Sometimes my ideas for jQuery plugins come from the need to solve a particular problem. Other times I see something done one way, and want to do it another way. Still other times they just come out of thin air. The inspiration for my latest plugin? Well, it came from a regular old, ugly checkbox.
I’m working on an application that has a lot of forms, and on some of the forms there are options that are simply yes/no or on/off. Now ordinarily I’d just slap a checkbox on the page and be done with it. In terms of functionality nothing is easier. A checkbox has two states, check or unchecked (although CSS3 will let us tap into an indeterminate state — but that’s not important right now). If the checkbox is checked, the option is selected; if not, it isn’t. Pretty basic. But from a design perspective, using a single checkbox to indicate whether something is on or off is well, pretty mundane. So I began to think, what could I do to improve upon the look while retaining the simplicity of a checkbox? Continue Reading »
While the term “pseudo-class” might not instantly evoke what it refers to, virtually every web developer and web designer has used them. The classic example of pseudo-classes involves styling links based on the state that they’re in (hover, active, etc.). CSS3 introduces over a dozen new CSS pseudo classes to give you more control over targeting and styling elements. CSS2 pseudo-classes still work in CSS3, and CSS2′s pseudo elements are virtually unchanged in CSS3 (see the last paragraph). Below is a chart that outlines pseudo-classes in CSS2 and CSS3 with new CSS3 pseudo-classes in bold. Continue Reading »
I first saw this about six years ago and just recently saw it again. At first I was like, is this for real? But once you hear the term “dingle arm” you just know…
I’ve released an small update to the jQuery plugin Infinite Carousel 2. As reported by Ervin, there was a bug triggered by small transition times that caused the carousel to behave erratically. It turns out that this was caused by a race condition created by the captions and this has now been fixed and the plugin works as it should now with any transition time.
I’m not talking about the bud style earphones that come with an iPod or Zune. I’m talking about those you buy that would replace the bud style that actually go into your ear canal. Those earphone, headphone, whatever you wanna call them things that you plug into your head. I bought a pair, never having tried them before, hoping to get better sound that what the buds gave me. After getting past the initial weirdness of pushing them into my ears, which I can only equate to the weirdness someone who has never had contact lenses experiences the first time they try to put contact lenses in their eyes, I tested their sound. Overall the audio quality was fine, but the entire time I was being distracted by how odd it felt to have something stuck in my ears and also have virtually all external sounds blocked out. It was like a constant wet willie — only not wet.
After a few minutes my ear canals begin to ache so I removed the earphones from my head. Then I noticed that my ear wax was now on the earphones which, aside from being a little gross, made me wonder if I now would have to clean these things every time I took them out of my ears. So to sum up: awkward putting them in, weird feeling of having external sound blocked out like someone had their finger in my ears, and needs frequent cleaning. You can probably tell that I am no fan of this style of head/earphone. Oh, and for those of you that do like this style of head/earphone yes, I did try changing the size of the little cushions they give you for a more comfortable fit, but the result was always the same. Needless to say, I’ll be sticking with my reliable, non-intrusive, old bud style headphones for the foreseeable future.
