LogBook http://www.joyceleong.com/log Just another Logbook Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:34:52 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 CodeIgniter vs Yii http://www.joyceleong.com/log/codeigniter-vs-yii-2/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/codeigniter-vs-yii-2/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 06:33:18 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=561 After using CodeIgniter for some time, I realized the simplicity and the ease of deployment, very much pretty straightforward. The userguide itself is very much detailed and provides a great deal of examples for anyone who tries to learn the ropes of CI.

Probably getting too used to coding with raw PHP and CI, in comparison I tend to find that Yii has a steeper learning curve. However though it does provide things like CListView, CDetailView, CGridView etc. Hence building these view types are easy and you can configure them to your needs.

Yii comes with scaffolding as well, your Model class builds from your database. Hence, it is important that your database schema is well designed. Another thing not to overlook is the relations, you can define the relations for easy referencing throughout your script. Controller and CRUD can be generated easily as well. You just have to customize them to suit your requirements. It does reduce your effort rewriting duplicates very much greatly.

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/codeigniter-vs-yii-2/feed/ 0 CSS Quick Tip – Removing Resize Handler in Textarea http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css-quick-tip-removing-resize-handler-in-textarea/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css-quick-tip-removing-resize-handler-in-textarea/#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 03:16:51 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=549 One of the frequent issues with textarea is the annoying resize handler that will appear in most browsers such as firefox and chrome, and in order to prevent your users from resizing the textarea, you can disable the resize handler with CSS.

Here is how you can do it:

textarea {
resize: none;
}
]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css-quick-tip-removing-resize-handler-in-textarea/feed/ 0 CSS3 Quick Tips – Pseudo Class http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css3-quick-tips-pseudo-class-2/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css3-quick-tips-pseudo-class-2/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:10:04 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=522 You can use pseudo class in CSS3 such as:

E.g. 1- Using nth-child

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Welcome to HTML5 Tuts!</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css">
</head>

<body>
<div id="theparent">
<p class="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="child">This is a sentence.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Main.css

p:nth-child(odd) { color: green; }
p:nth-child(even) { color: red; }

Basically this is saying, make every odd child will get the style of green, and every other even child will get the color of red.

Screenshot for E.g. 1

E.g. 2 – Using Negation Pseudo Class


<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Welcome to HTML5 Tuts!</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css">
</head>

<body>
<div id="theparent">
<p class="childa">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="childb">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="childa">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="childb">This is a sentence.</p>
<p class="childb">This is a sentence.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Main.css

* {color: blue;}
:not(.childa) {color: red;};

Basically what this is saying is that make all items blue, and anything that is not termed as the class = childa are red, which is why the <p> with class = childb are all in red.

Screenshot of the result for E.g. 2:

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css3-quick-tips-pseudo-class-2/feed/ 0 CSS3 Quick Tip – Attribute Selector and Regex http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css3-quick-tip-attribute-selector-and-regex/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css3-quick-tip-attribute-selector-and-regex/#comments Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:00:21 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=539 Using Attribue Selector, you can set the styling based on the attributes.

E.g. 1 – Using Attribute Selector

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Welcome to HTML5 Tuts!</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css">
</head>

<body>
<div id="theparent">
<p name="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p name="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p name="childname">This is a sentence.</p>
<p name="child">This is a sentence.</p>
<p name="child">This is a sentence.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Main.css

p[name="childname"] {color:blue;}

Screenshot of E.g. 1:

E.g. 2 – Using Regex in CSS

 <!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Welcome to HTML5 Tuts!</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="main.css">
</head>

<body>
<div id="theparent">
<p name="children">This is a sentence.</p>
<p name="thechild">This is a sentence.</p>
<p name="mychildname">This is a sentence.</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Main.css

 p[name^="child"] {color:blue;}    // beginning with
p[name$="child"] {color:blue;}    // ending with
p[name*="child"] {color:blue;}    // wildcard, as long as "child" is found

Screenshot of E.g. 2: p[name^="child"] {color:blue;}

Screenshot of E.g. 2: p[name$="child"] {color:blue;}

Screenshot of E.g. 2: p[name*="child"] {color:blue;}

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/css3-quick-tip-attribute-selector-and-regex/feed/ 0 Saving Facebook Album Photos – PhotoGetter http://www.joyceleong.com/log/saving-facebook-album-photos-photogetter/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/saving-facebook-album-photos-photogetter/#comments Mon, 19 Dec 2011 05:12:02 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=512 As anyone saving and grabbing photos from their friend’s facebook photo album or from their favourite fans page photo album is really a tiring repetitive job when Facebook does not put a “Download Album” link for users to download. The way to do it is to download the individual photos within the album, one by one. In fact, I faced this problem, I was getting lazy after going through the download process for a few photos within an album. And what if there are a whole lot of photos inside the album, perhaps 100 or more? Pretty tiring isn’t it?

Hence, I have created a project with php and facebook FQL, this is an extremely basic application completed within a short time frame (within a few hours due to some researching and testing). Basically what this application will do is that you copy the album url and paste it into the textfield and off you go. The application will go and grab the photos and zip them up nicely in a downloadable zip file for you.

What is used in the building of this application? HTML, PHP, FQL, Facebook Developers.

Here are some screenshots of the application:

Step 1: Found an Album to Download, copy the Album URL. E.g. the one on the left with 193 photos.

Step 2: Paste the URL into the textbox. Click Start and wait.

Step 3: Show progress and upon completion a zip file to download.

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/saving-facebook-album-photos-photogetter/feed/ 0 Setting up Pear Command http://www.joyceleong.com/log/setting-up-pear-command/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/setting-up-pear-command/#comments Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:07:06 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=501 It came to a point that I no longer can tolerate the calling of /Application/MAMP/bin/php5.2/bin/pear to just run my pear command. Here is a quick tip to just set up your pear command, is to put it within your bash_profile, and the steps:

  1. Check the bin_dir: 
    /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5.2/bin/pear config-show
  2. Vi ~/.bash_profile and include the bin_dir (basically this is the location of your pear binary) 
    export PATH=<your bin dir>:$PATH

     

  3. Important! Close and load your terminal again, or just run 
    . ~/.bash_profile
]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/setting-up-pear-command/feed/ 0 Playing with Yii Part 2 http://www.joyceleong.com/log/playing-with-yii-part-2/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/playing-with-yii-part-2/#comments Wed, 28 Sep 2011 04:34:21 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=488 I think the Yii screencasts that they have on the Yii Framework site is pretty simplistic and easy to understand. However this is just the tip of an iceberg what this beast can do, there is more to it. Hence supposedly it will be more fun to start exploration some possibilities and functions that Yii Framework does.

The first part of it is to get your framework downloaded, and getting an instance of Yii Framework running. As these basic stuffs are locatable on the Yii Screencasts, hence I’ll assume that this part of the knowledge is taken care of. I will just do a quick summary of things that I take note off from the screencasts.

Creating a Hello World Application

A hello world applicaiton in Yii is nothing more than a page in the application displaying this simple greeting.

  1. Use Gii to create a new controller to handle our page request
  2. Alter the view file to display our friendly greeting

Understanding the Request Route

http://localhost/demo/index.php?r=greeting/index

where  r = route, greeting = controller id, index = action id
Instruct Yii to route request to Greeting Controller::actionIndex()

How to Move message data back to the controller?

  1. Create controller property to hold message data
  2. Pass the data from controller to view

How to Output the message content to the view?

  1. Set a variable $content for the view
  2. $this->message for the view output

CRUD

Configure our application to use a database. Create CRUD content management functionality.

What does CRUD stand for?

  • (op) => (sql)
  • Create => Insert
  • Read => Select
  • Update => Update
  • Delete => Delete

Understanding the Request Route when using CRUD

main application : http://localhost/demo/index.php

in the message controller, viewing the details of message #1, so our route is:
r=message/view&id=1

total url: http://localhost/demo/index.php?r=message/view&id=1

How to Alter the simple Hello World message to use content from the database?

Recap:

<?php echo “Hello World” ?> – data in the view

<?php echo $content ?> – data in the controller:: push approach

<?php echo $this->message ?> – data in the controller:: pull approach

Quick References:

Yii Screencasts: http://www.yiiframework.com/screencasts/
Yii Wiki: http://www.yiiframework.com/wiki/
Yii API Documentation: http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/api/1.1/Yii

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/playing-with-yii-part-2/feed/ 0 Playing with Yii Part 1 http://www.joyceleong.com/log/playing-with-yii-part-1/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/playing-with-yii-part-1/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:27:57 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=484 I am a visual learner as always, but it is tough to look for Yii video tutorials aside from those officially provided on the Yii Framework site. I tried to flip through the blog pdf tutorial, but wasn’t getting anywhere. I might try out the Yii ebooks later on.

Finally getting into Yii Framework, as I know eventually this is the way to beef up a web application in a fast and steady way. I am a hardcore old school programmer, and having to use frameworks tend to limit my thoughts somehow. Tried on codeigniter and cakephp, now moving on with Yii.

What I can say about Yii is simply cool, fast, and a beastly replication of redundancy, this is just a great idea to enable programmers to think more on the logical functions that the boring stuff.  Way to go man…

A side from the main official Yii documentation:

http://www.yiiframework.com/

A nice catch with simplistic brief about yii from Sterling Savvy:

http://www.sterlingsavvy.com/tutorials/index.php?t=1&l=1

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/playing-with-yii-part-1/feed/ 0 Learning a new Language or Framework http://www.joyceleong.com/log/learning-a-new-language-or-framework/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/learning-a-new-language-or-framework/#comments Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:15:30 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=481 Here’s a learning checklist when you try to learn a new programming language or learning how to make use of a new framework to work with.

Marc Gear states some of the exercises that we should put our hands dirty at:
http://onekay.com/blog/archives/35

In summary:

  1. Hello World
  2. Calculator
  3. Guestbook
  4. Parse and Paginate
]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/learning-a-new-language-or-framework/feed/ 0 One Platform, any Stack – DotCloud http://www.joyceleong.com/log/one-platform-any-stack-dotcloud/ http://www.joyceleong.com/log/one-platform-any-stack-dotcloud/#comments Fri, 26 Aug 2011 11:34:21 +0000 admin http://www.joyceleong.com/log/?p=462 While researching, I came across a neat and gritty solution – DotCloud.com. Basically what they do is to help you create a platform of any stack, building and deploying your stack within instance. Do away with stacking up your linux playbox, and pile up your stack cloud right away.

What is DotCloud good for?

It definitely can do a whole lot more. The stack can support a wide range of various services, framework and databases. Hence you can mix and match whichever services based on your requirements.

The next kid in the block are nodej.js and mongodb. For more information on the services, check http://docs.dotcloud.com/services/roadmap/.

Is DotCloud easy to use?

You bet. Just follow the Steps below and refer to the links as stated.

DotCloud Setup Steps:

  1. Signup a DotCloud account
  2. Install the CLI (Follow the steps for the various OS here: http://docs.dotcloud.com/firststeps/install/)
  3. Look for the API Key inside the DotCloud Dashboard Setting
  4. Paste and complete the CLI installation

DotCloud Examples:

I find the DotCloud Docs pretty clear and concise.
Pushing a static html file to DotCloud – http://docs.dotcloud.com/firststeps/quickstart/
Dynamic PHP with database – http://docs.dotcloud.com/firststeps/in-depth/

DotCloud Summary:

Creating the app:

$ dotcloud create helloworldapp2

Pushing your code:

$ dotcloud push helloworldapp2 .

Setting your database:

$ dotcloud info helloworldapp2.db

Creating database credentials and grant access:

$ dotcloud run helloworldapp2.db -- mysql -u root -pOLZeLLBdKFAiI2lGqSn4

Restart your app:

$ dotcloud restart helloworldapp2.www

Try your app:

$ dotcloud url helloworldapp2

Delete services:

$ dotcloud destroy helloworldapp2.www

Destroying whole application:

$ dotcloud destroy helloworldapp2

Personally I would think it is great for a playground and experimental ground for application and projects, and creating a stack is almost instantaneous.

]]> http://www.joyceleong.com/log/one-platform-any-stack-dotcloud/feed/ 0