Category: Web Building

Testing: form fields don’t display content in Safari in cloned node

Posted on by

The code for the 3 column layout for this blog is partly borrowed from smokinggun.com and iht.com. However now I see why they don’t put images and form elements in the article body itself!

The images and text area fields make it difficult for the script to calculate a good 1/3 column height to correctly position the duplicate columns vertically, and I’m having problems with Safari not showing the contents of text-area form fields within the article layers. I believe it has something to do with the fact that Safari uses the Apple web widgets instead of standard form widgets. Perhaps the text is on another layer that I’m not aware of.

It will take some time to work out a solution, so bear with me. I’m going to make the code in relevant pages accessible as soon as possible.

Continue reading

Use server-side application variables to drive client-side scripts

Posted on by

You can use serverside variables to drive client-side javascripts. Server-side variables get processed and the results output by the time the page is rendered, so the value of the variable can be used in client-side functions.

In an ASP application I’m working with, I wanted a different tooltip to show up on each tab, depending on what the tab title was. There is a server-side variable called “tabs[i].title”. So I created a little client-side function to test the value of the title on each tab.

 
<script>
var tabName ;

function whichTab(tabTitle){
   if (tabTitle == 'Summary'){
   tabName = Summary;
}
else if (tabTitle == 'Plan Details'){
   tabName = PlanDetails;
}
else if (tabTitle == 'Certifications'){
   tabName = Certifications;
}
else if (tabTitle == 'Transcript'){
  tabName = Transcript;
}
}
</script>
Continue reading

Troubleshooting Questionmark Perception database connections

Posted on by

We’ve had just about every sort of database connection issue with our two Questionmark Perception servers, so in the interest of saving someone else the kind of struggles we’ve gone through, here are some things to look for.

  1. tnsnames.ora issues:
    There is a file that lives in a subdirectory of the Oracle folder – this directory may be called Oracle_Home, Oracle9 etc, and is often but not always in the root directory of the server.

    A typical path to the tnsnames.ora file on a server is

    E:\Oracle_HomenetworkAdmintnsnames.ora

    There are a variety of things that could be incorrect in this file.

    1. Hidden control characters brought in during copy and paste:
      If you copy and paste the settings from some email programs into this file, you may be adding hidden control characters to the tnsnames.ora file. You won’t be able to see them but they’re there, and they’re screwing things up.

      Continue reading

Conditional SSI

Posted on by

I was having trouble writing a javascript that sniffs the browser for IE or non-IE, then selects a server side include (SSI) based on the result.

It turned out that you cant do that with javascript: first of all it seems to mis-read the include string:

document.write('<!--# include virtual="includes/safety.htm" -->');

The browser sees this as comment and lops everything off after the (‘ even though the string has quotes around it. If I use a to escape the ! as !, then it simply writes the whole string out to the page, rather than interpreting it.

Apparently this is because SSI’s are evaluated on the server, so they are already executed before the browser renders the page – so by the time my page gets rendered, it’s too late.

Continue reading

Passing a variable in the URL to turn on and off layers in another page

Posted on by

I have a series of five flowcharts in a tabbed layout, one flowchart per tab (seem to be doing tabs a lot lately). I wanted the user to be able to click a link on another page, and have the flowchart page open to the correct flowchart layer. A working example is here:

Switch layers on the next page by clicking a link

When I tried setting the value of a variable on the new page, it worked in some browsers but not others, probably because some computers are slower at loading pages than others, and the necessary layers would not be loaded in time for the variable to have something to populate.

Continue reading

Powerpoint and video

Posted on by

Successfully incorporating video clips into powerpoint isn’t hard, but the process will go more smoothly if you consider how the presentation will be delivered before inserting the video file. This tutorial is mainly oriented toward the PC version of powerpoint, and Windows Media Player, although I may add notes on the Mac version and Quicktime soon.

Let’s go over some possible scenarios:

Scenario 1. You create and present the powerpoint presentation on your own laptop.

If the .ppt file is not going to be moved from its current position on the laptop, you only have to ensure that the video clip actually resides on your laptop, so that it will be available when you are giving the presentation.

So before inserting the video file, make sure that it is indeed on the C drive, or more simply, in whatever folder the powerpoint presentation is in, and not on a networked drive somewhere. This may seem obvious, but I’ve found that many users are not at all clear on what drives they are using.

Continue reading