Ben Alman » News

Run jQuery Code Bookmarklet v0.4

Ben Alman — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:28:00 -0700

This would probably actually be better called “Run some arbitrary code that requires jQuery, loading a minimum required version of jQuery first (but only if necessary), affecting the host page as little as possible Bookmarklet” but that wasn’t nearly as catchy as “Run jQuery Code Bookmarklet” so I’m going to stick with that.

This boilerplate code is useful for bookmarklets that need jQuery to execute their payload, in situations where you don’t know if jQuery or a specific minimum required version of jQuery will already exist in the page.

Also, an easy-to-use bookmarklet generator has been created to streamline the process!

As always, please check out the Run jQuery Code Bookmarklet now, and let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions!

jQuery doTimeout plugin v0.3

Ben Alman — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 11:45:41 -0700

The doTimeout plugin does everything that setTimeout does, but allows you to more easily cancel individual timeouts, override existing timeouts with new ones, and even force execution of a callback before its timeout is set to run. In addition to all those convenience features, doTimeout is fully jQuery chainable.

Check out the documentation and examples over at the doTimeout plugin page now, and let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions!

Simplified is coming along..

Ben Alman — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:51:52 -0700

I was caught a little off-guard by the recent Linkinus 2.0 release, and as a result haven't yet had the time to port my popular Simplified style over to the new API. Which isn't to say that I'm not trying, in fact I'm spending all the time I can spare on it, just take a look!

Either way, I have made a lot of progress. In the process of porting Simplified, I've rewritten the majority of my v1.x code as well as all the style helper JavaScript I've come across. For example, I've already created JavaScript Linkify and a jQuery Long Url plugin, both of which will be included with Simplified. I still have to handle emoticons, embedding images and videos, and a lot of other features (emoticons and embeds will be optional, of course) but It's coming along.

My real challenge is being able to fit in the Simplified styling work with everything else that I have going on right now. Because I'm not getting paid for my work, if you would like to donate to the cause, It would be greatly appreciated. Just click the "Donate" button in the sidebar of my site, and thanks!

SMV @ HOB

Ben Alman — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:02:57 -0700

Robyn scored us some tickets to see SMV (Stanley Clarke, Marcus Miller and Victor Wooten) at the House of Blues tonight. the basses were thumpin' and the music was bumpin' - everyone took at least one killer solo, including Marcus on bass clarinet and Stanley on upright.. If you get a chance to see these guys, take it!

Also, check out my photos from the show!

Change BBEdit Invisibles colors

Ben Alman — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:51:19 -0700

While I find BBEdit to be a fantastic text editor, there are a few minor things I’ve always wanted to change, one of which is the color for Invisibles. I love the idea, but against my preferred background color, they stand out far too much to be anything but distracting.

If you’ve never seen Invisibles, you can enable them for the current document in the Text Options menu of that window’s toolbar, or globally by going to Preferences > Editor Defaults > Show Invisibles.

Now, if at first glance they seem obnoxious, imagine their color changed to be a bit more subtle, like just slightly darker or lighter than the background color. Sound better? Read on!

First of all, I recommend that you backup the ~/Library/Preferences/com.barebones.bbedit.plist BBEdit prefs file, just in case. Now, open a new Terminal window and paste this line (leave the window open afterwards):

export BBEDIT_COLOR=$(defaults read com.barebones.bbedit Color:Comment)

In BBEdit, go to Preferences > Text Colors and change the color for Comment to the color you’d like for Invisibles (feel free to actually throw some code and comments into a page to test with), then quit BBEdit.

In the same shell as before:

defaults write com.barebones.bbedit Color:Invisibles:Spaces \ -string "$(defaults read com.barebones.bbedit Color:Comment)"
defaults write com.barebones.bbedit Color:Invisibles:Other \ -string "$(defaults read com.barebones.bbedit Color:Comment)"
defaults write com.barebones.bbedit Color:Comment -string "$BBEDIT_COLOR"

Open BBEdit, and you’re done. You can close the shell now if you’d like.

Notes

If “Reopen documents that were open at last quit” is enabled, when BBEdit opens, the first document apparently uses the default Invisibles colors (even if they are changed in BBEdit’s DefaultPreferences.plist file). I have found no way around this annoyance, short of always opening an empty placeholder text file as the first open file in that window.
Color:Invisibles:Other doesn’t actually seem to change anything, not that I’ve noticed at least.. but I’m setting it anyways, just in case.
If you think Bare Bones should include proper configuration for Invisibles colors, let them know!

JavaScript debug v0.3

Ben Alman — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:42:57 -0700

From the JavaScript debug: A simple wrapper for console.log project page:

This code provides a simple wrapper for the console's logging methods, and was created to allow a very easy-to-use, cross-browser logging solution, without requiring excessive or unwieldy object detection. No third-party JavaScript API or console required, tested in Internet Explorer 6-8, Firefox 3, Safari 3-4, Chrome, Opera 9.

Please check out JavaScript debug now, and as always let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions!

Dinner with the Goldsmiths

Ben Alman — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:56:23 -0700

This evening, Robyn and I met our good friends Dan and Kym for dinner. After the meal, while Kym had excused herself for a moment, Dan and I were discussing marriage, and while talking, I motioned to Robyn and said something like, “I didn’t settle. I don’t feel like I settled. Well, I did settle, technically. You see, at some point, you realize that while there might be someone even more compatible with you than who you’re with, the time investment involved in finding said person would far outweigh the benefit of actually being with them. It’s just not worth it, so yeah, you could say that technically, I settled.”

To which Dan replied, “It’s not settling, it’s settling down.”

Brilliant.

At this point, Kym returned, and we all took a few moments to recount the previous interchange (so that she would know what all the laughter was about). After hearing our explanation, Kym told us about the time she said to Dan, “I know that sometimes it’s hard on you, knowing that I don’t share your love of video games and science fiction movies. So, if there was one thing about me that you’d change, what would it be? But wait—it’s not fair of me to ask that question of you until I ask it of myself. What one thing would I change about you? And the answer is ‘nothing.’ I wouldn’t change anything about you, because I love you just the way you are.”

To which Dan replied, “Well, if I could change something, it would be the video games.”

I love Dan.

jQuery iff plugin v0.1

Ben Alman — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 10:52:21 -0700

Now that the site redesign is done, I figured I'd lead off with a web development-related post. From the jQuery iff plugin project page:

This relatively simple and very small jQuery plugin gives you the functionality and power of a standard JavaScript "if" statement, without breaking the chain. In one way, iff operates like .filter(), in that it allows you to conditionally process a subset of selected elements, but instead of allowing you to preserve or remove individual elements, it operates on the entire set of elements.

Feel free to check out the jQuery iff plugin now, and let me know if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions!

Out with the old, in with the new!

Ben Alman — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:13:29 -0700

If you only take a quick glance at the newly renovated benalman.com and compare it with the old version, you might not notice much of a change, but a lot has happened in the last few months, since I started redesigning the site.

For starters, I rewrote all the Movable Type templates from scratch, giving me a much more generalized HTML structure to build on, and allowing cool new features like posting on-site comments using your Facebook or AIM accounts. After that, I updated the previous design with more vibrant colors, increased the font size and content width to make for easier reading, and added lots of little bits of polish here and there.

In addition to all those changes, I condensed the sidebar significantly, and added in a new Projects section that will feature many new CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery plugins pages over the next few months, and beyond (Music pages coming soon!).

Washington, DC

Ben Alman — Thu, 21 May 2009 11:04:13 -0700

While visiting friends and family in and around Washington DC, Robyn and I visited the Air & Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Botanic Gardens, a whole bunch of memorials, and just enjoyed the beautiful weather. Check out my photos as well as Robyn's photos, if you haven't seen them already!