Category: javascript

• Visualising <audio> elements with the Web Audio API 18 September 2012

  For a new project I'm working on I'd like to create an audio-reactive visualisation using analysis of the music that's playing. The new Web Audio API lets you do this pretty easily in the browser (Webkit-only at ...

• "HTML5" versus Flash: Animation Benchmarking 22 March 2010

  I've written before about why you shouldn't let your current toolset dictate what it is you create and I still firmly hold to that mantra. Some of my more recent work has ...

• JS-909: A drum machine in JavaScript 17 November 2008

  At the recent Web Directions JavaScript libraries panel , I was in charge of representing the hard-working non-library hacker. (Of which there exist approximately two in the wild.) And when it came to the final ...

• Cubescape Highlights 19 May 2008

  My great uncle Jeremiah once told me these wise words: "If you give a man a painting, he will enjoy it for one day. But if you give a man a canvas, he will draw a giant penis on it." It's that memory of old uncle ...

• Cubescape 13 May 2008

  Cubescape: Your own digital landscape Sometimes I get a little obsessed. And that obsession takes me down a long, winding path. Some might even say a laborious and twisted path. ...

• Circtangles: A JavaScript art installation 25 April 2008

  The thought only just occurred to me that I'd never used the newly emerging technology for creating rounded corners in CSS – border-radius . So to rectify this, I set about experimenting with abstract uses ...

• An abundance of Web Directions news 08 April 2008

  There's so much Web Directions news, I don't know what to do with it all. Well, I'll get the most exciting tidbit off my chest first: I'm taking my Oscar-winning* workshops on the ...

• widgEditor 1.0.1 02 March 2008

  As with most of my output, I originally coded widgEditor to satisfy my own curiosity about WYSIWYG editors. Its actual uptake amongst users has – and still – takes me thoroughly by surprise. And that's ...

• Hands on gets a thumbs up 26 November 2007

  Last week I did some JavaScript workshops in Perth, and I have to say: it was the most fun I've ever had inside a classroom. (As a teacher or a student.) The normal procedure for ...

• Simply JavaScript: Book of bliss for beginners 04 July 2007

  YAJB – Y et A nother J avaScript B ook. That's what you're thinking right now. And I don't blame you. JavaScript (codename: Ajax) has been the flavour of the month for over a calendar year. We've got ...

• Win a copy of Web Standards Creativity or The Art & Science of CSS 26 April 2007

  There's only so many copies of my books that I can give to my parents, so what am I to do with the remaining free copies I get from the publisher? Well, I could stack them on top of one another and use them to make ...

• Blobular: An SVG experiment 18 April 2007

  SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) has been a tantalising mirage on the horizon for a lot of web developers for a long, long time. The promise of a fully-featured, open source markup format for vector graphics on the ...

• FormTextResizer: Bookmarklet for resizing textareas and text fields 25 August 2006

  » FormTextResizer bookmarklet « OK, you're all sick of hearing about my holidays, and so am I. So, to re-stretch my brain I thought I'd write down a little ...

• JavaScript Anthology on the airwaves! 28 May 2006

  In a scenario that gave me nightmarish flashbacks to my brief stint on student radio, I was up at 3AM this morning on Skype to Lyle Troxell, host of Geek Speak – a radio show that broadcasts tech news and ...

• WSG Talk: Jumping on the AJAX Bandwagon 18 April 2006

  I gave a talk to the Melbourne chapter of the Web Standards Group recently, and they secretly bugged the room and managed to get a podcast out of it. If you'd like something to make those long train journeys ...

• Bunny Hunt 03 April 2006

  In the grand old tradition of making bloodthirsty games about religious holidays, I offer you Bunny Hunt – a tribute to the cute little character that makes Easter such a deliciously chocolate-covered event. ...

• Australian CSS & JavaScript Workshop 22 March 2006

  I'm excited to announce that the extremely knowledgeable and entertaining Russ Weakley and I are about to embark on a series of workshops around Australia. CSS and JavaScript ...

• The JavaScript Anthology - it's out! 09 March 2006

  It's a little weird looking at the one and a quarter inches of paper which represents nine months of your life ... weird but good. Definitely good. After I handed over my final ...

• Resolution dependent layout update 19 January 2006

  » Change CSS layout according to browser width « After Dave Shea ran into a spot of trouble integrating my rather experimental resolution dependent layout script ...

• Don't annoy me with your crappy form field focus 27 October 2005

  » Improved Form Field Focus « OK, when you have a page that is mainly about a form, focusing on the first field can be a good thing. Your index finger has a finite number of clicks in it, ...

• WE05: Presentation notes for "JavaScript and the DOM" 05 October 2005

  Although you won't be able to get the full effect of my crazy spinning bowtie and manic grin, you can download my presentation notes and example files for "JavaScript and the DOM" below. Voted " Most Smartarse Presentation of the ...

• JavaScript: The Book 14 September 2005

  It's been a badly kept secret by me, but it might come as a surprise to a couple of you that for the past four months I've been writing a book for SitePoint . It's tentatively titled "The JavaScript Anthology" and gets right into ...

• JSCalc: the JavaScript calculator bookmarklet 21 June 2005

  » JSCalc calculator bookmarklet « Doug pointed out Calq and I thought "Yeah, that's handy, but I don't like installing stuff". So, here's a bookmarklet that pops ...

• Leave no man behind 25 April 2005

  Seems like some people don't mind seeing JavaScript only applications , some do. But irrespective of which technology we argue about (CSS, JavaScript, Flash), the inherent question is: when is it worthwhile to cater to a minority? ...

• JavaScript is not the devil's plaything 12 April 2005

  JavaScript has only ever played a bit part on the Web. Back in the 90's it was good for making things go whoosh , but it wasn't used for much more than mouseovers and cursor trails. Gradually, however, it has been making itself ...

• This is not another XMLHttpRequest article 02 March 2005

  You're probably sick of articles expounding the virtues of XMLHttpRequest by now, well this isn't one of them. While I am suitably impressed with the uses that have brought dynamic retrieval of data via ...

• widgEditor: A simple, standards-compliant WYSIWYG HTML editor 27 January 2005

  » widgEditor HTML editor « There's quite a few HTML-based HTML editors out there, but they all lack something. Most of them are fairly code obtrusive – requiring you to ...

• Accessible JavaScript tip #43: onchange select menu 19 October 2004

  » An accessible onchange select menu « The thing about accessibility issues is you can't really predict when one's going to occur. It's only when someone who's affected tells ...

• JavaScript load placement 29 September 2004

  » Optimal place to load JavaScript that changes the web page « Programming for the Internet is fraught with a whole host of things that you can't depend on, but for the moment I' ...

• Resolution dependent layout 21 September 2004

  » Varying layout according to browser width « Updated: 19 January 2006 (See the new entry for details) A few weeks ago I thought that I might try out ...

• Onclick JavaScript parameters 05 August 2004

  Unobtrusive JavaScript requires that you don't place JavaScript calls directly in HTML code. So, when you want to place an onclick handler on an anchor tag, instead of typing: <a id="link" ...

• Vorsprung durch technik 01 August 2004

  With a nice rest after the launch of my new portfolio , I thought I'd share a few of the techniques I used to create it. (These are just the ones I found mildly interesting) Collapsing ...

• Mapping DTDs: making validation usable 21 May 2004

  » DTD Mapper « One of the qualms people have with validating pages is that they never know what they're validating from. The W3C releases documents called Document Type ...

• Technicolor 04 March 2004

  » Technicolor web colour designer « In that grand tradition of me going one step further than is necessary, I present the Technicolor web colour designer. Inspired by the ...

• SSCrabble 27 January 2004

  » SSCrabble « (full SOWPODS dictionary) » Offline SSCrabble « (284kB ZIP) I think that I might go a bit overboard sometimes. It ...

• Typing one handed 09 January 2004

  » The mouseboard « I was eating lunch at my desk today and thought I'd go visit the Onion after a hard day reading blogs. Unfortunately, it isn't in my favourites list. Even ...

• Web page liquidation 22 December 2003

  » True liquid web page example « After reading the explosion in debate over fixed-width versus "liquid" web pages in the web design community of late ( -1- | -2- | ...