Peter J S

AIRPacker

Yesterday and today, I have been working on an Adobe Air application that makes use of Dean Edwards Javascript Compressor called “Packer“. I found myself using Packer more and more often, and it was becoming a bit of a pain loading up the page, copy and pasting my Javascript in, and then creating the compressed file. Most of the time I ended up closing the page by mistake. Anyway, I wanted my own lazy way of doing it, so I set out to create an application that could open and save out files.

So with permission from Dean (thanks Dean) to use his Packer script, I give you AIRPacker…

As you can see, the layout is basically the same as what is on the Packer page. Most of my time was spent learning the AIR API.

At the moment it has only been really tested on Windows, I don’t have access to a Mac at home, so let me know of any problems.

To run the application, you will need Adobe AIR.

Install from your browser…

Here is the AIR file…

AIRPacker

Note: This is a beta.

If anyone wants the source, just open it up with winrar and extract the contents. Or I could upload a zip file if people want it.

Any problems, please post a comment.

Tags: adobe, air, airpacker, dean edwards, JavaScript, packer

Ext JS - 2.0 Beta

If anyone is thinking about creating slick applications in the browser, or even thinking of creating something with Adobe AIR, then I highly suggest you take a look at Ext JS 2.

Ext JS is a GUI library that has tons of components, comes with excellent documentation, tutorials, and a community.

I have used Ext JS now and again for personal projects, mainly using it for developing desktop applications using Adobe AIR, and will likely continue to use it.

Have a look at this desktop example application in your browser (note: if you have firebug, disable it, or you may find it is a little slow)…

http://extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/desktop/desktop.html

Check the main site out…

http://extjs.com/

Tags: adobe, air, ext, JavaScript

Styling File Inputs

It’s always the case, you create a page with a form that looks awesome, only for it to be ruined with the file input. There are ways to style that element, but most of the time it is just too much effort.

Shaun Inman has gone to the effort of doing the work for us by creating a hack, and explains in detail in his post.

Style file inputs with CSS and the DOM

A link to the demo page..

Demo

Tags: css, file, input, JavaScript

Easing Equations

At work I have been writing an Fx class in Javascript for a component that will be used on one of our clients websites. While writing the Fx class, we (work team) decided that easing effects would be needed to give it that nice feel too it. While researching easing, I came across a website that had Actionscript easing equations, and now looking at some of the Javascript frameworks out there, they have also used the equations. It seems that Robert Penner’s equations are extremely popular, and best of all, extremely easy to implement into Javascript.

Here is Robert Penner’s website…

http://www.robertpenner.com/easing/

I have implemented most of the easing equations into our Fx class, though we were mainly interested in the Back class, done some testing, and found they work extremely well.

So if you are thinking of writing your own Fx class, I highly suggest looking at Roberts equations, they seem to be the standard.

Tags: actionscript, easing, JavaScript, penner, robert

Facebook Server Configuration Mistake

Yesterday, Facebook seemed to have configured their server wrong, so what happened, was a small amount of Facebook users got fed the PHP code for the page they were trying to access. There seems to be a lot of talk about it, but really it’s no big deal. It’s not like you could piece it all together and create your own Facebook from the source. The problem was fixed straight away.

More information…

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/11/facebook-source-code-leaked/

Part of the comment posted by Brandee Barker from Facebook at techcrunch…

“I wanted to clarify a few things in your story. Some of Facebook’s source code was exposed to a small number of users due to a bug on a single server that was misconfigured and then fixed immediately. It was not a security breach and did not compromise user data in any way.”

Here are some tips to prevent this happening to you…

Learning from facebook, preventing php leakage

Tags: facebook

Scollovers

Nice little script someone has put together to create scollover effects. Have a look at the link below for an example and source…

http://www.scrollovers.com/

Tags: scrollovers

Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0

Spotted this a few days ago on YouTube, but forgot to post it.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt gets asked the question “What is Web 3.0?”, and offers his prediction.

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t it sound like Facebook? :p

Tags: eric schmidt, google

Perl is Dead. Long live Perl.

“It seems every day I am questioned about why I write in Perl versus PHP, Java, C#, Ruby, Python, or [insert your favorite language here]. People say things like, “Perl isn’t used anymore is it?” or, “Ruby on Rails is all I read about anymore.” As I write this, there are millions of Perl programmers around the world. Perl 5 is being actively maintained, and Perl 6 is in development. More than 3000 Perl Modules were released in 2006, and more than double are on track to be released this year. The reality is that Perl is far from dead.”

http://www.oreillynet.com/onlamp/blog/2007/08/perl_is_dead_long_live_perl.html

Feel like learning Perl now?

Tags: perl

Building a desktop application with Ext and AIR

Jack Slocum has wrote an article on how to build an application using the Ext framework, and Adobe Air. For those that are interested in learning Adobe Air, then I highly suggest taking a look at it by downloading the Air file and uncompressing it with Winzip or Winrar.

Building a desktop application with Ext and Air

The application Jack creates is a personal task list application. It shows you what can be done with Air, including customising the window chrome.

Here is a screen shot of the application…

Tags: adobe, air, ext, JavaScript

Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

Have a read of this book, it’s pretty funny.

http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

It’s different from your average programming book. Reading the first few pages, you wouldn’t think it was a Ruby book.

If only all programming books were this much fun to read.

Tags: poignant, ruby