May 28, 2007

Chief Bast

Cross references to where this guy has appeared in sci-fi.

Posted by ledlogic at 07:43 PM

May 25, 2007

Scriptaculous Links

http://wiki.script.aculo.us/scriptaculous/show/CoreEffects

Posted by ledlogic at 04:19 PM

May 23, 2007

Gravity Effect in Scriptaculous

Here is an effect I created using scriptaculous. Here is the scriptaculous Treasure Chest site. Here is my running example, which uses it.

Posted by ledlogic at 12:22 AM

May 22, 2007

Instant Rails

http://instantrails.rubyforge.org/wiki/wiki.pl

Posted by ledlogic at 09:56 PM

May 20, 2007

Using FMPP to Create Theme-based Template-Generated Styles for the Spring Framework

I was interested in getting reuse from the CSS-styles generated by a graphics designer. I would like to be able to generate the styles for different color and image brandings, based on the same structural framework. At first I looked at generating the necessary CSS files using my own template engine. Then I came across FMPP, FreeMarker-based text file PreProcessor. This seemed to already provide what my engine had, plus more, plus a lot of other people are already using it.

This article describes a simple scenario describing how to use FMPP to create two sets of CSS theme files from the same initial template. It is admittedly a limited use of FMPP, but in creating it, perhaps it will help others to quickly set up and get running without delving too much into the FMPP vocabulary.

At the end of the steps described here, you will have a template, a set of properties files for each of the different themes, and a build script which you can use to generate your templates.

Requirements: ANT, FMPP.

Download template: themegen.zip

Step 1. Setup

You will need ANT and FMPP. If you are using Eclipse, you already have ANT. To download FMPP, visit http://fmpp.sourceforge.net/.

Take the five files from the fmpp_0.9.2/lib directory and make them available to ANT. In Eclipse you can do this by right-clicking on the build.xml and selecting build..., then add the jars to the classpath for ANT:

bsh.jar, fmpp.jar, freemarker.jar, oro.jar, resolver.jar

Step 2. Set up the directory structure for your project

If you have an existing project, you will need to adapt the provided scripts for your structure. Ideally, depending on how you are using the theme attributes in Spring, you will either have directory names or file names substitution for each of your themes.

Step 3. Create a Template

Take the CSS files from your graphic artist and insert common variables into them for the items you wish to have be a function of the properties file. In the example, the template is style/style.css.

Step 4. Create the properties files

These will be used in conjunction with the template to produce the output files. In the example, these are called blue.tdd and green.tdd.

Step 5. Run ant and refresh eclipse

You should see two new files: out/style/blue/style.css, and out/style/green.css.

You should be careful not to replace your original template during the process, or you will lose it.

References.

Dekany, D. 2007. FreeMarker-based text file PreProcessor. http://fmpp.sourceforge.net/

Posted by ledlogic at 06:21 PM

May 16, 2007

Technorati

Just bound my blog to technorati. Seems to be working ok, once I overrode their styles, it blends in nicely.

Posted by ledlogic at 11:44 PM

Tech Links for the Past Year

2006-07

http://solution.allthingsd.com/20061206/easty-photo-book/
http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html
http://prototype.conio.net/
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000107.php
http://www.lukew.com/resources/articles/web_forms.html
http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Web-Toolkit/browse_thread/thread/c87dacf13d878fb2/d1a938f39add9f96#d1a938f39add9f96
http://www.sysdeo.com/eclipse/tomcatplugin
http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=RedirectAfterPost
http://www.theserverside.com/tt/articles/article.tss?l=RedirectAfterPost
http://jakarta.apache.org/commons/validator/
http://www.geekwisdom.com/js/passwordmeter.js
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000097.php

2006-08
http://www.lukew.com/image_viewer.asp?url=portfolio/web_applications/img/bezsystems_big.jpg&name=Bez%20Systems%20Web%20Application
http://prototype.conio.net
http://script.aculo.us/
http://openrico.org/rico/home.page
http://encytemedia.com/event-selectors/
http://tetlaw.id.au/view/blog/really-easy-field-validation-with-prototype/
http://www.schuerig.de/michael/javascript/
http://www.formassembly.com/wForms/
http://prototype-window.xilinus.com/
http://tetlaw.id.au/view/tags/query/tag/experiments/
http://jquery.com/
http://ajaxian.com/archives/onion-skinned-drop-shadows-with-javascript
http://blog.joshuaeichorn.com/archives/2006/08/08/adding-ajax-to-a-website-step-by-step/
http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html
http://www.technicalinfo.net/papers/CSS.html
2006-09
http://opensource.atlassian.com/confluence/spring/display/DOC/How+to+avoid+database+or+server+properties+in+your+XML+files
http://jeffhowden.com/code/css/forms/
http://www.picment.com/articles/css/funwithforms/step5.html
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00002225.html

2006-10
http://www.i-marco.nl/weblog/archive/2006/06/20/prototypejs_oncomplete_and_ano/the_net_is_dead
http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2004/05/26/addLoadEvent
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/svgess/chapter/ch03.html
http://www.sparrowscripts.com/tutorial.php?id=1
javascript:var c = so.getSWFHTML(); var w=window.open("about:blank"); w.document.writeln("");

2006-11
http://tamperdata.mozdev.org/help.html
http://picasaweb.google.com/bree.radloff/AquaNerd
http://www.prysme.net/java/documentation/
http://quotiki.com/
http://raibledesigns.com/page/rd?entry=trim_spaces_in_your_jsp
http://community.java.net/projects/community/javatools
http://www.elasticpath.com/ecommerce/architecture/index.jsp

2006-12
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/980111.html
http://www.sf.id.au/WE05/
http://www.freewebs.com/turbo-tax/images/turbotax1.gif
http://www.freewebs.com/turbo-tax/images/taxcut2.gif
http://computeme.tripod.com/turbonav.gif
http://simile.mit.edu/timeline/
http://prototype-window.xilinus.com/download.html
http://www.thathost.com/wincvs-howto/cvsdoc/cvs_12.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE
http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/biggest-mistakes-in-web-design-1995-2015.html
http://www.alistapart.com/topics/userscience/usability/

2007-01
http://jeffhowden.com/code/css/forms
http://www.coloradocollege.edu/library/Instruction/gtd.html
http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/getting-started-with-getting-things-done/

2007-02
http://eclipse-tools.sourceforge.net/updates/
http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/second_edition/html/lexical.doc.html#100850
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?TempBox=1&RainBox=1&SnowBox=1&PoPBox=1&Submit=Submit&FcstType=graphical&textField1=44.98500&textField2=-92.55200&site=mpx&WindBox=1&ThunderBox=1&FzgBox=1&AheadHour=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_tag
http://external-file.com/en/meta_tag_generator.html

2007-03
http://fmpp.sourceforge.net/
http://cvs-tools.sourceforge.net/

2007-04
http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/tomcat-dev/200603.mbox/%3C440CB929.4040909@maintenancemode.com%3E
http://webmail.magnolia.info/Lists/dev-list/Message/9336.html?altLanguage=
http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2007/02/08/jasper-problem-resolved
http://getahead.org/dwr/browser/support
http://internna.blogspot.com/2007/04/setting-up-agile-development.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_(mathematics)
http://support.instantasp.co.uk/Topic12412-37-1.aspx#bm12547

2007-05
http://www.visibone.com/
http://forum.springframework.org/showthread.php?t=35887
http://raibledesigns.com/rd/entry/trim_spaces_in_your_jsp
http://www.mazaika.com/index.html

Posted by ledlogic at 09:11 AM