http://thedesignspace.net/ My daily explorations, troubleshooting, solutions and discoveries. en-us ellen@thedesignspace.net Sat, 26 Jan 2013 11:21:06 -0500 http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/001013.html I usually troubleshoot XML files by simply dragging them into a Firefox browser window. Unlike other text files, Firefox displays XML in a handy tree format, as show below.... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000892.html I find the new debugging tools in Safari almost as useful as Firebug. There's a Web Inspector that lets you see exactly how the HTML is formed, a Javascript console that lets you see errors and debugging messages written into the code and much more. But to use them you must enable the Debug menu in Safari. Open Safari preferences... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000883.html When XML data is sent back from a web service, it is in the form of a stream: there are no line breaks or indents to make it easier for humans to read. The example below is typical: the entire XML result is one continuous line. This makes it very hard to troubleshoot your application: you need a utility to... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000863.html When working on an application that consumes data from a webservices XML response, you may find it useful to test your X-path expressions.... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000831.html http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000815.html When running Java or other types of applications which use an XML file as part of the input, you may see this error: The Processing Instruction Target Matching "[xX][mM][lL]" is Not Allowed. Often the cause is a malformed XML file, with a common problem being a blank line accidentally inserted before the required first line of the xml: [ A... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000781.html The JW Player is a very popular open-source media player which not only supports many video, audio and image formats, but has many scriptable behaviors. Here we'll make use of the JavaScript API to generate as many players as you want on a page. The generated players all have separate event listeners to keep them from interfering with each other.... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000734.html This is an example of how to create a javascript-based Playlist selector for a JW FLV player. The playlist selector menu has 3 sections that toggle open and closed when you click on them. This allows the user to switch playlists, choosing from various topics. The source code has not been cleaned up, but you should be able to... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000498.html There are some errors that come up time and time again when working with Jeroen Wijering's Flash Video Player. Here's how to troubleshoot them. I'll keep adding to the list as time permits. Click the images to see a larger view. Typical problems: Player does not appear at all. Player appears but nothing happens when Play button is clicked. Player... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000556.html My first attempt at a Google Gadget is now available, ready to contribute to your information overload and general level of anxiety. When loaded, "The Daily Bailout" widget shows you a random bailout from a list starting with the buyout of Countrywide Mortgages. Researching this little gadget has been an eye opener because of the sheer size of the... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000552.html When creating a Google gadget that pulls data from an XML file, you will probably notice that the data doesn't update right away in the gadget even after you have changed the file. This caching behavior can make it very difficult to troubleshoot, and you'll probably want to shut it off while developing. It took me a while to find... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000534.html Creating a captions file... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000529.html In my search for the best way to synch video with slides, I've tried a number of different software packages. At this time, I've settled on the Rich Media Project's flash extensions as the most reliable way to create synched presentations, but I'm always looking for a better way. When I came across Adobe Presenter, it seemed like another promising... http://thedesignspace.net/MT2archives/000382.html When developing an xml-based application, you may come across the need to include HTML data in xml nodes. The problem is that unless this data is escaped in some way, it is interpreted as xml and will cause a malformed structure. The easiest way I've found so far to use a CDATA attribute to escape the code automatically. Then, when...