Happy New Year!

So apparently this year was a second longer than last year because there are just over 365 days in a year. I wanted to take this time to just wish everybody that follows me on twitter a happy new year and to expect much more frequent posts from me this year(as it is one of my new year resolutions). I will be writing some articles about ruby on rails and my recent experiences soon. I hopefully will also be launching a web application my friend and I have been writing sometime this spring. More details to follow shortly on that.

As far as everything else goes, I’m headed back to Pittsburgh in a few days for my spring semester where I will be focusing pretty much full time on computer science now.

Anyways, I will be updating to wordpress 2.7 later today(when I wake up) and hopefully that will go smoothly.

Happy New Year!

2009
01/01
POSTED BY
John Dyer
CATEGORY
General
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RJS Demystified WIth Pretty Colors! Also 5 RoR Tips for Beginners…

Amy Hoy over at Slash7 has put together an amazing cheatsheet for RJS (ruby javascript) documents. It is 3 pages long and uses lots and lots of bright colors to illustrate clearly how rjs is interpretated.

She asks viewers to resist the urge of putting it on Digg yet, as her server is not ready to take another “Digging” quite yet.

View Amy’s post here

View the cheatsheet directly here

I would also like to mention a blog post I found today on Rails Forum which contains five tips to help beginners really get started with Ruby on Rails. Check it out here.

That’s it for now, but be sure to check back soon as there should be a tutorial on getting started with Adobe AIR up soon. I will then move onto more advanced topics and show you how to develop a basic twitter AIR app over the next few weeks. (or when mid-terms permit me to)

2008
10/16
POSTED BY
John Dyer
CATEGORY
AJAX
Ruby on Rails
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Ruby On Rails: Meaningful (and beautiful) URLs

This tutorial is going to take you through what it takes to make your URLs easy to remember and meaningful. Great examples of sites that implement this well are Flickr and Delicious. We are going to first take a look at the Routes framework in the Action Controller and see what options it gives us. I am going to assume basic knowledge of Ruby on Rails and am going to assume that your are starting with a newly generated application. (NOTE: I am using Rails 2.1.1)

Routes in Ruby on Rails allow you to map incoming URLs to specific controllers, actions, and parameters in your application. Routes are written in pure ruby and can be found in the file config/routes.rb in your application’s root directory. Upon generating a new application using rails appname, some default routes are created for you as shown below (comments have been removed):

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ActionController::Routing::Routes.draw do |map|
    map.connect ':controller/:action/:id'
    map.connect ':controller/:action/:id.:format'
end

Read more

2008
10/15
POSTED BY
John Dyer
CATEGORY
Ruby on Rails
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20 Excellent AJAX Effects You Should Know

NETTUTS just published a list of 20 extremely useful Ajax effects that they say are “the top 20 Ajax effects that every web developer should know.”

Here’s the quick summary they provide:

There are a few special techniques or effects that can spice up just about any web page. These are the top 20 Ajax effects that every web developer should know. They’re essential parts of any web developer’s toolbox. If you haven’t seen them yet, you no doubt will in your future web development endeavors.

I would strongly suggest taking a look at the list in full, but I have pulled out a few of my favorites.

Inline Editing
This small aesthetic feature is something that really adds to the user experience. It’s a subtle move, but allows for easy editing of information. It has been used on sites like Flickr and Last.fm brilliantly and is something quick and easy to implement.


View a demo
Download the source

Live Validation
Allowing users to view live feedback while filling in a form will prevent users from having to resubmit forms due to providing incorrect information. It can also allow users to see availability of usernames and show whether or not their e-mail address is valid.

View a demo
Download the source

Ajax IM
Ajax IM has developed into an amazing instant messenger client that is extremely easy to implement into your site over the last few years. Extremely customizable, this could help increase interaction on a social networking site with ease.

View a demo
Download the source

2008
10/10
POSTED BY
John Dyer
CATEGORY
AJAX
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