The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
19
PBS 54 of X — More Bootstrap Utilities
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on May 19, 2018 | Leave a Comment
In the previous instalment we started our exploration of Bootstrap with a look at some of its commonly used utility CSS classes. We’ll finish that off in this instalment by looking at some more utility CSS classes. That will finish out our initial look at the utilities. We’ll then be ready to move on to the next major component of Bootstrap, the CSS libraries it provides for enhancing existing HTML content.
The ZIP file for this instalment can be downloaded here.
May
5
PBS 53 of X — Bootstrap Utilities
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on May 5, 2018 | 1 Comment
We’ll start this instalment with a very quick look at my sample solution to the previous instalment‘s challenge. Then, we’ll really get stuck into Bootstrap.
As we learned last time, Bootstrap can be thought of as consisting of four separate chunks of functionality — layout, content, components, and utilities. Because utilities are universally useful, that’s where we’ll be start our journey. In this instalment we’ll meet our first few Bootstrap utility CSS classes.
You can download the ZIP file for this instalment here.
Mar
31
PBS 52 of X — Introducing Bootstrap 4
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on March 31, 2018 | 1 Comment
In this first instalment back after our month-long hiatus we change tack completely, moving away from JavaScript altogether, and diving right back into HTML and CSS.
One of the golden rules of programming is not to waste your time needlessly re-inventing the wheel. This is the driving motivation behind the development of many open source libraries. The aim is to give programmers a leg up by providing pre-built foundations for them to build on. The best example of this approach we’ve seen so-far in this series is jQuery. Today, I’m going to introduce you to another one, Bootstrap.
Out of the box, all versions of HTML, even HTML 5, have some significant short-comings:
- The default style is just plain ugly!
- There are no simple tags for creating complex page layouts.
- There are no simple tags for facilitating responsive design (same page displayed differently depending on screen resolution).
- Some basic elements and behaviours common to many web pages are not provided.
Bootstap aims to solve all these shortcomings using a combination of mostly CSS combined with a little JavaScript.
Feb
18
PBS 50 of x — A Worked Example (Object Explorer)
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on February 18, 2018 | 1 Comment
In this very special 50th instalment I share my screen with Allison and we build up a simple web app together. We start with the scariest thing of all, a blank screen, and take it from there.
The web app we build up together is an object visualiser. Our simple web app consists of a text area into which we can enter JavaScript code to define an object, a <div> into which we will render a representation of the object, and a button to trigger the rendering.
Using a Screen Reader? click here.
Just about everything we use in this little exercise is revision, with one exception — we meet JavaScript’s eval() function for the first time. The eval() function takes as an argument a string, and executes it as JavaScript code. For more details, see the MDN documentation.
You can download the final code here.
Feb
3
PBS 49 of x — Improving Our Cellular Automata
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on February 3, 2018 | Leave a Comment
In this instalment we’re going to continue to consolidate our understanding of JavaScript classes by improving the Cellular Automaton classes we built together in previous instalments. This time we’ll make a start on improving how the classes represent and deal with cell states. The challenge will be to finish the task.
We’ll also take some time to revise the basics of JavaScript objects.
The ZIP file for this instalment contains my sample solution to the previous challenge.
Jan
20
PBS 48 of x – A Closer Look at ‘this’ and ‘static’
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on January 20, 2018 | 2 Comments
I had initially planned to return to our Cellular Automata classes and Conway’s Game of Life for this instalment, but based on some listener feedback I’ve decided to delay that by at least one instalment and dedicate this entire instalment to a closer look at just two JavaScript keywords – this and static instead. The two are more closely related that you might think.
The ZIP file for this instalment contains my sample solution to the challenge set at the end of the previous instalment, the starting point for the next challenge, and a JavaScript file containing all the example code snippets that appear in this instalment.
Oct
29
PBS 42 of x – Playing the Game of Life
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on October 29, 2017 | 1 Comment
In this instalment it’s finally time to bring our Cellular Automaton prototypes to life by implementing Conway’s Game of Life. By the end of this instalment we’ll have reached a real milestone — our first web app! Granted, it won’t be a very feature-rich web app, but you have to start somewhere!
As usual, I’ve collected the code files for this instalment into a ZIP file which you can download here. As well as the ZIP file, I’ve also published a tagged release of the bartificer.ca.js code on GitHub which you’ll need for this instalment’s challenge.
Oct
13
PBS 41 of x – Form Events
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on October 13, 2017 | 1 Comment
In this instalment we’ll tie up the last few loose ends related to web forms. With web forms under our belts, we’ll then be ready to pick up where we left off with our cellular automata JavaScript prototypes, and combine our HTML, JavaScript, and CSS skills together to make our first web app – an implementation of Conway’s Game of Life.
This instalment breaks down into two distinct parts – our first look at keyboard interaction with web forms, and a final look at form-related events.
When it comes to keyboard interaction we’ll start by looking at how browsers treat regular web forms, and then we’ll move on to supporting keyboard interaction with custom web form UI elements like the star-rating example from instalment 36.
Finally, we’ll wrap up with a handy reference table summarising the most important webform-related JavaScripts events, giving some guidance on their use.
There’s just one sample file associated with this instalment, and it’s available for download as a ZIP file here.
Sep
29
PBS 40 of x – HTML5 Custom Validations with jQuery
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on September 29, 2017 | 2 Comments
At the end of the previous instalment I promised we were done with HTML form validation, and insisted we were ready to move on to finishing our Cellular Automata, but it turns out that was a little premature. While working on my sample solution for the previous instalment‘s challenge I realised I’d forgotten to cover something very important – the fact that you can use jQuery to deal with situations where the HTML5 form validation attributes are not powerful enough for your needs. So – we need to rectify that oversight, and that’s going to take this entire instalment to do.
Then, while doing her homework, Allison discovered another oversight that needs to be remedied before we move away from HTML forms – we need to look at how to support keyboard-only interactions. Why? In a word – accessibility. So, in the next instalment we’ll start by looking at the narrow case of supporting keyboard input in forms, but we’ll then move on and look at keyboard interactions a little more broadly, and we’ll learn how to add keyboard shortcuts to our web apps. This will come in useful when we do then finally move on to getting our cellular automata working the following instalment.
As usual, I’ve collected all the files for this instalment into a single ZIP file which you can download here.
Sep
15
PBS 39 of x – HTML5 Form Validation
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on September 15, 2017 | 1 Comment
In this instalment we’ll be taking a break from our parallel approach, and focusing almost exclusively on HTML5 form validation. We’ll dedicate the entirety of the next instalment to getting our cellular automaton prototypes up and running so we can actually ‘play’ the game of life.
While we won’t be continuing work on our Cellular Automata prototypes this time, I will share my solution to the challenge I set way back in instalment 36.
Also, before we get stuck into new content I’ll be taking a small diversion to explain a slight change in my approach to HTML coding, and how that will affect the sample code you see for the remainder of this series.
As usual, I’ve collected the example file for this instalment and the starting point for the challenge together into a ZIP file which you can download here.