News
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XML and JSON
by Castwide on 11-27-2008 • 0 commentsI've been looking into an alternative method for serializing data in PHP instead of the serialize() and unserialize() functions. Those functions are fine for serializing objects, but I wanted to find a solution that was more portable for simple data. Two obvious answers are XML and JSON, but I wasn't sure which made more sense for this particular scenario. While looking for insight, I ran across this article on Ajaxian.
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Entering Tabs in Web Forms
by Castwide on 11-21-2008 • 0 commentsThe typical behavior of the tab key in browsers is to move focus to the next selectable element. It makes sense in most scenarios; but sometimes—for example, when you're writing code in a textarea element—you might want to indent your text instead. Here is some JavaScript that makes it possible to change the behavior of the tab key.
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Updates and Recurring Bugs
by admin on 11-14-2008 • 0 commentsI've finally upgraded this blog to the newest version of the Phrameworks Kernel. In the process, I encountered a bug in something that has given me numerous problems in the past: character encoding.
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End of Life for PHP 4
by Castwide on 8-10-2008 • 0 commentsChris Shiflett mentioned on his blog, which was subsequently featured on Reddit, that PHP 4 is officially no longer supported.
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Migrating to Phrameworks 1.0.1
by Castwide on 6-27-2008 • 0 commentsNobody can say I don't drink my own Kool Aid.
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CSSTitle: Tooltips with Style
by admin on 6-24-2008 • 0 commentsA demo of the CSSTitle library is now available. This library makes it easy to apply styled popups to page elements instead of the default tooltips provided by the browser.
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Shoot Em Up
by admin on 6-23-2008 • 0 commentsJust a quick note to mention that Galactic Front is back online. The latest release includes some major updates to both the server (written in Ruby) and the client (updated to use ActionScript 3).
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More XML Woes
by Castwide on 5-4-2008 • 0 comments -
Smart XML, Part 2: Converting HTML Entities for XML
by Castwide on 5-2-2008 • 0 commentsYesterday I discovered a bothersome feature in PHP 5's DOM library. Loading XML data into a DOMDocument object triggers errors if it contains HTML entities. I have no idea if this issue is common in other implementations, but it was a big enough hassle that it made me add a new function to the Smart XML library.
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Function Whitelists for PHP Expressions
by Castwide on 4-28-2008 • 0 commentsOne of my experiments with the new Pagemill is a custom tag that allows limited use of PHP for evaluating expressions. It's not unusual for templates to require more advanced functionality than simple string concatenation, such as formatting dates and numbers. These features are the major benefit that pure PHP templates have over many template systems. Even Smarty provides a method for embedding PHP code into templates. Using pure PHP, however, introduces the possibility that application logic can become intertwined with presentation logic. My custom PHP tag is an attempt to combine the best of both worlds.