Archive for the ‘web development’ category…
The WordPress White Screen of Death
This is the kind of thing that happens out of nowhere when you’re in the middle of finishing off something simple, and sends you into a rage shouting “What the fucking hell…this is just bizarre!” and so on, until you finally fix it by fiddling about intuitively, and then just move on. For once, professional discipline compels me to record the problem and its solution, partly for my own benefit but also to help others avoid the drastic solutions offered in several places on the web.
After working primarily in Django for the last while I had to do some WordPress work yesterday, implementing SEO improvements to one of our e-commerce client’s web site. I added a function to functions.php and … read on »
Enlightenment Bullshit
I’m in the middle of a large Django project, my first one using the framework. It’s bloody wonderful, it really is. I don’t understand why Django developers aren’t going on about it more – about how lovely it is to work with. Developing web sites in Django is a beauty-full experience. I didn’t know it could be like this. I don’t know what it’s like to find Enlightenment in the way the Buddha talks about it, and I don’t even really know what it’s like to meditate, but this approaches what I imagine they mean.
Pony-Powered Enlightenment Bullshit
This sounds like bullshit, of course, and I confess I’m spinning this out more than is warranted, but there is an immense calm, neatness … read on »
CSS Abstracted: Update
In a recent post I described my first foray into…well now, what am I supposed to call them? CSS frameworks? No, that doesn’t work, because Blueprint and YUI and 960 and others are often described as such. CSS meta-frameworks? That appeals to me, but it’s rather obscure. CSS compilers? Yes, perhaps.
But wait. There are CSS compilers, and then there are the libraries and frameworks and plugins that are built around them. Well, I guess that’s where the term “meta-framework” comes in.
One such meta-framework is Compass, which is built around the core language and compiler Sass. I mentioned Compass briefly in my other post. At the time, I had dismissed it as being more than I required, or more than I … read on »
E-commerce for Small Business in The UK: A Starting Point For Web Developers
NOTE: see the comments for updates about how this went in the end.
I think I’ve unearthed a conspiracy. In the wonderful world of the world-wide web (that’s WWWWW for short), with so much information available, and so many companies selling online, surely there must be a collection of standard procedures for implementing an online shop, and reliable sources of information covering them? Apparently not. How else to explain this except an evil conspiracy? In particular, an evil conspiracy against web designers and developers.
This post is drawn from an e-mail that I sent to a tech savvy client, a small business owner. The email summarized their options for e-commerce, in the specific context of the UK, and it was the result … read on »
CSS Abstracted
Half way through the development of my last site I decided to use PHP files for CSS. I had a few stylesheets, and I found I was constantly going from one to the other to copy and paste hex colour codes. And then later, if I wanted to change a colour, I’d have to change it in all those different places. That really is no way to work.
The answer to this, of course, is variables (or constants), so that you can define your colours in one place. Trouble is, CSS don’t got none. In fact, CSS is lacking in several important ways. What it boils down to is that we struggle to get around the fact that CSS doesn’t work … read on »
A Nice and Simple Photo Gallery Solution for MODx
My third MODx site is about to launch. It’s relatively simple (no forms!) so I had the chance to really concentrate on refining my architecture, and the work I’ve done will stand me in good stead for a while (unless I give in to the enticements of SilverStripe or ExpressionEngine, or just ditch the PHP altogether and finally get up-and-running with Django).
“Refining his architecture? What does he mean?” For me, learning to use MODx well has been about working out how to combine templates, template variables, chunks and snippets in a logical and efficient structure. A good application – a small one, at least – should have a shape that you can envision (if you’re the kind of person who … read on »
The Magical MODx ManagerManager Plugin
My first MODx-powered website went live today, and my intention now is to share some of my experiences. From a development point of view MODx is so flexible that there are several ways of doing most things, so if like me you constantly fret about your architecture and constantly refactor your code for re-usability, you might be confused about just what is the best way of doing things, especially if you’re just starting out. So in this and forthcoming posts I’ll be discussing some of my development techniques.
This post is mainly an introduction to the ManagerManager plugin written by Nick Crossland. In my opinion it is absolutely indispensable, unless you’ve come up with your own way of doing the same … read on »
FoxyCart: Replacing A Cart Item
function add_pre_process() {
//Find the id of the existing registration in the cart, if it does exist
$.each(fc_json.products, function(key, product) {
if(product.name=="Registration") {
// Do the remove request, with parameter quantity=0
$.ajax({
async: false,
type: "GET",
url: "https://mydomain.foxycart.com/cart?output=json&cart=update&id="+product.id+"&quantity=0&callback=?" + fc_AddSession(),
dataType: ‘json’
});
}
});
// Add the new one
add_item();
}
function add_item() {
//Get the form data
var submitted_data = $("#signup").serialize();
//Do the add request
$.ajax({
type: "GET",
url: "https://mydomain.foxycart.com/cart?"+submitted_data+"&callback=?" + fc_AddSession(),
dataType: ‘json’
});
}
This javascript/jQuery code gets the contents of your cart (which is in the variable fc_json, made available by foxycart_includes.js), removes any item whose … read on »
Web Development Frameworks: Developing For vs. Developing With
I’ve been hunting for a web development framework for a few months. Back in the summer I was immersed in CSS and javascript, just sticking with my tried and tested server-side techniques. Using the TinyButStrong (TBS) template class I could put together a highly organized dynamic website pretty quickly. In retrospect it seems that I’d found my own path towards an MVC-like pattern: nothing but HTML and logic-less TBS tags in the templates; PHP pages acting like controllers, for form processing and manipulating data; and a class for each table in the database (more or less). Very neat. Framework junkies amongst you could tell me exactly why this isn’t really MVC, but I don’t care.
Anyway, my first intention was to … read on »
©2010 Alistair Robinson