http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Programming A listing of the most recently indexed works about Design and Web Design and Programming in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Design/Web-Design/Programming http://tc.eserver.org/35169.html http://tc.eserver.org/35169.html While MVC is a familiar term to those in back-end application development—using frameworks such as Struts, Ruby on Rails, and CakePHP—MVC’s origin in user interface development lends itself to structuring client-side applications. Let’s examine what MVC is, see how we can use it to rework an example project, and consider some existing MVC frameworks. http://tc.eserver.org/34973.html http://tc.eserver.org/34973.html Developing web-based applications can be done using a variety of tools and languages. However, the Java™ programming language and Java servlets are the ideal choice because of a number of attractive features, namely, portability, efficiency, safety, extensibility, and flexibility. Few viable alternatives exist that can be considered equally powerful. Over the past few years, I have developed an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand framework based on Java servlets to facilitate the development of web-based applications. The framework (called Hamlets) is the result of a radical simplification effort. In this article I show you step by step how to write your first web-based application in Java using Hamlets. http://tc.eserver.org/34767.html http://tc.eserver.org/34767.html This cheat sheet covers both ActionScript 2.0 and ActionScript 3.0 and is organized to help those who need to switch to 3.0. The functions and classes of ActionScript 2.0 are to the left of each section, followed by their equivalents in ActionScript 3.0. http://tc.eserver.org/34768.html http://tc.eserver.org/34768.html This cheat sheet is logically organized into DOM methods, functions, regular expressions, etc. It’s easy to use and a great reference for all common JavaScript uses. The guide is not only excellent for JavaScript beginners (covering items as basic as the syntax for putting JavaScript into HTML) but is also suited to programmers at an advanced level (referring to more advanced JavaScript functionality). http://tc.eserver.org/33983.html http://tc.eserver.org/33983.html We will demonstrate how enhancements to the XJ language (http://alphaworks.ibm.com/tech/xj) facilitate the development of Web Service applications. http://tc.eserver.org/33945.html http://tc.eserver.org/33945.html When used effectively, JavaScript debuggers help find and squash errors in your JavaScript code. To become an advanced JavaScript debugger, you’ll need to know about the debuggers available to you, the typical JavaScript debugging workflow, and code requirements for effective debugging. In this article, we’ll discuss advanced debugging techniques for diagnosing and treating bugs using a sample web application. http://tc.eserver.org/33921.html http://tc.eserver.org/33921.html Want to know more about cloud and grid computing? Learn how you can use Infrastructure as a Service to get a full computer infrastructure using Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). See the similarities, differences, and issues to consider in grid and cloud computing. Explore some of the security issues and choices for Web development in the cloud, and see how you can be environmentally friendly using cloud computing. http://tc.eserver.org/33348.html http://tc.eserver.org/33348.html I’m not one to believe that we’re in a Bubble 2.0 or anything like that (aren’t we always bubbular?), but here are a few ideas about why some of the web apps out there fail. http://tc.eserver.org/32743.html http://tc.eserver.org/32743.html A handy trick for Web Developers in the ability to parse a string to check for a given substring. In plain English, this means checking if a word or part of a word is contained within text. This tutorial demonstrates how to do this using JavaScript. http://tc.eserver.org/32705.html http://tc.eserver.org/32705.html People love Ajax applications so much that they are willing to use them instead of their desktop equivalents. The only problem occurs when they fail to have network access. This is when an offline feature is necessary. Apache Derby is a great option for enabling offline access to Ajax-powered applications. Learn how to use Apache Derby as a local data store that can be used to take your Ajax application offline. http://tc.eserver.org/32657.html http://tc.eserver.org/32657.html Applications, particularly business applications, can often require a lot of date manipulation, but that code could be simplified if JavaScript’s core Date object had some additional methods. In this article, I will show you how to add custom methods to the Date object that are inherited by each date instance. http://tc.eserver.org/32553.html http://tc.eserver.org/32553.html I will go through how to make a full-blown widget that uses AJAX technology. It fetches news from a newsfeed source, presents them nicely to you, includes some eyecandy and of course lets you customize the amount of news items, refresh time and which category of news you want to be shown. http://tc.eserver.org/32470.html http://tc.eserver.org/32470.html On the about page of this site I used to call myself a “developer/designer/occasional writer”. It’s a bit confusing, and I still find it hard to know what to answer when someone asks me what I do for a living. Am I a Web designer? A Web developer? A Web programmer? All of them? Neither? It really is a difficult question to give a simple answer to. http://tc.eserver.org/32474.html http://tc.eserver.org/32474.html There is not a single interpreted language used today that causes more excitement, confusion, disdain, and conflict than JavaScript. The language is so incredibly flexible that it is difficult to separate a developer’s choice of coding style from JavaScript best practices. http://tc.eserver.org/32477.html http://tc.eserver.org/32477.html There is no official ECMAScript or JavaScript language feature called “shorthand”. Developers are responsible for coining the phrase, probably after realizing that terms like Ternary Condition are a bit archaic. The Mozilla Core JavaScript Guide does an excellent job of highlighting many of these shorthand techniques throughout tutorials, but I thought it best to have a definitive list all in one place. http://tc.eserver.org/32478.html http://tc.eserver.org/32478.html Getting started with JavaScript is easy: all you need is a modern Web browser. This guide includes some JavaScript features which are only currently available in the latest versions of Firefox (and other Gecko powered browsers), so using the most recent version of Firefox is recommended. http://tc.eserver.org/32480.html http://tc.eserver.org/32480.html One of the pitfalls of using a JavaScript framework, especially among beginners, is the ability to quickly lose sight of what is specific to the framework, and what is specific to the core JavaScript language. However, as bandwidth constraints continue to dissolve, and browser compatibility issues erode, it makes sense to consider a framework on each project. Whether or not you actually use a framework after these considerations are made, is totally up to you. http://tc.eserver.org/32006.html http://tc.eserver.org/32006.html Slicken up your web apps with these tips and tricks using the Yahoo! User Interface library. http://tc.eserver.org/32003.html http://tc.eserver.org/32003.html To most, the virtues of Web 2.0 are rather ephemeral; that’s always been one of its main criticisms. However, I like to think that one of the movement’s key aspects is a sense of community, an ability to create sites and applications that bring people together. http://tc.eserver.org/32007.html http://tc.eserver.org/32007.html JavaScript is hip again; there’s no doubt about it. But if you’re starting to get down and dirty with it, there’s no excuse not to keep it clean. http://tc.eserver.org/31637.html http://tc.eserver.org/31637.html Asynchronous JavaScript + XML (Ajax) continues to raise user expectations for interactivity and performance, and developers are increasingly treating Ajax as a must-have component of their Web applications. As more code is moved client side and the network model changes, the community is responding by building more tools to address the unique performance challenges of Ajax. Examine toolsets that find and correct performance problems within your Ajax-enriched applications. http://tc.eserver.org/31638.html http://tc.eserver.org/31638.html Wasting server resources can impact the performance of Ajax applications, resulting in excessive HTTP requests, high memory consumption, and the need for an unusual amount of polling to make applications work. Regular developerWorks author Judith Myerson suggests some open source tools and Firefox add-ons you can use to improve or solve problems with your Ajax applications. http://tc.eserver.org/30678.html http://tc.eserver.org/30678.html Does it ever occur to you that today's Web developers could learn a thing or two from traditional computer programming? The cranky user talks about the foundations of software engineering and asks where in the Web those best practices have disappeared to. http://tc.eserver.org/30661.html http://tc.eserver.org/30661.html Where possible, creating Web applications -- including Ajax-based applications -- in a RESTful way avoids a large class of bugs. However, a pitfall of REST (REpresentational State Transfer) is sending duplicate data across similar XMLHttpRequests. This tip shows how the moderate use of session cookies can maintain just enough server-side state to significantly reduce client-server traffic, while still allowing fallback to cookie-free operation. http://tc.eserver.org/30655.html http://tc.eserver.org/30655.html 'Test on multiple browsers' has been a mantra ever since there have been multiple browsers to test on. Testing them all--especially these days--is impossible. But you can come a lot closer than you may think. In this article, learn a variety of techniques for cross-browser testing, from the very thorough to the quick and dirty. The choice you make will depend on your resources, but this is an issue you can't ignore. http://tc.eserver.org/30658.html http://tc.eserver.org/30658.html It takes some finesse to make the best use of asynchronous callbacks for Ajax data sources in JavaScript applications. This tip discusses why you should use asynchronous callbacks for Ajax data sources and gives examples of coordinating the readiness of mutually dependent application data sources that may become ready at undefined times with asynchronous calls. http://tc.eserver.org/30669.html http://tc.eserver.org/30669.html Deploying bandwidth-efficient Ajax applications does not guarantee that the service levels in a Service Level Agreement will stay high. No matter how well you change code in the Ajax format to make it more bandwidth efficient, there will be always risks and vulnerabilities you'll need to watch out for and mitigate. Regular developerWorks author Judith Myerson gives a brief Ajax recap, shows what Web services vulnerabilities are and why Service Level Agreements (SLA) are important, and suggests some solutions for speeding up Ajax applications. http://tc.eserver.org/30469.html http://tc.eserver.org/30469.html As developers, we have more and more JavaScript libraries to choose from and, of course, the option not to use any at all. Over time, we each tend to favor one method of coding over another. For those who'd like to learn more about jQuery, one of the more popular libraries, here's a crash course written with code-savvy web designers in mind. http://tc.eserver.org/30039.html http://tc.eserver.org/30039.html Dives into the components of the building block system. Each has a place in his design framework for dashboards and portals. http://tc.eserver.org/28908.html http://tc.eserver.org/28908.html These days, 'framework' is quite a buzzword in web development. With JavaScript frameworks like the Yahoo User Interface library, jQuery, and Prototype getting a lot of attention and web application frameworks like Rails and Django getting even more, it seems like everyone is using some kind of framework to build their sites. But what exactly is a framework? And are they only useful to programmers, or can we web designers benefit from the concept, as well? http://tc.eserver.org/28854.html http://tc.eserver.org/28854.html Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript + XML) is quickly emerging as a modern way of bringing desktop-quality software features to Web applications running on browsers. Open source software such as Linux-Apache-MySQL-PHP (LAMP) and open standards-based J2EE middleware, such as WebSphere Application Server Community Edition, provide excellent capabilities to develop and deploy Ajax Web applications. http://tc.eserver.org/28856.html http://tc.eserver.org/28856.html To maintain success, companies often incorporate the benefits of new and evolving technologies into their star products. Unfortunately, integrating new technologies can sometimes compromise a product's features and adversely affect the time to market. The time it takes for a product development team to become acquainted with the new technology can limit the number of new features added to the product. Discover the most common problems associated with incorporating new technologies into existing products, and learn what steps you can take to avoid these issues and upgrade your products successfully. http://tc.eserver.org/27622.html http://tc.eserver.org/27622.html Want to get a bang out of your AJAX artillery? In this hands-on tutorial, Stoyan puts AJAX on the front line as he develops a Web app with which you can execute shell commands on your Web server. The downloadable code provides a real tactical advantage as Stoyan marshals JavaScript and XML to create the app. http://tc.eserver.org/27053.html http://tc.eserver.org/27053.html If you're doing Java Web development using Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax), then delivering data from the server to the client is probably your top concern. In this second article in the Ajax for Java developers series, Philip McCarthy walks you through five approaches to Java object serialization and gives you all the information you need to choose the data format and technology best suited to your application. http://tc.eserver.org/27054.html http://tc.eserver.org/27054.html Implement a Web browser-based SOAP Web services client using the Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) design pattern. http://tc.eserver.org/26885.html http://tc.eserver.org/26885.html What Shale isn't is a shrink-wrapped, well-documented, well-tested product complete with an automated installer and a polished management interface. Now find out what it is, as Brett McLaughlin unveils this mighty -- and rightful-- heir to the legacy of Struts. In this first of a five-part series, Brett explains what Shale is, how it's different from the Struts framework, and how to install and set it up in your development environment. http://tc.eserver.org/26887.html http://tc.eserver.org/26887.html The Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP) extends the Eclipse IDE to enable easy development of Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-based applications. Learn how to install WTP, configure it for use with an application server, and use the tools it provides to create a J2EE application. http://tc.eserver.org/26331.html http://tc.eserver.org/26331.html The guidelines that I follow when writing my PHP scripts; can be helpful to have something like this if you're working on a joint project. http://tc.eserver.org/25789.html http://tc.eserver.org/25789.html This tutorial illustrates various aspects of Hamlet programming as it provides a number of practical Hamlet examples. The examples are part of WebZEC (Web-based Zurich Event Console) -- a fast, browser-based console to quickly navigate in intrusion-detection alarms. With these samples, you can develop a good understanding how to use Hamlets for Web-based application development and how Hamlets work. http://tc.eserver.org/25633.html http://tc.eserver.org/25633.html Code it right: Use these best practices as you write your ActionScript. http://tc.eserver.org/22331.html http://tc.eserver.org/22331.html Java may be used to develop stand-alone applications, servlets (an application that runs on the server), or applets (an application that runs inside a Java-capable browser). Applets appear in web-pages in the same way as an image, but because they are essentially embedded applications, are dynamic and interactive. http://tc.eserver.org/21655.html http://tc.eserver.org/21655.html The task of creating and deploying web services is really not all that difficult, nor is it all that different than what developers currently do in more traditional web applications. The tendency on all platforms is to automate more and more of the gory details and tedious work in creating web services. Most programmers don't need to know the exact details of encodings and envelopes; instead, they'll simply use a SOAP toolkit such as those described here. http://tc.eserver.org/21469.html http://tc.eserver.org/21469.html One of the defining elements of web applications is their support for the editing and manipulation of stored data. Unlike the typical conversation that goes on between a user and a content-centric website however, this additional capability requires a more robust dialog between user and application. http://tc.eserver.org/21314.html http://tc.eserver.org/21314.html What distinguishes a web application from a traditional, content-based website and what are some of the unique design challenges associated with web applications? A reasonable launching point is the more fundamental question, 'What is an application?' http://tc.eserver.org/21167.html http://tc.eserver.org/21167.html Most people who do even a little bit of JavaScript programming, even those who are simply tweaking somebody else’s code, are familiar with the rudimentary JavaScript debugger in the recent versions of Internet Explorer. Click on the yellow warning icon in your browser, and you get a listing of various JavaScript errors in your code. It is simple, and for many people it is enough, but it’s not really the type of fully-fledged debugging environment with features programmers have come to expect in other development languages. If you find yourself doing a lot of JavaScript programming or tweaking and you are concerned with cross-browser support for your scripts, then Venkman is worth checking out. http://tc.eserver.org/20319.html http://tc.eserver.org/20319.html ActiveX is definitely a technology buzzword--but what is it, really? How does it work? Is it something that would benefit me as a writer? How can I utilize it? Technical writers are increasingly being called upon to combine new publishing technologies with writing skills. ActiveX technology provides new ways for writers to enhance their HTML documents with little or no actual programming involved. This workshop presents the various technologies associated with ActiveX, along with functional demonstrations. The goal of the workshop is to provide an overview of ActiveX that can serve as a starting point to further research and implement the technology. http://tc.eserver.org/20185.html http://tc.eserver.org/20185.html This paper introduces neophytes to Java. It starts with Java’'s beginnings as a programming language for interactive cable TV boxes and continues through the features of optimization, platform-independence, and object-orientation that make it unique. Next, it dispels the myths surrounding Java, presents solid guidelines for when and when not to use Java, and finally examines today’s practical uses of Java, including enhancing Web pages, managing a business, and delivering sophisticated training modules capable of advanced interactions. http://tc.eserver.org/20183.html http://tc.eserver.org/20183.html Java and JavaScript are two of the newest 'kids on the block' when it comes to the latest developments for the computing and Internet world. Already, many are predicting that within a very few years Java will be the programming language of choice. Already, JavaScripts are nearly ubiquitous on the World Wide Web, largely because of their cross-platform nature and ease of use. And already, many technical communicators are beginning to consider what impact these new tools will have on their careers. While relatively few technical communicators will deal directly with JavaScripts and even fewer with Java programming, those involved in Web page development and online (HTML) documentation will find them valuable to learn and use. http://tc.eserver.org/13638.html http://tc.eserver.org/13638.html I like Opera--the browser, not the musical spectacle. I like that it puts small demands on your hardware. I like that it displays Web pages quickly and accurately. I like that it has always been close to the standards suggested by the W3C, especially for CSS styles. It is always worthwhile to preview pages in Opera. Opera is a little weak in event handling, and it has been slow to adopt the document object model. But in terms of page presentation, Opera shows a Web page the way it oughta look. It displays a great looking page, and it loads fast. And everybody likes the little guy. The troubles I have with Opera, as a code writer, are all derived from a single bad habit of the browser. Opera is a little loose with the truth. http://tc.eserver.org/10613.html http://tc.eserver.org/10613.html JavaScript can be used as an enhancement, but too often it ends up rendering a page unusable to people who don't run it. There are a number of good reasons why it might not be running in a given browser, and pages should never depend on it. MSG is a 'flavor enhancer,' with one slight problem -- some people are allergic to it. Most people don't seem to care much either way, but a small number of people seems to have bad reactions to it. If you ask people in the industry who sell it, they'll tell you it's quite safe, but there are others who claim that it's potentially lethal to some (very, very few) people.