Welcome to Simon Philp's Blog

At the end of last month I started working on tweaking my subtext skin so that I can increase my YSlow score.  What did I do? Merged several css files into one sheet Merged JavaScript files into one file Put items 1/2 files onto a CDN Placed site wide images on a CDN Moved the JavaScript calls to the bottom of the page I also merged xfn icons into one image and used a CSS sprite Before...

I know the new skin for my site is overdue but I am waiting for the next release of subtext so I can fine tune my skin to any changes made in the release. During this lapse I have been contributing to the project and I have also been adapting another nice theme that will be finished in the next couple of days. This post is related to a previous post, ongoing maintenance where I talk about my sites YSlow score (33) :(. Using the FireFox plugin httpfox I loaded up my website and was...

It’s been a long time coming but over the next couple of weeks you’ll be seeing quite a lot of changes going on. My website will be under going a big face lift.  With all this in mind, should you hit an error page then I can assure you that if you leave it 5 minutes and refresh all will be back to normal.  During this time I will be upgrading to the latest version of subtext of which I won’t be “tweaking” the admin area which i normally do. Not only am I hoping  to implement a new subtext skin...

In my previous post I outlined how easy it was to grab text from a label tag associated to a form input element. jQuery – Fun with Radio Button lists, checkboxes and labels I have quickly thrown together a demo page that shows a “tra la” aspect. All I have done here is added in a couple of styles, a new radio list for the colour selection and an express delivery option.  The green div shown above the colour radio button list has it’s background colour controlled by whatever colour the user selects. Change Background colour Add an...

Previously I have written about how to attach an onclick client event to a radio button list on databound and adding some flare to show what the user has selected. Add a javascript onclick event to a radio button list on databound Adding a Javascript onclick event to a Radio Button List Item on DataBound Pt 2 In this post I am going to use jQuery to attach the onclick events to a radio button list and to a group of checkboxes.    Looking at the picture above. When the user selects one...

Myself and Simone have been in discussions about creating a jQuery plugin for many months now.  With real life, time on both parts hasn’t been on our side. Simone has co-authored a MVC book entitled “Beginning ASP.NET MVC”. I’ve been busy with work, getting fit, holidays, and other projects (more details coming soon). We've both now managed to make a start on the plugin which resulted in me looking at unit testing frameworks for JavaScript. I was quite surprised to find the amount I did hence this short and sweet post. List of JavaScript testing frameworks QUnit -...

A while back I had a conversation with Simone about subtext themes.  This conversation was along the lines of “have you seen any themes out on the world wide web that we should convert to subtext?”.  Being organised as I am the email with the outcome of this conversation got buried in amongst the masses, however, after getting organised last week this email emerged again and I am pleased to announce that one of the skins on the list is nearly complete.  As you can see from the title of this post the theme is called Illacrimo and was initially...

Over the last couple of weeks I have been doing alot of work on a UI for client/matter conception application at my work involving javascript and the almight framework jQuery.  I have done a couple of posts in relation to jQuery before: Subtext Galleries, using jQuery for funk Adding a Javascript onClick event to a Radio Button List Item on DataBound Adding a Javascript onClick event to a Radio Button List Item on DataBound Pt 2 Also my 1st ever patch to subtext project uses jQuery. After receiving countless emails...

Update It's been over 2 weeks since I last posed on my blog and the reasons are simple, holiday and real life.  Holiday to Majorca was fantastic,  unfortunately the weather wasn't that great but with old and new friends much fun was had.  Yes, being British, chucking it down with rain and we're all the in the pool playing volleyball.  I am not sure if it was holiday spirit or the vodka slushes but everyone was having a laugh.  I will be uploading all the holiday pictures to Flickr over the next couple of days.  If you'd like to see...

I wrote about my hunt for a css framework previously. This post is going to be about building my design in html using the YAML css framework before putting it to use in a subtext skin.  I have published a couple of posts related to subtext skins and other features you can quickly implement: 2 subtext skins ready to rock Free Online backup storage - alternatives to BT Digital Vault fSpring skin for subtext Subtext Galleries, using jQuery for funk Sharing the...

I am a big fan of CSS.  It's not a very difficult concept to pick up. I would say that the only frustrating  side of implementing a pure CSS based layout is cross browser compatibility.  If you have your own site and have changed or even created the skin/design you use then you'll know yourself depending on the change requires looking at it with a variety of common web browsers. This will be done on a local testing environment or through an online service like BrowserCam. For anyone not heard of BrowserCam this service takes screens shots of a url...

I hadn't realised but on Saturday the 7th of June was my year anniversary of using subtext.  I have written a couple of articles in relation to subtext.  I have also created several themes and submitted a patch.  Subtext hasn't changed much in the year that I have been using it.  Current version is 1.9.5 and 2.0 is currently in the works.  If you'd like to see all posts regarding subtext then checkout my category link. Looking forward to another year of subtext and any enhancement, features it brings.  Hopefully I'll be able to get my hands dirty in the development again...

Yesterday I submitted my first patch to the subtext project.  While I have created a couple of skins for the blogging engine I wanted to contribute more.  Within subtext you have the option to add links to categories.  These are usually used for blog lists which usually link to a friends site, coworker or a contact.  An example of a list from Simone Chiaretta's blog:   What is XFN? Xhtml Friends Network uses an attribute of the a href tag called "rel", examples: <a href="http://www.siphilp.co.uk" rel="me">Si</a> or <a href="http://www.kemponline.co.uk" rel="friend coworker">Andy</a> This patch allows you to assign a relationship to each link. For more information...

A while back I was planning to move all my galleries to flickr instead of using subtexts built in functionality.  Unfortunately I haven't had time to implement a couple of new flickr controls for subtext.  I was thinking about creating a gallery provider but time isn't on my side so it's been canned for now. I have been playing about with the GalleryThumbNailViewer.asc control that can be found in your skin directory that has resulted in the following.  When the images are loading the user is shown a loading message. What is happening in the background is that when the document structure...

Carrying on from my previous posts: 2 subtext skins ready to rock and roll 3 Subtext skins in the works fSpring is now available.  The skin is quite nice. If you click on the above image you'll get a better view. Download fSpring Skin I have enjoyed converting the 3 skins so much that I will be doing another 3.  The plan is to get them all done and do one post about it so keep checking back or subscribe to my feed.

4 hours work over 3 days = 2 skins.  I am fairly confident that the 2 skins, Leia English and CopyBlogger are both ready to be pushed out into the real world.  I am hoping to get another 4, yes 4 skins out over the next 2 weeks that will hopefully result in atleast one of them being shipped as default with subtext. They are both "version 1" which means they are pretty basic. Leia comes with only 1 stylesheet, no javascript files, CopyBlogger I think has 4 style sheets, no javascript.  Andy Kemp is "hacking" the Leia template already...

Yesterday I posted an article about contributing to subtext by creating some more skins. Well this morning I slapped together the 1st one (about 90 mins work).  It's in an early development stage but I think it looks good.  There is only 1 css file (9kb) which means it's a very basic skin. No comment preview, lightbox, xfn, printer friendly or code formatting, however I am sure I will expand on this in the future. There are some little areas that need attention which I will iron out over the week. One are is that the 2 columns on the original has just been made into...

A couple of days ago Simone Chiaretta posted an article in relation to the progress of the next release of subtext. I can't wait for the next release as it will come with quite a few new features.  Anyway, until I get my local copy working I am going to contribute a little by creating and uploading 4 themes.  The first one will be my current theme.  The second one will be a migration of Leia English 1.0 by Kapikua The third one will be a migration of CopyBlogger by Chris Pearson The fourth one will be a migration of...

Previously I posted the following item : Sharing the love - Make it easy for your users. While the concept of this "widget" was fantastic it seemed that on certain browsers javascript errors were being thrown and that it interfered with lightbox. Today a comment from a friend of mine Andy Kemp found an alternative that didn't cause conflicts or errors, www.addthis.com.  I have added the new widget below my posts and have yet to customise it, check it out :) For subtext users it's really the same as before Sign up, enter details, copy generated code, open <your skin directory>\controls\Sharethispost.asxc Select everything in...

After installing Visual Studio 2008 on my laptop and having some spare time I decided to look at the ASP.NET MVC framework.  The framework is an architectural pattern based on model-view-controller.  I'm not going to re-invent the wheel and go into more detail about the framework as there are quite a few good articles dedicated to the subject.  Where can I get it ASP.Net 3.5 Extensions Preview ASP.NET MVC Introduction to the framework What is the MVC pattern (Wiki) Scott Guthries - ASP.NET MVC Framework ...

You create a user in Sql server add the username and password to your web.config, hock up the DALC and run your web app then bam, ERROR. When creating a user on Sql 2005 make sure that the following checkboxes are not checked otherwise it could lead to confusion for a couple of minutes. Doh!

Update : http://www.siphilp.co.uk/archive/2008/04/03/sharing-the-love---update.aspx A week ago I wrote a post about using your statistics for post ideas and two things that have emerged since then are the "share this" aspect of my blog and just how bad my comments look.  This post is going to cover the process of making it easier for users to submit my posts to numerous social websites. I am trying not to change alot on my current skin as I am focusing on my subtext skin articles and my new upcoming skin however, I thought this topic was perfect for a quick post as it's...

Time hasn't been on my side lately when it comes to writing posts for my site however, I have had "brainstorming" sessions that resulted in producing nearly 4 pages of possible topics. This has started from thinking about something on the train or at work that has spiraled out.  In the past I have hit brick walls when it comes to writing posts but I think this was due to the narrow verge I was in back then.  Life itself can open water gates making you think about subjects in a totally different way. Today a new water...

I haven't spoke about subtext for a while so I thought I would throw together a quick 10 things you can do with subtext. 

There is nothing worse than starting to read an article or a tutorial on a website and thinking I should print this out and read it on the train home (I print duplex and 4 pages to 1 sheet of A4, save the trees and all) to then look at the print preview to an absolute mess. Nine out of ten times an article will sit on 2 pages and adverts, comments will take up another 8.This then results in having to cut and past the web page into a document and formatting it so it's readable which can...

For the last 4 months I have noticed the amount of referrer spam increase on my friends website that I help with now and again. Referrer spam isn't new and has been about for years. With sophisticated technologies arising to protect our email inboxes/blog comments/ping backs, spammers need to use every other way possible to lure "a victim". For anyone not familiar with this type of spam: Referrer spam is a kind of spamdexing (spamming aimed at search engines). The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referrer url that points to the site the spammer wishes...

Subtext comes with a handy little gallery feature which I can't fault as it does everything you would expect a gallery component to do however, I was finding it a little frustrating putting albums up all over the place so I decided to take the plunge and write a quick control that looks at my Flickr account.  The title isn't really that accurate as I plan on keeping the subtext gallery control on my pages until I am happy I have transferred, backed up and organised everything. The benefits are obvious, all changes are done centrally, files are stored on...

A while back I wrote a quick article about adding a javascript onclick event to each individual radio button list "Adding a Javascript onclick event to a Radio Button List Item on DataBound". I was speaking to an early learner via email regarding what we would use this type of scenario for so thought I would put together something very quickly just to maybe flair some creativity. The following demo uses the JQuery library.  What I have done is simply change the onclick event from showing an alert box to populate a div, a textbox and a hyperlink with the value of...

I have been "tweaking" subtext  so that I could add in more options into my site sections(see top right).  While these are only anchor tags that show the appropriate "block" I thought it would be helpful rather than scrolling down all the time.  I have also added an IP block http module that blocks IP addresses be it an individual address or a range (don't ask).  I have also been playing about with a nice little logo, tell me what you think. I do have a couple of ideas that I would like to implement into subtext but until the next...

It's been a while since I wrote my 1st article about subtext skins and unfortunately I have to start re-writing 2 and 3 as my laptop drive decided to go Pete Tong on me.  Learn from events like this so now I use BT Vault for my main files and anything I buy from iTunes is backed up on another 2 hard drives....  I am off work in a couple of weeks so my plan is to catch up with my subtext skin articles and re-write my current skin :) I have been looking at converting some of the themes out there over...

This is very straightforward and can add some extra functionality to your forms in the sense of if this value is selected show that div.  Within the asp.net page we add the control to the page: <asp:RadioButtonList ID="grpLocation" runat="server" RepeatDirection="Horizontal" OnDataBound="grpLocation_onDataBound"> </asp:RadioButtonList>  Within the code behind we add some listitems to the Radio button list: ListItem A = new ListItem("Edinburgh", "Edinburgh"); ListItem B = new ListItem("Glasgow", "Glasgow"); ListItem C = new ListItem("Aberdeen", "Aberdeen"); ListItem D = new ListItem("Scotland", "Scotland"); grpLocation.Items.Add(A); grpLocation.Items.Add(B); grpLocation.Items.Add(C);grpLocation.Items.Add(D); grpLocation.DataBind(); In the code behind we add the following code to the grpLocation_onDataBound event: RadioButtonList rbl = (RadioButtonList)sender; foreach (ListItem li in rbl.Items) ...

I received an email from Microsoft the other day about various beta's of which I noticed the Windows Live Writer. This reminded me about seeing a couple of ad hoc posts about it's compatibility with many of the blogging engines out there including subtext so I thought I would take the plunge.

There are blogging engines/CMS's out there that have built-in functionality to prevent or certainly reduce the amount of spam being pushed on to a site via comments/trackbacks or from a contact form. If your not using software that prevents these invasions then there are free components out there you should be able to integrate very easily or you can implement some simple methods.

There surely isn't a web developer who hasn't heard of jQuery.  jQuery is Javascript library that simplifies effects, events and Ajax interactions. Today jQuery 1.1.3 just got 800% faster and it's only 20kb.  This release see's a number of bug fixes and handful of enhancements. At the time of writing it had over 1200 diggs.  Certainly a library I will be looking to use again in the future in conjunction with my skin for subtext. For more information about other Javascript libraries there is a good post over at sitepoint that contains most of the big contenders : What Ajax Library do you recommend.

Applying a different background colour to each texbox or a web control that supports the background attribute can give you an area to play with that can "jazz" up a form/page. Some modifications can be made so that the colour can be applied to border, fore colour or even text colur if the control supports it.

I have had a couple of people contact me in relation to areas of my site that lets say look incomplete. I do have a "to-do" list which includes my website but it's just time.    As it stands my website to-do list looks like: Re-do the print CSS so that only the post is printed NEW Fix the contact form as it looks pants NEW Fix comment styles Add some more styling to the contact form and the comment form Fix width issues...

Some interesting posts have appeared in the last couple of days which deserve a read Phil Haack 10 Developers For The Price Of One  Please nominate subtext for a sourceforge community choice award Steve Harman Lightbox and Subtext Galleries Integration Simone Chiaretta Nice little article about how to refresh an update panel from javascript From SitePoint What Ajax Library do you use?  

Welcome to my first article discussing the creation of a skin within the .NET blogging engine subtext. If you have downloaded and installed subtext you will have noticed that it comes with several pre-defined skins. While the pre-defined skins are varied and could easily be used it's sometimes necessary to create your own. The initial template will be styled to work in Fire Fox 2. I will be covering "styling for a specifc" browser in another article.

It's always a good day when one step further is taken to combat spam. This is when browsing the BBC's website I came across the following article  - Backing for tool to battle spam Lets hope that ISPs and Companies can offer a common element like this so that we can prevent these unwelcomed emails. In many cases it's due to insecure mail servers that have "relay email" enabled, virus/trojan infection, spammers using applications that has it's own email engine or even abusing there own ISP's email server. Not a day goes by without my old freeserve account being spammed. 60ish emails...