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iPhone Bookmarklets

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:00:13 +0000

This post is a bit of an experiment. I want an iPhone bookmarklet that will allow me to subscribe to RSS feeds! I use Google Reader currently, and found a couple of bookmarklets on their blog which do the trick.

I also came across a handy ‘find in page’ link which is something I often miss with mobile Safari!

I found a post on the Google reader blog about how to create bookmarklets for use with Google Reader. Although very old (2005!) the bookmarklets still work.

One way to get these bookmarklets into your iPhone is to bookmark them in your web browser, then synch the bookmarks with your iPhone.

Alternatively you can do so from your iPhone using the links on this page. If you have saved bookmarklets before using your iPhone its a familiar process: bookmark a page, then edit the bookmark.

So here is my attempt. Click through to each of the links below, then bookmark the page. Enter an appropriate title for the bookmark, and save.

Once saved, go back and edit the bookmark – remove everything before the “javascript:” phrase.

(Note that Twitterfon has a good summary of how to do this if you need a graphical illustration)

Show all feeds

Lastly – here is the “find in page” bookmarklet which i found here:

Find on this page

I hope these links work… bit of an experiment…!

Edit: Yep, they do work, so now i can subscribe to feeds using my iPhone… hope someone else finds this useful!

Another Jaguar Configurator for the XJ

admin — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:14:01 +0000

Two years after the first Jaguar Configurator I was involved with went live, I am happy to say I was involved in the new configurator for the All New XJ.

This configurator is currently HTML based with a nice “Flash” 3d Model that lets you spin the car around to see it from all angles.

The backend is based on a product configurator/rules engine web service which can be used to drive all kinds of product configurator, automotive or otherwise.

I hope to build some controls and components for Umbraco to allow integration with the product configurator and a Content Management System, although it may be some time before I have the time!

The new configurator also contains the first Flash app I ever built: the 3D spin. I’m still amazed at how quickly we were able to build that!

I absolutely love the Jaguar XJ; it really does help when building a new application when the product itself is so inspiring.

Since launching the XJ configurator we’ve also replaced the old XF configurator with a new XF configurator, and added in new X-Type and XK configurators as well!

US versions are also available if you are interested in building your own XJ, building an XF or building an XK!

Umbraco DocType Inheritance

admin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:12:44 +0000

This is a post in response to the ongoing discussion about DocType Inheritance in Umbraco.

I am working on a large site with a lot of different doc types. They do all share some common properties – Breadcrumb name, and menu name for example. I also need to add Metadata fields to each of these document types at some point.

Niels is probably correct – “inheritance” would save me half an hour here, half an hour there. But I do still think it would make my life easier and take some of the tedium out of website development!

I have been giving this some thought over the last few days and wondered if some of my thoughts would be of use to anybody.

Aims of DocType Inheritance
1. Ability to inherit the properties defined in a base Document Type
2. When the base document type properties change, these changes should propogate to child types.

Examples of DocType Inheritance
1. Car website – base “Auto” doctype with child “CopCar” doctype
2. Metadata – all/most documents require Keywords, Description, Title, breadcrumb name

Simple Implementation
If the purpose of DocType inheritance is to re-use common fields, this can be achieved without making any changes to Umbraco and without even adding any packages to Umbraco (although, some Action Handlers could make the experience a little nicer).

I’m not saying this is a solution that everyone will want to use, but it is a possibility, and it works without any changes to Umbraco.

Meta Data
Here is a scenario:
1. a DocType called “BaseDocType” which has the properties “MetaKeywords”, “MetaDescription”.
The “BaseDocType” does not have a template assigned (@template=0)

2. a DocType called “Blog” which has the properties “blogImage” and “blogText” and “author”

3. a DocType called “Homepage” which has the properties “bodyText” and “featuredBlogPosts”

If we want all of our documents to use the properties in “BaseDocType” then the simplest way is to allow “BaseDocType” to be a child node of the other two – on the “Structure” tab of the Document Type, make sure that “BaseDocType” is an allowed child node.

WEBSITE
   |
   |-----------Homepage
   |                    |---------- BaseDocType
   |
   |-----------Blog Post 1
   |                    |---------- BaseDocType
   |
   |-----------Blog Post 2
   |                    |---------- BaseDocType

You can write some XSLT, Python, or in Umbraco v4 you can write some C# straight into the page, to retrieve the properties of the child basedoctype.

Code:

Multiple Inheritance (BaseAuto)

Now we could add some more document types:
4. BaseAuto (With engine, transmission, topSpeed properties)
Again, no template should be selected for the base type (@template=0)

5. CopCar (With SirenColour and optional Doughnut holder)

Now you can re-use both the BaseAuto and the BaseDocType as follows:

WEBSITE
   |
   |-----------Homepage
   |                    |---------- BaseDocType
   |
   |-----------Blog Post
   |                    |---------- BaseDocType
   |
   |-----------Cop Car
   |                    |---------- BaseDocType
   |                    |---------- BaseAuto

@template=0
When writing menus, sitemaps, breadcrumbs etc you may already have come across ‘umbracoNaviHide’. This is a flag which can be used to tell XSLT not to render links to some pages.
I also use the @template attribute for the same purpose.

So, if @template=0 – do not render that page in any navigation or sitemaps.

Some Action Handlers
This could be made more user friendly by writing some action handlers. For example, if the user attempts to create a CopCar, then an action handler could automatically create the BaseDocType and BaseAuto child nodes.

This will require a more formal way of specifying the “inheritance” – so that the action handler knows which child documents to create. I think this could be done with a simple data type / label which identifies the child document types or by using the Document type “name”

Code:

DocType Name: Blog Post extends BaseDocType
DocType Alias: blogPost

DocTypeName: Cop Car extends BaseDocType,BaseAuto
DocType Alias: copCar

Some tweaks
You could arrange your content in reverse – which would give a view which looks more like an inheritance tree.

WEBSITE
   |
   |-----------BaseDocType
   |                    |---------- Homepage

This would allow you to use Umbraco’s tag, and a little less XSLT.
However, you would need to redirect from the BaseDocType to its child node (using an Umbraco Redirect package?) which I think would make this structure unuseable.

The “real” thing
For those of you who still want “proper” doctype inheritance, this is how I think it could be done as an Umbraco Package using Action Handlers.

Naming convention: Use the DocType naming convention mentioned above (A extends B).
An ActionHandler or .NET event will fire when the DocType is saved. The action handler will check the name of the DocType – parse the “extends B” and add any properties from DocType B to DocType A.

If DocType B is modified, an ActionHandler or .NET event will modify all doctypes which extend DocType B.

I think you would also need to have a sensible naming convention for properties. For example, all properties of DocType B would be named “B.poperty” – to simulate namespaces and avoid duplicate variable names.

Special care would need to be taken to handle deep inheritance (A extends B, B extends C – so when C is modified, B would be modified, which would cause A to be modified).

Conclusion
So – thats how I think it could be done. What do you think?

Using AJAX With Struts and Tiles

admin — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:29:44 +0000

This post explains a technique for building websites using Struts and Tiles templates, in such a way that AJAX can be integrated into the application. When the user does not support AJAX or JavaScript, the website will still function because it will fall back on the standard HTTP protocols and the standard Struts framework.

Graceful degradation in this way is often referred to as “Hijax”.

This post assumes that the reader is familiar with the Struts and Tiles frameworks.

What is AJAX?

AJAX is an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. AJAX is a scripting technique for silently loading new data from the server. Although AJAX scripts commonly use the soon to be standardised XMLHttpRequest object, they could also use a hidden or , or even dynamically embedded