Archive for 2007

Autoscrolling with a Link!

Look, ma! No hands!….Click on their navigation to see the effect. Here’s the source code: Event.observe(window, ‘load’, function() { $$(’a[href^=#]:not([href=#])’).each(function(element) { element.observe(’click’, function(event) { new Effect.ScrollTo(this.hash.substr(1)); Event.stop(event); }.bindAsEventListener(element)) }) }) Thanks to Michael Dutton from IS&T’s Usability Lab for this post!  [read more]

Create Great HTML Emails with CSS

There seems to be more people on campus interested in sending out HTML emails lately. Just in time, Jeff Reed from IS&T’s DCAD sent along this great article on how to create html emails using CSS. Here’s the intro: HTML emails are widely used for all kinds of professional correspondence. Beyond email newsletters they’re used for all sorts of application-generated messages, such as receipts and confirmations. Styled messages have lots of appeal for marketers, designers and consumers — but for coders, it’s a real headache to create them properly. Creating an HTML... [read more]

Convert your site to grayscale

Worried that the colors on your site might not have enough contrast to be visible to those with visual disabilities or when it prints out? Graybit.com is a good way to test it out. Enter in your url, and they’ll convert your page. From their website: Relying on colors to determine page visibility and contrast can be misleading. Converting the colors to their grayscale equivalents is a more reliable method. By removing color’s influence, you’ll better find true visual contrast (Thanks to Joanna Proulx from Stellar for the heads up on this one!) And right here on campus, you can... [read more]

Your Site on a Mobile Device

Many thanks to Andrew Yu for coming to this months webpub meeting and talking with us about websites on mobile devices. Here’s the link to his presentation. Also thanks to Tom Coveny for coming in on his day off to sharing his knowledge about how the Shuttle Track is using mobile technology to keep users updated on where their buses are. And a big congratulations to Susan McPhee, the winner of this meeting’s door prize – a Sprint 6700 smartphone! This was our last meeting until the Fall, but I’ll still continue to post newsworthy items to the blog. Tomorrow I’ll... [read more]

Firefox extension: MeasureIt

Here’s a nifty extension, you drag your mouse across the page and it gives you the pixel width of your selection. It’s called MeasureIt. It still needs a couple of tweaks: Known Issues (in order of importance) Jittery artifacts when moving ruler box (Fx 1.5) MeasureIt does not override general div styles that may be set on webpages (e.g. http://shootout.alioth.debian.org) when page refreshes, ruler closes yet value still set to “on” no scrolling individual frames in frameset flash objects disappear when MeasureIt is activated But otherwise could be a handy little app…Thanks... [read more]