thepalmcivet

css border radius generator

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:26:15 -0500

boy, do clients like their corners to be rounded. luckily css3 makes it possible without images, but its not much fun to type due to mozilla/webkit’s syntax deviation. jacob bijani’s cool tool makes it easy to generate this code for copying.

new ruby driver gridfs api

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 13:52:58 -0500

new ruby driver gridfs api:

i’ve been very persuaded by john nunemaker’s passionate writing that mongo db might be the next new thing i have to try. sure, sql databases are the norm, but mongo’s document-based database format rings truer to me the more of a rubyist i become.

gridfs is mongo’s way of storing file uploads within the database and with the release of its new ruby driver, using grid FS is faster and easier. check the simplicity in this example code =>


db = Mongo::Connection.new.db('testing')
grid = Mongo::Grid.new(db)

# returns object id
id = grid.put(File.read('mr_t.jpg'), 'mr_t.jpg')

# get the file using object id
file = grid.get(id)

# read the file from grid fs
puts file.read

# delete the file
grid.delete(id)

the active development of john’s mongomapper gem for rails models and grip plugin for gridfs should definitely be on anyone’s radar who is exploring nosql options.

javascript array shortcut functions

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:40:40 -0500

jquery is tight, but when you have to resort to plain old javascript, it can be frustrating that a lot of common tasks are not dead simple or elegant. here are some syntactical shortcuts for working with objects in arrays =>


// add an object to an array
function addObj(arr,obj) {
  arr.push(obj);
  return arr;
}

// remove an object from array
function removeObj(arr,obj) {
  arr.splice(arr.indexOf(obj), 1);
  return arr;
}

// check if object is included in array
function include(arr, obj) {
  for(var i=0; i=



less.app for osx
Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:56:34 -0500
less.app for osx: not particularly useful to a command line junkie like myself, but this is a beautiful interface that will hopefully introduce boatloads more to the wonder world of less css.


sublime video
Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:59:59 -0500
sublime video: sleek html5 video player. eagerly looking forward to firefox and ie flash fallback support.


rendering rails partials with ajax w/o a framework
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:24:45 -0500
ever wanted to quickly create a link in rails that, when clicked, dynamically renders a partial in a targeted element? accepting bonus points for being framework agnostic? throw this puppy in your application helper =>

  def remote_partial_link(*args)
    name         = args.first
    partial      = args.second
    target_id    = args.third
    html_options = args.fourth
    locals       = args.fifth
    if html_options
      html_options = html_options.stringify_keys
      tag_options = tag_options(html_options)
    else
      tag_options = nil
    end
    if locals
      p = render_to_string :partial => partial, :locals => locals
    else
      p = render_to_string :partial => partial
    end
    p = escape_javascript(p).gsub("\"","'")
    "#{name}"
  end

basically, its a bastardized version of rails built-in link_to helper. with it, in your views you can write =>

  <%= remote_partial_link("Add Link", "lists/link", "link-#{i}",
    { :class => "ajax" }, { :i => i }) %>

the only limitation is that these are generated on the page’s load, so it can’t account for any remote calls that happens after that. but that also makes this solution good for performance, since the script is baked inline to the element and ready to fire. the only other piece of set-up is making the render_to_string method accessible in your helpers from your application controller =>

  helper_method :render_to_string



fluid for web development
Mon, 18 Jan 2010 15:38:00 -0500
i have been using fluid, the mac osx application for wrapping sites as their own webkit applications for a while, but only for beasts like gmail and google reader. then i realized, fluid makes a great sidekick for my new emacs driven development environment:
* it saves the previous session’s tabs, so you can preserve and separate your development from daily browsing.
* you can give it a global hotkey to pull it up quickly.
* you get to use webkit’s ever-improving, top-notch webkit inspector.
setting it up is super easy. for example, if you’re working in rails, create a new fluid app at the address 0.0.0.0:3000, call it whatever you want, give it a fancy icon and you’re ready to apple+tab between the guts and face of your project.


hirb - irb on the good stuff
Thu, 07 Jan 2010 11:17:00 -0500
hirb - irb on the good stuff: more rails development means more time in the script/console and irb, but it can quickly become a headache with doing ugly things like returning activerecord objects. for that, hirb’s table view is a lifesaver. check out this example output =>

irb>> Tag.last
+-----+-------------------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| id  | created_at              | name          | namespace | predicate | value |
+-----+-------------------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+
| 907 | 2009-03-06 21:10:41 UTC | gem:tags=yaml | gem       | tags      | yaml  |
+-----+-------------------------+---------------+-----------+-----------+-------+
  1 row in set
  =>true

if you want to get more snazzy, you can define your own views for a more custom output. git it at hirb’s github page.
to enable hirb by default in any local rails application, add this to your ~/.irbrc file =>

if ENV['RAILS_ENV']
  require 'rubygems'
  require 'hirb'
  Hirb.enable
end



canvas to vml
Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:36:14 -0500
canvas to vml: want to use javascript to create images and graphs with html5’s sexy 


mini ajax
Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:22:52 -0500
mini ajax: mmm, a tiny (1.8 kb tiny) ajax javascript framework. a perfect replacement for jquery if all you need is a set of shortcuts for form serializing, get-ing, and post-ing.


sync coda, espresso, textmate across multiple computers with dropbox
Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:25:42 -0500
if you don’t use dropbox, the multi-platformed, cloud-backed-up, version-tracking storage-and-sharing application, you are most likely a) uninformed or b) an idiot. it’s one of those ‘how did i live without it’ kinds of things.
recently i started unlocking a new batch of syncing/redundancy potential through the process of creating symbolic links, which are aliases that jump to a different directory on your system. with these, you can dropbox-ize folders that would normally reside in your ~/Library directory. for example, crack open a terminal window =>

mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Textmate ~/Dropbox
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Textmate ~/Library/Application\ Support/Textmate

this would move your textmate bundles and preferences to your dropbox, but to your mac, it would seem to be in the same location. to use the same textmate folder on a different mac, back-up your ~/Library/Application\ Support/Textmate folder and run the 2nd command on that machine. the same process should work for coda or espresso.
for more info on what else you can do with dropbox, check out dropbox’s wiki page.


gruber's url regular expression explained
Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:57:18 -0500
gruber's url regular expression explained: regular expressions (aka regex) are very handy for defining patterns to look for when searching through text. without instruction on the matter though, they can look as cryptic as hieroglyphics. take john gruber’s liberal, accurate regex pattern for matching urls =>

\b(([\w-]+://?|www[.])[^\s()<>]+(?:\([\w\d]+\)|([^[:punct:]\s]|/)))

alan storm does a nice job dissecting the regex to show how it works and suggests some areas for improvement.


@font-face kit generator
Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:30:27 -0500
@font-face kit generator: with both articles in the latest edition of a list apart concerning web typogrpahy and the recent release of much-hyped typekit, the smell of new type freedom is in the air.
unfortunately, @font-face support is still fragmented by different syntax and file formats across the browsers. tim brown has an excellent post on how to properly hit all your bases, but doing such requires 4 different font formats. conveniently, he links to font squirrel’s @font-face kit generator, a handy tool for transcribing a .ttf or .otf font into .eot, .svg, and .woff versions.


sprockets w/ watch rake task
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:42:00 -0500
sprockets w/ watch rake task: as a heavy jquery w/ plugins user, it is easy to end up with quite a few javascript files included in the header. in an attempt to cut down on the load time, i’ve been giving sprockets a whirl. sprockets is a javascript organization and compressor library written in ruby.
what turned me onto trying sprockets was the success i have had with less, the dynamic css library, which allows me easy management over grid, font, color, and classes stylesheets that get compiled down to one css file.
the one thing i was bummed to not see in the sprockets documentation was the ability to run a rake script that would watch for file changes and keep the master js file constantly updated, like you can with less.
luckily ‘the google’ revealed a simple rake file gist (which i’ve forked) for just that. given a directory structure of js/src (for your source files) and js/o/scripts.js as your master work file, save this file as a rakefile.rb in js/ and just run in the command line =>

rake watch

now, changes to your work file will be detected and updated js/scripts.js and js/scripts-min.js will be compiled.


sql buddy
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:13:36 -0400
sql buddy: a new browser-based mysql admin is on the block. looks like phpmyadmin without the set-up configuration and case of the uglies.


raphaël
Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:09:00 -0400
raphaël: raphaël is a new javascript library for creating vector graphics in the browser and weighs in at only 20kb. between this and css3, my reasons for opening photoshop continue to dwindle.


◊ videoize
Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:36:00 -0400
◊ videoize: videoize is a simple jQuery plugin that i wrote for easily creating html 5 video tags for capable browsers, with a fallback option for either flash or quicktime. videoize is a stand alone plugin that includes a minified version of the excellent jQuery SWFObject plugin for embedding flash objects.
to call videoize, simply include the jQuery file and in your $(document).ready function call. videoize comes with the following options and override-able defaults =>

$("#videoize").videoize({
	// location of the mp4 video file
	mp4: "", 
	// location of the ogv file for firefox
	ogg: "",
	// location of the flash video player
	flashplayer: "player.swf",
	// location of video poster image
	poster: "",
	// video height
	height: "480",
	// video width
	width: 	"720",
	// autoplay video
	autoplay: false,
	// show video controls
	controls: true,
	// if set to true, the fallback player will be quicktime, not flash
	quicktime: false
});



textorize
Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:34:03 -0400
textorize: another excellent option in using the font of your choice in your designs. textorize is a ruby script that creates png’s of text in any font for osx users. its ‘shining star’ feature is that it takes advantage of osx’s sub-pixel anti-aliasing when creating png’s. that’s something photoshop still can’t even do! it does have its shortcomings though: it needs a background color and there are the implied accessibility issues of turning text into images. that said, it is still an excellent option in certain situations.


google chrome frame
Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:50:00 -0400
google chrome frame: a bold and exciting new project from google: a plug-in for ie6, 7, and 8 that will override ie’s internal page rendering with google chrome’s superior webkit rendering and javascript engine. with chrome frame, developers have the opportunity to further decline their site’s users of encountering internet explorer’s plethora of issues.
enabling the plug-in is as simple as adding one line of code to the  of your html document



they have also provided google-hosted javascript for detecting and prompting users to install the plug-in, if it is not already installed.
now, we have keys into microsoft’s house and get to completely renovate, and i bet they are pretty pissed about it.


thin text in safari with snow leopard
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:06:00 -0400
thin text in safari with snow leopard: a quick tip to negate safari in snow leopard’s sub pixel rendering with css =>

body { -webkit-text-stroke:1px transparent; }
@media only screen and (max-device-width:480px)
    {body{-webkit-text-stroke:0 black;}}
{via}