I'm looking for a very simple Bookmarklet which presents me with some Lipsum text. The ones I've seen generally make requests to a generator - but I want one which I can use offline (how often does Lorum Ipsum text change..?!).
Has anyone got any suggestions? It'd be nice to be able to specify how many paragraphs I want.
I've written this Bookmarklet. I've only tested in Firefox - it's simple, but meets my requirements. I don't have a Blog, so I thought I'd share it on Stack instead!
(though, I can't post the bookmarklet itself on Stack, so please see attached fiddle... also, the code is bodged together and not tidied up, but, it's functional for my need!)
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Everything was fine until I went to my project this morning to find the ckeditor rendering the text in the editor itself in bold, but the code produced is correct. Image sample below:
But this is the code the editor saves to the database which is correct:
<p>A person recently started a thread on Facebook asking why we identify our calling in the government of God: whether apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher. This question is shared by many as the church observes God again raising up His spiritual government. I thought that a teaching on the subject would be</p>
If I highlight and bold the text as shown below:
the editor will generate the correct code:
<p>A person recently started a thread on Facebook asking why we identify our calling in the government of God: whether apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, or teacher. This question is shared by many as the church observes God again raising up His spiritual government.</p><p></p><p><strong>I thought that a teaching on the subject would be</strong></p>
The problem is the user cannot tell what they have made bold and what is not bold.
I am not sure what has happened... I have not touched anything related to the ckeditor code/css. Assistance would greatly be appreciated.
ISSUE RESOLVED:
It was a simple programming error in the code above. I had simply left a backslash out of a closing </b> in the code above the ckEditor.
This is a topic that may be considered something not necessarily "programming related"; however, I feel it is since I'm asking for specific techniques.
Essentially, as a web developer, I work with a variety of platforms that include a WYSIWYG editor in the backend (TinyMCE, WYGWAM, etc) and one of the selling points of such systems is that it becomes easier to manage your own content because of these tools.
In theory, sounds great, in practice, not so much.
It can be way too easy for a client to break a layout by using many of the advanced features of a WYSIWYG editor. They can start floating things, setting too much margin/padding, etc.
Generally, I have tried to build any of these types of pages with only some sensible default styles applied to a few of the most common tags, such as setting a font size, colors, some margins, and some text decorations.
I would like to know if anyone has used anything more advanced to essentially turn the output of:
$cms->getContent();
...or equivalent into something that is effectively sandboxed and operates entirely agnostic of any other style/layout elements being used.
As often as possible, I express to clients that they should purchase an HTML/CSS book for Dummies and read it so that they aren't deer in headlights when they click "code view" in a WYSIWYG. But I know they don't do this, nor do they hire anyone who has experience, and it ends up allowing a client more control than they should responsibly have.
Plus, it sucks when you are using their sites as work samples to show others knowing they have the ability to take your beautiful design and development and make it look like crap.
A few things:
I have a standard WYGWAM config that I reuse on new sites by importing the exp_wygwam_configs table.
I keep options very limited in the editors
Areas of the page delineated for images should use a File field, with an image resizer like CE Image used to insure proper size
Client training. Make videos with Camtasia or similar tool if you have to.
Use a custom stylesheet for WYGWAM that has a small subset of styles, so they can choose h2...h4, for example, but not h1 or h5.
After encountering a lot of issues with WYSIWYG editors (which, by the way, never reflect accurately what you "get" in the end), I now prefer to leave only the most basic formatting features in the editor's configuration. For example, take a look at stackoverflow's editor.
It's got the following features: bold, italic, link, quote, pictures, lists, and alignments. The only special feature here are code sample and html, which are targeted to this site's audience. Most of your client don't need them.
I think it's the best approach, because if you give your clients the feeling that they can do whatever they want in the page, but in the end, this content is filtered when the page is rendered, they are going to be really frustrated. Not to mention the fact that the site will be slowed by the filtering process and the need to put the filtered content in cache.
Sometimes the client indeed wants to have a special layout in a page, but I think that can be best done by customizing the CMS so that it fits the client need.
I have the great book on stunning css3 and it's talking about using src: local('a_smiley_image') and it's showing an actual smiley image being used.
I have no idea what I should actually type to make that appear as it certainly does not look like a ":)"
Is my only option to copy and post from web posts that shows "☺" like that ?
I also know the unicode is ☺ for inserting into actual html web pages, however I want to use it in a regular editor or IDE on Ubuntu (1st), Mac's (2nd) and Windows (3rd) - because at the end of the day the solution given of using smiley-face for the font implies doing this :)
Found this on another question so I can past it here and here it is:
src: local("☺")
Given no other answer I will use this.
I'm going to be going to be meeting with a number of programmers and custom software companies to get bids on creating a website for a company that I'm involved with. My question is this: What should I prepare for the programmers so that they can give me an accurate bid, timetable, etc. for the development of the website? I have a clear picture of how I would like the site to work and the features that I would like to have included.
I'd suggest using something like balsamiq to put some simple sketches together as suggested elsewhere.
Quite often the act of putting your requirements down on paper in a way that represents the actual site will flush out all manner of issues you hadn't considered before, and will give you a much clearer understanding of what you're after.
Also consider the sources of the data you're displaying. From a functional spec aspect, simply saying something like 'show this figure here' is easy. From a programming point of view, coming up with the figure in the first place is often the hard bit.
The best you can do is to put the end-user's hat on and describe what you'd like the system to look like / work.
Imagine all pages and create a new frame for each one. Make as many annotations as you can so all bidders know exactly what you are expecting.
I'd also add at the end if it's likely the site's requirements to change during development, so everybody's warned in advance.
Details Details Details.
You might think you have a clear picture, you don't. You need to write every single step down no matter how trivial. You will see there are things you haven't thought of.
Try to write down as much information as you can think of. Go through all the scenarios a user would when using your site. Use steps such as
1) User clicks on Buy Button
2) Screen shows up with 4 items, Link to details, price, quantity and a 32x32 thumbnail.
2a) If User clicks on thumbnail full resolution image i s displayed
etc etc.
Don't try to gloss over the "simple" stuff and you will get the most accurate bid possible!
Basically draw out what you want (ie textboxes, drop down lists, controls, etc) in very simple manner. Then add little numbers around each area that has some functionality. In the margins or on another sheet, describe each point you numbered on the controls with simple instructions on how that functionality should work.
Think of it as a skeleton to describe the application you want.
Not a complete list, but here a couple of thoughts:
Do not forget the back button.
Back button behaviour is an issue on every site I've ever worked on. Specify exactly what you want to happen on every page if the user gets to that page by hitting the back button. Often it's easy, but sometimes it is not at all trivial.
Security:
Do people need to log on, how, how do you create accounts, reset passwords etc. What pages need you to be logged on, what happens if you hit those pages without being logged on.
You could read Joel Spolsky's Painless Functional Specifications for ideas, but I've just tried to summarise what that means for web software too.
I usually do this in 3 stages:
a list of contents, under the headings they'll appear on the site. Get this firmly agreed by all parties before doing any wireframes;
a greyscale functional wireframe in plain HTML/CSS, using examples of real-world content and dummy static pages for dymanic content, with everything where it should be. This is the first thing programmers want to see;
a purely visual graphic mockup of each type of page - this is the next thing programmers like to see, as in 'show me how you want it to look and I'll make it happen'.
I just learn Ruby, and I wonder how to generate Reports and Invoices (with Logo, adressfield, footer, variable number of invoice-items (sometimes resulting in more than one page), carry over of the amount to pay from one page to the next, free-floating 2-column text (left-and-right-justified) below the resulting cash-informations).
Currently I get a canvas to print and draw on from the OperatingSystem (matching the printer specifications) and use some draw-, move-, line-, text- and formfeed-API-Functions and do some heavy calculations for textblock-moving (a bit TeX-like).
How will this be done in Ruby?
Building an .odt and throw it to OpenOffice or a .tex and throw it to LaTeX?
Or are there any free Libraries, thet do all this kind of things for me, so I only have to feed the relevant parts, and let Ruby do the Text-Formatting thing?
EDIT:
To be more specific: I want to put a corporation logo on the first page (DIN-A4-format, but may also be letter) on a specific position, also the footer on every page and the adress-box on the first page. all the rest should be free floating text blocks with left-right-justification, bold words in the middle of texts.
something like
pdf.column.blocktext("Hello Mr. P\nwe have [b]good news[/b] for you. bla bla bla and so on. Please keep this text together (no page break)...");
pdf.column.floatingblock("This is another block, that should be printed, and can be broken over more than one column...");
which should render the text in the corporate font on the paper, justified, and wrapping neatly to the next column/page if it reaches the bottom of the page.
Thinking about it, this is exactly, what LaTeX is for.
I suggest you consider PDF generation. In Rails, it's pretty simple with the Prawn library.
There is also a fresh new Railcast about that.
Official web site.
You could also check out HtmlDoc for generating PDFs, it just takes in HTML and generates a PDF from it. This approach is nice because it lets you very easily reuse a partial for an on-screen and hard copy invoice.
http://blog.adsdevshop.com/2007/11/20/easy-pdf-generation-with-ruby-rails-and-htmldoc/
The Ruport library (Ruby Reports) makes it pretty easy to spit report tables out in multiple formats, including PDF. There's also a ActiveRecord hook acts_as_reportable that gives your models a reporting interface.