Web Info & Tutorials

Brandon Aaron has developed a general work around for the common, nagging problem with IE6 and heavyweight components such as a select drop down ignoring z-index.

Brandon created the background iframe (bgiframe) jQuery plugin which “provides a very small, quick and easy way to fix that problem so you don’t have to worry about it. No matter the size, borders or position the bgiframe plugin can fix it.”

In the simple case, you can grab a collection and call bgiframe on it: $('.fix-z-index').bgiframe();. You can also pass in data to mess with the top, left, width, height, opacity, and src parameters.

How does it work?

The bgiframe plugin works by prepending an iframe to the element. The iframe is given a class of bgiframe and positioned below all the other children of the element. In the default configuration it automatically adjusts to the width and height of the element (including the borders) and the opacity is set to 0. The element needs to have position (relative or absolute) and should have a background (color or image).

Check out the test page to see the plugin in action.

Julien Lecomte has created a new tool that aims to minify better than JSMin, and compress better than the Dojo compressor:

The What

The YUI Compressor is a new JavaScript minifier. Its level of compaction is higher than the Dojo compressor, and it is as safe as JSMin. Tests on the YUI library have shown savings of about 18% compared to JSMin and 10% compared to the Dojo compressor (these respectively become 10% and 5% after HTTP compression).

The How

The YUI Compressor is written in Java (requires Java >= 1.4) and relies on Rhino to tokenize the source JavaScript file. It starts by analyzing the source JavaScript file to understand how it is structured. It then prints out the token stream, replacing all local symbols by a 1 (or 2, or 3) letter symbol wherever such a substitution is appropriate (in the face of evil features such as eval or with, the YUI Compressor takes a defensive approach by not obfuscating any of the scopes containing the evil statement). The YUI Compressor is open-source, so don’t hesitate to look at the code to understand exactly how it works.

The Limitations

Unlike JSMin, the YUI Compressor is slow and cannot be used for on-the-fly code minification (see minify for a PHP implementation of JSMin by Ryan Grove, another Yahoo! engineer, that does on-the-fly JavaScript minification among other things).

Download YUI Compressor 1.0 to start compressing your files.

BuiltWith is the latest attempt at gathering information about a given URL. It aims to weazel around and find out as much technical information about the site as possible.

For example:

• What web server?
• What JavaScript libraries?
• Do they use a CDN?
• What analytics programs do they use?
• What widgets are installed

If you have already looked through your mini-feed on Facebook, and read your email, here is a chance to waste a little time seeing what it can find on your favourite sites. According to the tool itself, it is built with YUI… but of course you could view source for that :)

Olav Bjorkoy fresh launched Blueprint CSS, a support that takes printing into account.

Why did Olav create it?

After datum an article by Jeff Croft on frameworks for designers, I started hunting at the existing CSS frameworks, disagreeable to encounter digit that was correct for me.

Never again was I to move the windy duty of creating a installation from scratch, process choice typography, or battling with contradictory choice application CSS.

Features

Here’s whatever of the features Blueprint brings to the plateau (not

, nous you):

• An easily customizable grid
• Some choice typography
• A craft baseline
• CSS set for choice application styles
• A stylesheet for printing
• No bloat of whatever kind.

Many grouping hit gotten agog most it, includein Mark Boulton:

What a list! Now, if you meet place the prototypal saucer aside, the set features of Blueprint alter unitedly whatever of the prizewinning craft organisation intellection on the scheme over the time assemblage or so. Eric Meyer’s set cipher is in there, Richard Rutter’s Vertical Rhythm theory, Jeff Croft’s ideas on managing a CSS framework.

Going backwards to the grid—and this is what rattling interests me—Olav has utilised Khoi Vinh’s theories and training on installation design to great, applicatory use. What is so essential most this CSS support to me is that it has been fashioned to cipher a organisation problem, not a theoretical problem. As every enthusiastic systems, it has been fashioned to support and pass the designer. As you crapper tell, I’m already a bounteous fan.