Year: 2009
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2009 August 20
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Professional JavaScript Frameworks is a real book!
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2009 July 15
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HTML5 drag and drop in Firefox 3.5
Oh hey, look! It's another blog post—and this one is cross-posted on hacks.mozilla.com. I won't say this is the start of a renewed blogging habit, but let's see what happens. Drag and drop is one of the most fundamental interactions afforded by graphical user interfaces. In one gesture, it allows users to pair the selection of an object with the execution of an action, often including a second object in the operation. It's a simple yet powerful UI concept used to support copying, list reordering, deletion (ala the Trash / Recycle Bin), and even the creation of link relationships. Since it's so fundamental, offering drag and drop in web applications has been a no-brainer ever since browsers first offered mouse events in DHTML. But, although mousedown, mousemove, and mouseup made it possible, the implementation has been limited to the bounds of the browser window. Additionally, since these events refer only to the object being dragged, there's a challenge to find the subject of the drop when the interaction is completed. Of course, that doesn't prevent most modern JavaScript frameworks from abstracting away most of the problems and throwing in some flourishes while they're at it. But, wouldn't it be nice if browsers offered first-class support for drag and drop, and maybe even extended it beyond the window sandbox? As it turns out, this very wish is answered by the HTML 5 specification section on new drag-and-drop events, and Firefox 3.5 includes an implementation of those events. If you want to jump straight to the code, I've put together some simple demos of the new events. I've even scratched an itch of my own and built the beginnings of an outline editor, where every draggable element is also a drop target—of which there could be dozens to hundreds in a complex document, something that gave me some minor hair-tearing moments in the past while trying to make do with plain old mouse events. And, all the above can be downloaded or cloned from a GitHub repository I've created especially for this article—which continues after the jump. [ ... 3204 words ... ]
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2009 May 30
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Controlled Monetization
I took the pills. Like everyone else, I took the pills and I sent in the hair and the piss to prove I took the pills. I’d figured something out, though: I could stop taking the pills for the first half of the month, then double up at the end. I still passed the tests; no one knocked on the door. [ ... 184 words ... ]
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From Spaceman to Plantsman
The first time the spaceman saw my garden, I thought he was going to strangle me. [ ... 172 words ... ]
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2009 April 13
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I (used to) like rev="canonical"
Update 4/14: So, I liked rev="canonical", but I like the notion of pages offering sets of alternative URLs better. There are enough cracks in the case for rev="canonical" to stop caring about it and instead focus on the notion behind it. However it's expressed—is it rel="shortlink" now?—the final remaining things I'd like to see are: An more generalized scope for alternate URL choices asserted by publishers, not just URL shortening. Other criteria beyond character length include ease of entry on mobile devices (eg. short, but also simple, maybe mostly numeric), ease of verbal mention (eg. billboards, postcards, etc). HTTP headers are great where available—hooray for HEAD—but it still needs to be in the page for publishers who can't set custom headers. Microformats are great, but I'd rather not parse a whole page to the footer to lift out the desired URLs. Don't panic. Have fun. And with that, I'm going to try coming up with other things to write about so this blog doesn't stay dormant. The rest of this entry remains unedited below... [ ... 2353 words ... ]
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2009 January 23
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7 facts about me
So, it finally happened—I've been tagged by Stephen Donner. I've not been one to follow memes in this blog, but this one's been going around the Mozillasphere for awhile now and has been kind of interesting. I'm half-tempted to bookmark and tag all the entries I've caught so far. Anyway, the rules: Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post. Share seven facts about yourself in the post. Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs. Let them know they’ve been tagged. Now, for your random facts, after the jump: [ ... 780 words ... ]
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2009 January 18
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2009 January 06
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Enter the LizardFeeder
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2009 January 05
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Resolutions
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Three Years in Review
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