Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

I noticed a seemingly insignifcant change at work today.

Not consciously at first. While browsing and searching online I just had this strange feeling in my gut, like something wasn’t quite right with the world.

Now that I realise what’s changed I can recognise it for what it truly is… the first sign (ggg?) of the coming apocalypse.

Anchors, be gone!.. Named anchors, at least.

I’m not a fan of linking to named anchors (for example: <a name="point-a"></a>). They limit you to identifying a point in the document, or at best some link text.

Its much more powerful to link to a section of a page using the id attribute on an element that contains the content you’re referring the user to.

For example:

<div id="section-a">
	<h2>Section A</h2>
	<p>Some content worth linking to...</p>
</div>

In this case when you link to the fragment-identifier #section-a you are signifying that the user should read the entire section of content.

But how can the user tell the difference?

Usually, they can’t! (only those who understand HTML and look at the code can tell).

That’s where Frag Link highlighter can help. After the user follows a link to a page fragment, Frag Link briefly highlights the section of content that was linked to.

It also helps in situations when the browser has scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page and the section in question still isn’t at the top of the viewport. The brief flash of colour can draw users’ attention to the relevant content.

Frag Link can also help draw attention to part of a page when no scrolling is involved or when there is more that one column of content.

Give the Frag Link demo a try and tell me what you think.

Getting closer with the Buttonise concept.

Again, the concept is not quite production-ready, but the OS mantra is Release early. Release often (and a week between updates is often for me ).

The key improvement of this release is that it will run well in common browsers (tested in Firefox 2, Opera 9, Safari 3).

There are still some styling issues to work through and a couple of functionality issues with IE6.

Here’s a sneak preview of something I’ve been thinking about and working on for a while: Buttonise.

Its already been through quite a few variations and reviews, but its not quite production-ready yet (and it only works in Firefox ATM), but it is getting closer.

What is buttonise?

Buttonise is a way to style buttons consistently between browser makes and versions, what’s more, it allows you to style links as buttons, for those situations when you would like to use a link in amongst buttons without confusing the end user.

It is entirely unobtrusive, maintains the accessibility of the page it is incorporated into and conforms to the principle of progressive enhancement.

Let me know whay you think.

I finally got around to finishing the jQuery redevelopment of ExMenu.

As ever, ExMenu is an unobtrusive DHTML tree menu widget.

The new version boasts a smaller footprint (thanks to jQuery) and more flexible setup options.

Version 2 also sports some cute new styling options.