The Solution to Stop Gimp From Displaying Hidden Files in Open File Dialog?

When the open file dialog is open, I right-clicked on the file list and was given the option to show or not show hidden files!

I spotted this one while visiting my friend Randy in Charlottesville last Thanksgiving:

Creating gradients with transparency are usually relegated to PNG graphics files, as they support 24-bit alpha channels. With CSS3, this is becoming possible. Its not all that difficult either!

Here's a simple CSS3 class which employs a gradient from gray to black, with support for recent versions of MSIE, Webkit (Safari, Chrome, etc.), and Mozilla (Firefox, Iceweasel, etc.):

.g2b {
  filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#555555', endColorstr='#000000');
  background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#555), to(#000));
  background: -moz-linear-gradient(top,  #555,  #000);
}

For transparency, I'm using rgba, which in my experience is not supported by MSIE 7 or 8.

.transpgdbd {
  background: transparent;
  background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(rgba(0,0,0,0)), color-stop(0.5, #000), to(#000));
  background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(0,0,0,0), #000 400px);
}

I've setup sketch99.com to with a CSS3 gradient so visitors can witness the action for themselves.

Multiple Transitions

Browser Detection

Speaking of MSIE versus the-rest-of-the-world, this page suggests and interesting way of creating an HTML body class specific to different versions of MSIE. I wouldn't use it, as its pretty bulky, and as the author admits, it doesn't validate.

If I were to do something like this, I would use the conditional operators to set a javascript variable in the head, and then use javascript or jquery to add the class once the opening body tag gets loaded. Granted, I don't know if that would even work, but its where I would start.

When it comes to browser detection, I'm OK with the comment based IE conditionals, but I don't like them. I don't enjoy supporting a company that doesn't support open source software! More to the point, I'm OK with them because even if a browser spoofs their user agent, only real MSIE browsers will process them.

This is similar to how jQuery suggests testing for user agents - check to see if it supports certain functionality that needs to get used. If I want to check if a browser is IE, I will usually use:

if($.support.opacity) {
  // not IE, or at least not a modern browser
}

.transp5 {
    opacity: 0.5;
}

For browsers without CSS3 support:

.transp5 {
  filter:alpha(opacity=50);
    -moz-opacity:0.5;
    -khtml-opacity: 0.5;
    opacity: 0.5;
}

I setup a couple of classes with trans + "the level of opacity".

Also, I recently wanted to set a background color to be transparent, but not the text within it. This is also possible in browsers that support rgba (red, green, blue, alpha) color specifiers:

.transp5bg {
  background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.50); 
}

Of course I'd like to use a jQuery plugin if I can find a good one!

Here's what I've found so far:

• http://benalman.com/projects/jquery-bbq-plugin/
• http://plugins.jquery.com/project/history (looks good)
• http://jqueryfordesigners.com/enabling-the-back-button/
• http://www.overset.com/2008/06/18/jquery-history-plugin/
• http://github.com/Panmind/jquery-ajax-nav (looks good)

Besides my faux pas with using tables for aesthetics, I have developed some sweet setups with tables. My first use was before I discovered jQuery and the famed tablesorter plugin, so I manually constructed pagination with PHP, SQL and and XSL - what fun! It worked quite well, surprisingly, even with single column sorting. :-)

After discovering jQuery and tablesorter, I switched up my game, or upgraded it I should say, and its really be a major improvement.

However, I've recently run into a situation with YoDNSConf where the number of rows I'm working with is so large that my browser pretty much freezes my entire computer while tablesorter works its magic. I've tried some hacks:

• Loading the rows separately from the HTML page via AJAX
• Appending more rows with AJAX during pagination
• Hiding the table until tablesorter is done, then showing it

None worked very well - but now that I'm significantly reworking YoDNSConf, I figured I'd take another go at it.

This time I'm building the table using DOM scripting, using JSON data. I was sure there had to be a jQuery plugin for building tables from JSON data, and in fact there are, but none are as simple as I'd hoped.

The one that caught my attention the most is called chain and it seemed to hold a lot of promise, but in the end wasn't quite what I was looking for - though I did like that it wasn't a template engine. Seems like a lot of the JSON2DOM scripts were template engines.

OK - guess that was the key to my search: json2dom! I just found this very cool, simple jQuery plugin which may just do what I want:

/**
 @param: je (dictionary) - json element description
  key (string) - html tag name
  value - one of:
   * String: text content
   * Array: array of child elements as json
   * JQuery: html content
   * Dictionary: jquery methods.
         key: method name.
         value: parameters (single value or array)
*/
function json2dom(je){
    // get tag name and content
    var tag,content;
    for(var key in je){
    if(tag)
        throw "dictionary must have a single item";
    tag = key;
    content = je[key];
    }

    // create tag element
    var element = $(document.createElement(tag));

    // add content
    // string (text content)
    if(typeof content == "string"){
    element.text(content);
    }

    // array (child elements)
    else if(content instanceof Array){
    for(var i=0,max=content.length;i

Its still not exactly what I'm looking for, but finding it has definitely helped me figure out what I'm trying to accomplish, and how others have tried to do something similar by creating a jQuery plugin. Ideally - I'd like to deal only with JSON arrays (no html elements included), as well as avoid using templates.

OT: While searching, I also found treeTable, which isn't at all what I was looking for, but it does look cool!
]]>
        

    



    
    
    tag:www.artisticbot.com,2010://228.23493

    2010-06-07T23:16:22Z
    2011-11-19T04:27:04Z

    
 This looks like a terrific read! I've often griped about javascript because it has to deal with different browsers, but it does indeed have some very nice properties for a programming language....
    
        Albert
        
    
    
        
    
    
    
    
        

This looks like a terrific read! I've often griped about javascript because it has to deal with different browsers, but it does indeed have some very nice properties for a programming language.
]]>
        

    



    
    
    tag:www.artisticbot.com,2010://228.23492

    2010-06-05T20:51:01Z
    2011-11-19T04:27:03Z

    
Google has updated their recommended Analytics code, and it seems that its possible to implement in an external javascript file. Totally awesome!! I've got mine setup in the mt.js file which is used as part of the Movable Type setup....
    
        Albert
        
    
    
        
    
    
    
    
    
    
        Google has updated their recommended Analytics code, and it seems that its possible to implement in an external javascript file.


Totally awesome!!

I've got mine setup in the mt.js file which is used as part of the Movable Type setup. I set a variable called "analytics_code" at the top, and then put this in at the bottom:


var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', analytics_code]);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
  var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
  ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
  var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();


]]>