author, the publisher, and a few links to where one could buy the book. I can only imagine that they have the permission of the publishers and authors. It is duly noted on this page:

Library books still in copyright: For books that we have scanned from a library which are still in copyright, you will only be able to view the bibliographic information and a few short sentences of text around your search term.

I seriously doubt that google wouldn’t have covered those bases before they attempted this endeavor.

I wrote an entry about a similar service called codefetch{ that allows you to search for books on programming code. These also would show a few excerpts of each authors pages. (A handy tool BTW!).

If anything you would think authors might even persue google, to plan how and what content would be shown. What a great way to advertise, and get books sold!

I’m thinking we haven’t seen the end of this topic, or copyright rules and laws.

google, google print, lawsuit, publisher, books, internet