Today is apparently Web Developer Tools day.
Ever copy and paste from Work or Outlook, put it online, and have someone call you screaming about “weird characters”?
This is because Microsoft like to “help” you output nice text. Down side is, it comes along with a copy and paste.
Clean that bad markup with HTML Tidy! Paste in a URL, copy and paste text, or upload a file, and outputs neatly structured HTML goodness.
Browsers bug me. Compensating for the differences between them is always a chore, and can consume hours.
Enter Reset CSS and Rebuild CSS.
Eric Meyer basically sets every HTML tag to nothing.
Blueprint basically builds it back up, standardized.
Importing these two files at the top of your CSS, like so:
@import url('styles/reset.css');
@import url('styles/rebuild.css');
basically allows your to start from scratch.
This is not to say it’ll be perfect. However, I’ve noticed far less issues stemming from cross-browser incompatibility when using these tools.
I advocate compiling these 2 sheets with a personal “Master Sheet” that will allow you to start, for example, with consistent Header Tag styles. Personally, I like to set my font-sizes for my header tags the same across all sites I do, so that I know exactly what sizes they will be.
Stuff like this saves me time on every project, either making me more money freelancing, or allowing me to get ahead of projects at work.
For some reason, this is a pain in the neck to find and I always have to end up copying and pasting some list with extra crap in it. For once and for all, here it is.
When shit that I want to create doesn’t work on your browser, that’s when.
I’m learning about the Document Object Model so that I can build killer web applications. Unfortunately, different browsers will read my code differently, and in many cases, throw massive coronary errors and refuse to work.
If you use Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer <= 6, or any other browser that does not support the traditional event registration model, you’re shit out of luck. This allows me to at least get my web app off the ground before I start worrying about everyone and their mom that uses IE6 going to the site and having it not work. I’ll get it off the ground, then pay someone else to make it work in other crap. In the mean time, when someone goes to the site, they’ll see a blank page with links to browsers that work.
Event Listeners own me.
I’ve been DEATHLY scared of these damn things my entire professional career. Finally, last night, in an attempt to create my first full-on javascript / php / mysql / ajax / blablabla some other web technology, I started to come to terms with the fact that yes, I need to learn it if I want to create some truly awesome web apps.
I’ve “used” them before. Usually, this entails going to someone else’s site that had what I needed to accomplish already completed and there for the download / copy / paste. However, with this new project that’s consuming my mind, I need to learn them. I need to make 100% unique javascript functions in order to accomplish my goals. I think that as I learn this stuff I’ll post here, but most likely I’ll just post some strings of code with a post titled “EUREKA!”
