http://www.markinns.com/index.php/articles/index/ en mark@markinns.com Copyright 2012 2012-02-03T11:21:33+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/adding_first_and_last_class_to_joomla_menu_items http://www.markinns.com/articles/adding_first_and_last_class_to_joomla_menu_items#When:11:21:33Z Adding classes to the first and last element in navigation menu can be helpful in defining menu styles. We can easily add extra class “first” and “last” to the respective elements of the menus by adding a few lines to the menu module code. This as far as I know has never been a feature in Joomla, going forward adding the classes should be made redundant as support for CCS3 matures and we can reliably use the CSS3 Pseudo-classes :first-child and :last-child but until then.Joomla 2.5.0 has a mod_menu (Joomla 1.7 used mod_mainmenu) module for creating menus. Joomla allows the users to create overrides to get this special enhancements. We want to make an override to Joomla’s ‘mod_menu’ module to get our first and last class finctionality. This will allow your modifications to remain after a Joomla update. The overrides are placed in a folder named “html” inside your template folder. Inside “html” place another folder called “mod_menu” to specify the override. Next, copy the file default.php from modules/mod_menu/tmpl from your joomla filesystem to newly created override folder (mod_menu). Your default.php file should now be located at templates/{your_template}/html/mod_menu/default.php. Joomla, PHP, 2012-02-03T11:21:33+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/how_to_setup_a_local_dns_host_file_on_mac_os_x http://www.markinns.com/articles/how_to_setup_a_local_dns_host_file_on_mac_os_x#When:13:42:49Z A local DNS host file can be useful when developing a website. You can have a build environment and a production environment and simply point the host to the build environment on your machine, and your machine only, while all of the other users are directed to the live site. This allows you to work on the build environment and fully test prior to pushing the changes to the live production site.Step 1: Open up a Terminal windows (this is in your Applications/Utilites folder by default) Step 2: Enter the following command to open the local host file. (Note: The sudo command requires an admin password to allow you to open this file as root.) sudo /Applications/TextEdit.app/Contents/MacOS/TextEdit /etc/hosts Apple, Code, Snippets, 2012-01-20T13:42:49+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/increasing_the_number_of_file_links_in_typo3 http://www.markinns.com/articles/increasing_the_number_of_file_links_in_typo3#When:15:04:30Z This is a problem I discovered when uploading files for a client into a Typo3 site. By default Typo3 sets a limit of 10 files it allows to be uploaded. If you try and upload any more you receive a generic error message in the form of a yellow triangle warning.To raise the limit for the number of files that can be uploaded from 10 to 100 (or whatever value you want to set) we need to add a line of code preferably into ext_tables.php in one of your plugins or alternately directly into /typo3conf/extTables.php. Code, PHP, Typo3, 2011-10-21T15:04:30+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/adding_two_google_analytics_accounts_to_one_page http://www.markinns.com/articles/adding_two_google_analytics_accounts_to_one_page#When:13:38:57Z There are times when you would like to track your page visits using Google Analytics and also someone else wants to do the same. We have had this situation where the client wants to have the data in their analytics account and we also would like to track the site using our account. We have also had external SEO companies that want to track the site using their account.I have found a number of posts, forum entries and blogs that give examples of how this is achieved. Some are longwinded and some just plain wrong. To add tracking for two accounts using the asynchronous code that is placed before the closing head tag google describes doing this in its usage guide. All I have done here is show the full code snippet. Code, Google, Javascript, Snippets, 2011-05-06T13:38:57+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/useful_wordpress_snippets http://www.markinns.com/articles/useful_wordpress_snippets#When:09:15:48Z There are loads of things that can be achieved very easily in Wordpress if you know how. Many of these things can be done in just one line of code, so here are a few that I have found useful in the past and want to keep a record of for use in the future.Shortcodes in Wordpress Templates Shortcodes are useful to easily evoke a function e.g. embedding a youtube video in a post. If however you want this handy functionality in you template instead of just a post/page you can using: <?php echo do_shortcode('[shortcode]'); ?> Snippets, Wordpress, 2011-04-15T09:15:48+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/displaying_a_from_field_depending_on_previous_question_using_jquery http://www.markinns.com/articles/displaying_a_from_field_depending_on_previous_question_using_jquery#When:10:56:37Z Sometimes forms on websites can look daunting to users when there are lots of fields to fill out. A neat solution is to hide fields that are only required depending on a previous answer. In the example I have created suppose you have a form with a drop-down list of peoples titles we have all the usual titles included but what if a Professor filled out the form? We add another fields to the form for 'other' that only needs filling out if the correct title was not available in our drop-down. 99% of people filling out the form will not need to use this field so with a little bit if Javascript magic we can hide the field unless a user selects 'other' from the drop-down. This approach gives us much neater form for users who have Javascript enabled and will degrade nicely for those few who don't.I decided to do this using jQuery instead of straight Javascript (not using a library) as it is now almost a standard way of doing things. Also this example with forms may find jQuery being used to deal with form validation and so forth. Code, jQuery, 2011-01-07T10:56:37+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/recreating_the_fade_scrolling_text_marquee_on_twitter http://www.markinns.com/articles/recreating_the_fade_scrolling_text_marquee_on_twitter#When:10:53:03Z Scrolling marquees were widely used on many early webpages that used the now defunct non-standard marquee tags and have fallen out of vogue in recent years. The twitter.com homepage show that the effect can still be used to good effect today in a more subtle manner. We can use client side scripting to create the effect without the use of proprietary tags.Taking a look at the twitter homepage code show us how they make the text fade in and out, it is remarkably simple. They have placed two PNG images that fade from 100% opaque to 100% transparent, it’s actually a single sprite called fade-trends2.png. The two elements are placed inside their own <li>s at the end of a list of <li>s and inside a <ul>, and then positioned using CSS to float at either side of the <ul>. CSS, Javascript, jQuery, Tutorials, 2010-11-19T10:53:03+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/wordpress_custom_permalinks_problem http://www.markinns.com/articles/wordpress_custom_permalinks_problem#When:10:39:11Z I have been doing a lot more work in Wordpress recently and have come across a problem turing on clean URL permalinks. The permalinks system has worked for me straight of of the box on MediaTemple and 1&1 servers but I have been getting an error message on Webfusion and 123-reg servers.The issue occurs when setting a custom URL structure for your permalinks. You may chose one of the common settings or your own custom structure like /%category%/%postname%/ or /%postname%/. Wordpress then creates a .htaccess file for you. If your check your site, refresh the page and site then goes blank and you get the following error message: Forbidden, perhaps you need to change the file permissions for this document or upload an index page. 2010-10-15T10:39:11+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/hanging_quotation_marks http://www.markinns.com/articles/hanging_quotation_marks#When:10:19:27Z Having recently released a Joomla Module that allows you to add blockquotes to your Joomla sites I have had a few requests for some further information on styling blockquotes. Blockquotes are intended to be used separately from other text in its own block, if you want to include an inline quote you should be using the Q tag. The Q tag adds quote marks, Internet Explorer being the exception to the rule, the blockquote tag does not.We are able to add quotes marks automatically using CSS pseudo-elements. Again it should be noted older versions of IE don’t support pseudo-elements. This is the CSS that will add a right double quotation mark before the contents of the blockquote, and left double quotation mark after the contents of the blockquote. CSS, HTML, 2010-10-08T10:19:27+00:00 http://www.markinns.com/articles/making_smiles_using_only_css_vertical_text http://www.markinns.com/articles/making_smiles_using_only_css_vertical_text#When:10:58:24Z This week I needed to create a 404 error page for a project, I wanted to create something simple that was purely CSS with no images. I wanted the page to have something graphical as well and decided on a large sad smilie. The challenge here is to get the text :-( to display vertically.I wanted to keep things as simple as possible. I excluded using SVG, IE conditional statements or IE filters. I managed to get vertical text in a single CSS block. Here is the result: CSS, HTML, 2010-09-24T10:58:24+00:00