Dev Tips | Become a Better Developer, One Tip at a Time. http://dev-tips.com Become a Better Developer, One Tip at a Time. Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:19:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= DevTipshttp://feedburner.google.com Creating Unique Styles for WordPress Pages http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/TP2aYCY_zvA/creating-unique-styles-for-wordpress-pages http://dev-tips.com/featured/creating-unique-styles-for-wordpress-pages#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 02:07:23 +0000 Nick Plekhanov http://dev-tips.com/?p=893 In WordPress 2.8, there is one small but very useful feature, both for WP web developers, and for bloggers. This is an opportunity to change the appearance of any individual page or group of pages without the need to write either the functions/conditions on php or install plugins. All you need to do is simply add your desired style to your css file.

How does it work?

In WordPress 2.8 has been added to the function body_class(). It works like so

<body <?php body_class(); ?>>

So, we just need to apply such function to the body.

If your theme is adapted for WordPress 2.8, this feature is probably already present in the code. In case you can’t find that function, it's enough to search for 

<body>

tag in header.php file of your theme and replace it with 

<body <?php body_class(); ?>>

Usage

What do we get from using this function? It’s very simply; we get a <body&rt; tag with additional classes, such as:
<body class="home blog"&rt;
or
<body class=" single postid-1001 parent-page-id-0 page-template-default"&rt;

What does this give us? Let’s look at some examples.

Adding to your website’s css file:

.postid-3 #respond{

display: none; 

}

Will kill comments form from post with id=3, just leaving comments.

.home{

background: #f00;

}

Only make the background of the home page in red.

.page h2{

font-size: 30px;

}

Increases the size of the header only on the pages (not blog entries) of the site.

Anyway, these are just simple examples. Using this feature you can make almost any changes in the CSS file for a single page or page group.

Documentation

Below you can see a full list of body classes that can be used for custom styling (just apply desired styles to them). That long list lets us know that style can be applied to almost any page, even to the third page of a search results, even to the tag, even to the author.

  • rtl
  • home
  • blog
  • archive
  • date
  • search
  • paged
  • attachment
  • error404
  • single postid-(id)
  • attachmentid-(id)
  • attachment-(mime-type)
  • author
  • author-(name)
  • category
  • category-(name)
  • tag
  • tag-(name)
  • page
  • page-parent
  • page-child parent-pageid-(id)
  • page-template page-template-(template file name)
  • search-results
  • search-no-results
  • logged-in
  • paged-(page number)
  • single-paged-(page number)
  • page-paged-(page number)
  • category-paged-(page number)
  • tag-paged-(page number)
  • date-paged-(page number)
  • author-paged-(page number)
  • search-paged-(page number)

For WordPress huge fans and those who wants more, there is an opportunity to add their custom classes to body_class via a standard WordPress way:

<?php
add_filter('body_class','my_body_classes');
function my_body_classes($classes, $class) {
	// add 'my-class' to the $classes array
	$classes[] = 'my-class';
	// return the $classes array
	return $classes;
}
?>

There is no official documentation for body_class() at the moment, but as usually happens in WordPress, the function is made very simply and wisely. So, it is not difficult to understand it. A little more details can be found in the body_class() function’s code.

Thank you and good luck! :)


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/creating-unique-styles-for-wordpress-pages/feed 9 http://dev-tips.com/featured/creating-unique-styles-for-wordpress-pages Our Sponsors Rock! A Thank You From Dev-Tips http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/-Fb7Pp4XLxY/our-sponsors-rock-a-thank-you-from-dev-tips http://dev-tips.com/featured/our-sponsors-rock-a-thank-you-from-dev-tips#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:50:06 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=870 Our recent giveaway was a gigantic success, and it just would not have been possible without some amazing people. I'd like to take a moment and individually thank every sponsor that made this fun giveaway possible.

PHP Reference Book by Mario Lurig

“This is a great quick reference book that presents content and examples in a way that it serves both beginners and intermediate users alike. A must buy book!”

- Rak Shekhar, Founder, PHPCatalyst.com

If you didn't win the book, you can still download a PDF version of it for free on the website!

BeCreative Magazine

BeCreative Magazine is an online design/social media magazine. It's also a blog for people who want to learn how to design, code and write online. Whether you need to know how to design a website from scratch, start developing themes or maybe even want to learn how to write properly for the web we've got it.

HiddenPearls Web Development Services

HiddenPearls is a web development service who specializes in PSD to HTML conversions. Get in touch with them today!

Envato

I can't say enough great things about Envato. I owe so much of my success to them. They've provided me with an amazing job, great work environment, and wonderful people who have mentored me over the years. Thank you Envato for all you've given me.

PacktPub

Our books and publications share the experiences of your fellow IT professionals in adapting and customizing today's systems, applications, and frameworks.

DigWP

Written by WordPress veterans Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr, Digging into WordPress is 400+ jam-packed pages of everything you need to get the most out of WordPress. WordPress is great right out of the box, but unless you want an ordinary vanilla blog, it is essential to understand the full potential of WordPress and have the right tools to get the job done.

Are My Sites Up?

Your clients and/or customers don’t care that a hamster chewed through a network cable somewhere in Northern California. They want their website up. You need to find out before they do so you can react fast!

Apress Publishing

Apress is a technical publisher devoted to meeting the needs of IT professionals, software developers, and programmers, with more than 700 books in print and a continually expanding portfolio of publications. Apress provides high-quality, no-fluff content in print and electronic formats that help serious technology professionals build a comprehensive pathway to career success.

A special thank you to Simon of Apress for his extreme kindness and patience with me while I got everything sorted out, you've been amazing Simon!

Thanks again to our sponsors!


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/our-sponsors-rock-a-thank-you-from-dev-tips/feed 0 http://dev-tips.com/featured/our-sponsors-rock-a-thank-you-from-dev-tips AJAX and PHP, Building Modern Web Apps – Book Review http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/WFQ3kVubdNY/ajax-and-php-building-modern-web-apps-book-review http://dev-tips.com/featured/ajax-and-php-building-modern-web-apps-book-review#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 21:48:26 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=853 As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of reading actual web development books to increase ones skills. Sometimes, you just need to step away from the computer and read an actual physical book. I recently had the pleasure of reading AJAX and PHP: Building Modern Web Applications - Second Edition, and I absolutely loved it. I'm going to take some time today to go over the some of the book, and what I feel it has to offer the average reader.


Review Overview

  • Book Summary
  • Who is this book for?
  • Subject Matter
  • Notable content/features
  • Final Thoughts

Book Summary

The main focus of AJAX and PHP: Building Modern Web Apps is to get you up and running using raw Javascript and php to build practical and useful applications. I was happy to see the book mentions Javascript libraries, but really teaches the reader how to do things with plain old Javacript while accounting for all browsers. It was actually fun learning how to create your own AJAX cross browse compatible objects, which is something I never though I'd say.

To quote the books description and give you a better idea of the subject matter:

This book is a step-by-step, example-driven AJAX tutorial, featuring complete case studies. Each chapter contains a friendly mix of theory and practice, so that your journey through the book will be pleasant, yet efficient. You’ll be coding your first AJAX application at the end of the first chapter, and with each new chapter you’ll develop increasingly complex AJAX applications featuring advanced techniques and coding patterns.

Who is this book for?

In my opinion this book is great for beginners to web development, intermediate web developers looking to polish their AJAX and php skills, or advanced users who may have not had much experience using raw Javascript in web applications.

Anyone wanting to learn how php and Javascript can integrate asynchronosuly together will probably find this book behooving.

Subject Matter

I can't reveal all the details, but there are some seriously awesome applications and tutorials used in this book.

You are first introduced and walked through the basics of everything you'll need to get started, there is also a great primer on Javascript and even OOP style of Javascript, which is a nice bonus.

After that, you jump right in to building example AJAX applications, taking advantage of different web services and API.

Both XML and JSON formats are covered, which is essential.

Notable Content/Features

The section dealing with JSON vs XML is just awesome no matter which side of the fence you happen to stand on. Truth is, both data formats are in wide use, so it's helpful to know how to use them both when it relate to AJAX and PHP.

Another feature of the book I really enjoyed was the bonus on "Design Patterns" where common JS and PHP design patterns are evaluated and explained, it's very helpful for anyone trying to improve their application workflow.

Lastly, I'm very happy with how thorough of a job the authors did when it came to handling and dealing with cross browser issues. This isn't the most fun thing in the world, but any developer knows it's vital that their app work seamlessly across all common browsers.

Final Thoughts

As with nearly every single book from Packt, AJAX and PHP: Building Modern Web Applications is absolutely worth the price. It's a book to keep on your shelf when you're done reading to resort back to anytime you want to get your hands dirty with AJAX, and want things explained in a clear and precise manner.

As Always...

As always, I like to show all of you that I do in fact read all of these books I talk about and review, so here is my wonderfully extremely good looking self rocking the book:

Drew approves; he needs a haircut too!

Get It Now!

You can pick up the book directly from PacktPubs website and get started with AJAX and PHP today :)


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/ajax-and-php-building-modern-web-apps-book-review/feed 6 http://dev-tips.com/featured/ajax-and-php-building-modern-web-apps-book-review Dev-Tips Turns 1! The Huge Giveaway Bash Begins! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/oaKBTEMJk2w/dev-tips-turns-1-the-huge-giveaway-bash-begins http://dev-tips.com/featured/dev-tips-turns-1-the-huge-giveaway-bash-begins#comments Thu, 07 Jan 2010 01:28:09 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=789 Recently, we wrote about Dev-Tips turning one year old, and asked for items to be donated for a giveaway bash. I'm thrilled to say the response has been absolutely overwhelming. I have been stunned by everyones kindness and will to donate an item or product. With that said, I published the first post for Dev-Tips one year ago today. We've got 11 amazing items and products to giveaway to some of our readers, let the giveaway begin!

UPDATE!

As of January 14, 2010 I will be picking and emailing the random winners and ensuring those who won are eligible to receive the prize. Please check your inbox and make sure no messages get caught in your spam filter over the next few days. More updates shortly!

The Giveaway Items/Products

We have 11 amazing items and products to giveaway to our readers, they are as follows.

PHP Reference Book (Print Edition)

Courtesy of Mario Lurig - Author


A collection of over 250 PHP functions with clear explanations in language anyone can understand, followed with as many examples as it takes to understand what the function does and how it works. One of the best PHP books to keep around as a PHP reference.
This PHP reference includes numerous additional tips, the basics of PHP, MySQL query examples, regular expressions syntax, and two indexes to help you find information faster: a common language index and a function index.

2 Spotify Invites for the Free to Use Version!

Courtesy of BeCreativeMagazine


Millions of songs - instant and simple
Discover and share music with your friends

Not available in all countries

$25 Amazon Giftcard

Courtesy of BeCreativeMagazine


BeCreative Magazine is an online design/social media magazine. It´s also a blog for people who want to learn how to design, code and write online. Whether you need to know how to design a website from scratch, start developing themes or maybe even want to learn how to write properly for the web we´ve got it.

FREE PSD to XHTML Conversion ($123 value)

Courtesy of HiddenPearls


HiddenPearls is offering a free PSD to HTML conversion for one homepage and one contact page, a $123 value, absolutely free to one lucky winner! Be sure to follow him on Twitter!

FREE 3 Month TUTS+ Subscription

Courtesy of Envato


From graphics to web development, audio to video and more, get the skills you want from our family of tutorial and resource sites. Need more? We also offer a Plus program where you can access source files and bonus tutorials.

$50 Credit to any one of the Envato Marketplace

Courtesy of ActiveDen, AudioJungle, ThemeForest, VideoHive, GraphicRiver, 3dOcean, and/or CodeCanyon.


The Envato Marketplaces allow anyone to buy or sell digital goods like WordPress themes, stock audio, After Effects project files, Flash templates and much more. The marketplaces are home to a thriving community of over 300,000 users, authors and buyers and everyday hundreds of new files are added.

AJAX and PHP: Building Modern Web Applications 2nd Edition (paperback)

Courtesy of PacktPub


This book is a step-by-step, example-driven AJAX tutorial, featuring complete case studies. Each chapter contains a friendly mix of theory and practice, so that your journey through the book will be pleasant, yet efficient. You’ll be coding your first AJAX application at the end of the first chapter, and with each new chapter you’ll develop increasingly complex AJAX applications featuring advanced techniques and coding patterns.

Digging Into WordPress the Book (pdf)

Courtesy of DigWP


Written by WordPress veterans Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr, Digging into WordPress is 400+ jam-packed pages of everything you need to get the most out of WordPress. WordPress is great right out of the box, but unless you want an ordinary vanilla blog, it is essential to understand the full potential of WordPress and have the right tools to get the job done.

One Standard Premium Account for Are My Sites Up?

Courtesy of Chris Coyier


Your clients and/or customers don’t care that a hamster chewed through a network cable somewhere in Northern California. They want their website up. You need to find out before they do so you can react fast!

Beginning Zend Framework (print edition)

Courtesy of Apress Publishing


The Zend Framework is one of today’s most popular PHP–based web application development frameworks. Beginning Zend Framework is a beginner’s guide to learning and using the Zend Framework. It covers everything from the installation to the various features of the framework to get the reader up and running quickly.

Beginning Python From Novice To Professional, Second Edition (pdf)

Courtesy of Apress Publishing


Gain a fundamental understanding of Python’s syntax and features with the second edition of Beginning Python, an up–to–date introduction and practical reference. Covering a wide array of Python–related programming topics, including addressing language internals, database integration, network programming, and web services, you’ll be guided by sound development principles. Ten accompanying projects will ensure you can get your hands dirty in no time.

Updated to reflect the latest in Python programming paradigms and several of the most crucial features found in the forthcoming Python 3.0 (otherwise known as Python 3000), advanced topics, such as extending Python and packaging/distributing Python applications, are also covered.

How Do I Enter?

Simple and takes merely seconds! Follow these steps:

  1. Tweet about this post on twitter using any text you like. Nothing fancy. Here is a link you may use http://bit.ly/6kzEwQ
  2. Leave a comment below about which items you would like to win. Please list at least three (please add more if you can!) in case your desired item is already taken if you win.
  3. That's it, I told you it was simple!

As the comments grow larger, you will want to consider requesting choices that haven't been requested as much, to improve your chance of getting your first choice if you win.

How are the winners determined?

Random. All Random. We will choose random winners when the contest is over and try to give them their first item choice, if available. There will be 11 total winners, so be sure to follow the above steps to enter!

Please Support Our Sponsors!

This contest just would not have been possible without some amazing and very generous people and companies. Please take a minute of your time to give one of them a browse when you have the chance. Special thanks to:

Once again, please join me in saying a huge "thank you!" to our sponsors!

Support Dev-Tips

We've grown a lot in one year, and we're hoping to continue to see that trend in the year 2010. If Dev-Tips has helped you out in anyway in the past year, I ask you to please consider making a small donation to help us offset the cost of hosting and running the site. Any and all donations are very much appreciated.


Follow @Dev_Tips and @DrewDouglass on Twitter!

Enter now!

Read through the contest steps above, and enter your comment now for a chance to win one of the 11 items!

When Will the Winners be Picked?

We will be picking a winner around January 13th. We may extend this a bit to give everyone a fair chance to enter.


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/dev-tips-turns-1-the-huge-giveaway-bash-begins/feed 157 http://dev-tips.com/featured/dev-tips-turns-1-the-huge-giveaway-bash-begins Introducing Minerva – A Creative Portfolio Theme http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/KvRieREYjjg/introducing-minerva-a-creative-portfolio-theme http://dev-tips.com/featured/introducing-minerva-a-creative-portfolio-theme#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:52:43 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=762 Recently, I teamed up with very talented designer and personal friend Baz Deas to form a small and fun ThemeForest team. We came up with a name, DesignThirst, and have released our first premium HTML template on ThemeForest. Minerva, the name of the theme, is a premium and very fresh corporate/portfolio theme. Just check out some the features!

Introducing "Minerva"

Minerva is a fresh and clean site template that works great as a portfolio, personal, blog, or corporate site. Minerva comes packed with features and is ready to go out of the box. It even comes with a working AJAX & PHP contact form w/ spam protection!

Screenshots

Home Page

Footer

Contact Page

Blog Comments

Theme Features

  • Working AJAX & PHP Contact form.
  • Nice jQuery effects in the Footer and ‘Share This’ section.
  • Easy to use jQuery Slider in the header.
  • Custom Font Embedding with Cufon, falls back on awesome font stacks and still looks great.
  • 5 Different page types included.
  • Supported in all major browsers, including IE6!
  • Valid XHTML
  • Custom and in depth online and offline documentation and support.
  • Clean, elegant, and semantic code aids in good SEO .
  • Minimal use of images and creative use of sprites to save loading times.
  • Special attention paid to elements and typography, see demo page.

Demo, Documentation, & Support

http://designthirst.net/themes/minerva/ – Live Demo

http://designthirst.net/docs/minerva/ – Online Documentation

http://twitter.com/DesignThirst – DesignThirst on Twitter

Get Minerva now!

You can get Minerva right now, available exclusively through ThemeForest.

Feedback, Updates, and Feature Requests

If you didn't know, once you buy a theme on ThemeForest, you can download any updates made to that item for free at anytime! That said, we're about to release Minerva version 1.1 version 1.1 has been released!, which comes with some small enhancements, so no matter when you buy it, you'll forever have access to upgrades for free!

I'd love to hear any feedback or feature requests, let me know what you think!


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/introducing-minerva-a-creative-portfolio-theme/feed 2 http://dev-tips.com/featured/introducing-minerva-a-creative-portfolio-theme Dev-Tips Turning 1 Soon, Big Giveaway Bash Planned! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/Iurxod3eAGQ/dev-tips-turning-1-soon-big-giveaway-bash-planned http://dev-tips.com/featured/dev-tips-turning-1-soon-big-giveaway-bash-planned#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:29:33 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=724 On January 6, 2010, Dev-Tips turns one year old. It's hard for me to believe it's been almost a year now that Dev-Tips has been up and running with quality web development articles from numerous authors. There are so many great people and readers that got us this far, that we'd like to plan a giant giveaway and need your help! Read on to find out how you can get in on the fun!

Below are the items that have been kindly donated so far.I will update the list below as they (hopefully!) continue to come in.

Giveaways

We've had some amazing success in the past with book and web development related giveaways, and we'd love to do it again this year! We've been contacted by some great people and are planning on having frequent book reviews and giveaways for the next year on Dev-Tips.

Giveaway Items Needed!

If you have any kind of web development related product or item that you'd like to contribute to the giveaway, please get in touch with us! We are in desperate need of giveaway items, and we'd love to give you some free traffic, so if you have anything at all let us know!

Some items we are looking for (but not limited to):

  • Web Dev or Design Books
  • Software or Scripts
  • Templates or Designs
  • Discounts to web apps or memberships to programs

If Dev-Tips has helped you out in anyway at all, please consider donating an item to the giveaway, or making a donation below. We don't ask often, and donations and a small amount of advertisements are what keeps us going.

Submit an Item/Product for the giveaway

To submit an item for the giveaway, please contact us through this form with the subject line of "One Year Giveaway".

All persons who donate an item or product to the giveaway will receive full credit and promotion on Dev-Tips.

Make a Donation

To make a donation to Dev-Tips, simply use the donation button below.


If you make a donation and don't mind me letting me know, I will be sure to credit and link everyone who does this also, as it's the least I can do. If you'd rather stay anonymous that's fine too.

A Giant Thank You!

A big thank you to all of the readers who stuck with us throughout our first year, we've seen solid growth every month and have bigger and better things planned for 2010! Have a wonderful New Year!


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/dev-tips-turning-1-soon-big-giveaway-bash-planned/feed 5 http://dev-tips.com/featured/dev-tips-turning-1-soon-big-giveaway-bash-planned Winner of PHP Book Giveaway & Future Giveaways Announced! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/TA56UHZYSYY/winner-of-php-book-giveaway-future-giveaways-announced http://dev-tips.com/featured/winner-of-php-book-giveaway-future-giveaways-announced#comments Wed, 30 Dec 2009 22:54:47 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=717 We recently had an awesome giveaway on Dev-Tips for a chance to win PHP For Absolute Beginners by Jason Lengstorf. Today we will announce the winner as well ad briefly discuss future giveaways!


The Big Winner!

Congrats to Montana Flynn, the randomly selected winner for the PHP book giveaway. Montana will be receiving an absolutely free copy of the book in the mail shortly. Montana will be using the book to:

I want the book because I need to learn how to write better PHP!

And hey, that's a good enough reason for us.

Congratulation Montana, and thanks to all who entered!

Future Giveaways

This giveaway was so successful, I have been contacted by a few publishers and we will be running frequent book reviews and giveaways! Be sure to subscribe to our RSS Feed to be one of the first to enter the next contest!

P.S. Dev-Tips turns one year old in January! We'll be posting more about this soon and looking for giveaway sponsors, get in touch with us if you are interested, we'd love to chat!


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/winner-of-php-book-giveaway-future-giveaways-announced/feed 2 http://dev-tips.com/featured/winner-of-php-book-giveaway-future-giveaways-announced Awesome radio button grouping with jQuery http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/6tXJYgelyTI/awesome-radio-button-grouping-with-jquery http://dev-tips.com/featured/awesome-radio-button-grouping-with-jquery#comments Sun, 20 Dec 2009 02:21:13 +0000 Barry Roodt http://dev-tips.com/?p=679 I was asked to do something rather interesting with some radio button inputs the other day. I haven't come across this particular problem before and google didn't return anything helpful, so I decided to share what I came up with.

Live Demo

First, the scenario

We have a standard form with 4 radio button groups. Each group has 4 radio buttons labeled from "1" to "4". Now, when the user selects "option 1" in "group 1", all the remaining "option 1" items need to be disabled. To see an example in action, you can view the demo here.

The problem

When I first started, I thought that it's simply a matter of giving each "option" (regardless of group) a common class name - then just disabling all other options with the same class name. That works, to a point, but what if the user changes his mind and selects another option ? Now I had to find all previously disabled options, re-enable them and start all over again.

The solution

Essentially what I came up with was a basic nested loop to handle setting and unsetting the relevant "disabled" attributes. To achieve this, first we assign all "option 1" a class of "number1", "option 2" a class of "number2" and so on.

Next, we run a basic for loop, and go through each "number" class (i.e. number1 to number4). For each class, we call a function. Inside this function is another loop - this time iterating over each radio button assigned the current class name. Using this loop, we remove any "disabled" attributes which may have been assigned previously.

We also find out which item in that group is currently selected (if any) - this is so we can run a second loop to disable all those options not currently selected. Confused ? Now might be a good time to go through the code.

The code

$(function(){
		// fire our code when a radio button has been selected
		$("input[type=radio]").change(function(){
			var name = $(this).attr("name"); // get the current button's group name
			$("input[name="+name+"]").removeAttr("selected"); // first we deselect "all" radio buttons within the same group
			$(this).attr("selected","selected"); // make sure our currently "changed" button is selected
			for(i=1;i<=4;i++){ // go through the 4 radio classes
				processRadio(".radio"+i);
			}
		});
		/**
			Loops through each item with same "class" name and disables/enables where appropriate
		**/
		function processRadio(myclass){
			var empty;
			var id = "";
			var buttons = $(myclass); // read all buttons with the specified class name into a jQuery object
			buttons.each(function(){ // loop through each item
				var me = $(this);
				var isSelected = me.attr("selected"); // bool value, based on whether the "selected" attribute is present or not
				me.removeAttr("disabled"); // clear the disabled attribute if present
				me.siblings("label").removeClass("disabled"); // same with the associated label element
				if (isSelected != empty &amp;&amp; isSelected != ""){
					id = $(this).attr("id"); // set our tmp id var to our currently selected item
				}
			});
			// make sure we have an id, otherwise we'll get an error
			if (id != empty &amp;&amp; id != ""){
				buttons.each(function(){ // loop through each radio button once again
					if ($(this).attr("id") != id){ // set the disabled attributes if id attribute doesn't match our tmp id var
						$(this).attr("disabled", "disabled").siblings("label").addClass("disabled");
					}
				});
			}
		}

	});

I've commented as best I could, which hopefully makes more sense than my rambling above. Once again, there is a working demo available for you to play with. Be sure to have a look at the markup as well, might clear up a few questions.

I strongly suspect that there's a more efficient method for achieving the same result - so if you have a better suggestion, tweak or link please let me know - I'd greatly appreciate it.

Live Demo

Editors Note - PHP Book Giveaway

I'll be announcing the winner for the PHP For Absolute Beginners book giveaway on monday, so now is your last second chance to get your comment in for a chance to win. See here for more details and to enter.


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/awesome-radio-button-grouping-with-jquery/feed 9 http://dev-tips.com/featured/awesome-radio-button-grouping-with-jquery PHP For Absolute Beginners Reviewed + Giveaway! http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/QtbVa7jviik/php-for-absolute-beginners-reviewed-giveaway http://dev-tips.com/featured/php-for-absolute-beginners-reviewed-giveaway#comments Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:34:39 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=682 Recently, fellow web developer and friend, Jason Lengstorf wrote and published (by Apress Publishing) PHP for Absolute Beginners.

Jason was kind enough to send me a copy for my own reading and enjoyment. Now that I've finished, I'll be quickly reviewing the book and then giving away a free copy to one of our readers, courtesy of Jason Lengstorf and Apress Publishing! Read on to find out more about the book and how to win the giveaway!

You can grab the book on Amazon right now as an early Christmas or Holiday gift to yourself, and start learning php today!

Overall Thoughts

The book was awesome, seriously, it was awesome. I say this as someone who has already had a lot of experience working with php, in fact, I make most of my living writing PHP code.

Don't believe me eh? It's so good, I gave it one thumb up! It would have gotten two, but I needed one hand to hold it:

Drew Approves of This Book

Drew Approves of This Book

Target Audience

Mostly beginners, but can be used as a great refresher or reference book for intermediate to advanced users.

Do not let the title fool you, this book is no small book! PHP For Absolute Beginners is quite a chunky book, filled with useful information and sample tutorials. Towards the last half of the book, you are walked step by step through building a nice web application.

If you're looking to get started with php, hands down this is the book you want to pick up first. It is not too overwhelming while at the same time stays extremely informative and in depth.

Topics I Found Useful

While there are a ton of valuable resources and topics in the book, a few of them stuck out to me as great references and guides:

  • MySQLi Refresher and References
  • PDO (PHP Data Objects) and DB Abstraction is taught step by step and encouraged.
  • PHP security and best practices are dealt with immediately.
  • Great XML and RSS Feed section.

Want a Free Copy?

We're giving away a copy of PHP For Absolute Beginners absolutely free! Read the details below to find out how to win!

  • Make a quick tweet about this giveaway/review on Twitter, please include the hashtag #DevTipsGiveaway in your tweet. Here is a short URL to the post you can use - http://bit.ly/6AJ46T
  • Leave a comment with one reason why you would like to win this book. Be sure you enter a valid email address so we can reach you if you win.
  • That's it, we'll announce the winner a week or two afterward!

Get the Book Now!

Want to get started learning PHP the right way? Go ahead and grab the book now, it's definitely a great book to have on hand!


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/php-for-absolute-beginners-reviewed-giveaway/feed 75 http://dev-tips.com/featured/php-for-absolute-beginners-reviewed-giveaway 5 Must Bookmark Websites for Web Developers http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/DevTips/~3/uN7fPpePRKA/5-must-bookmark-websites-for-web-developers http://dev-tips.com/featured/5-must-bookmark-websites-for-web-developers#comments Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:46:45 +0000 Drew Douglass http://dev-tips.com/?p=667 We all have our favorite websites lined up in Google Reader, often, we don't get the time to go through as many of the sites and articles that we would like. However, there are some sites related to web development that are essential to keep up with. Today, we will go through 5 must bookmark websites for web developers.

1. NETTUTS+ Web Development Tuts

NETTUTS Screenshot

NETTUTS is a popular web development web site with a new tutorial posted every day (except for weekends). Every tutorial is in depth and extremely well written, along with helpful images and/or video screencasts. All topics are covered.

Visit NETTUTS+

2. Gaya Design Blog

Gaya Design

Gaya Design Blog is a blog run by fellow web developer and a good friend of mine, Gaya Kessler. Gaya is an extremely talented designer and developer, who frequently posts nifty Javascript and CSS targeted articles. His blog's design is quite fun and interactive as well!

Visit Gaya Design

3. CSS-Tricks

CSS-Tricks Screenshot

CSS-Tricks is a web development website run by the talented web designer and friend of Dev-Tips, Chris Coyier. CSS-Tricks focuses on, well, a lot of CSS and HTML tricks. CSS-Tricks also hosts a variety of extremely well done video screencasts. CSS-Tricks is a must have!

Visit CSS-Tricks

4. David Walsh's Blog

David Walsh Network

David Walsh is a web developer and a core developer for the moo tools team. It should come as no surprise then that Davis covers a lot of Javascript techniques, including mootools and some jQuery.

Visit David Walsh's Blog

5. Snook.ca

Snook.ca Screenshot

Snook.ca is a site run and maintained by Jonathan Snook. Jonathan is a very well known and well respected web developer and designer and for good reasons. Jonathan has a knack for coming up with elegant solutions to problems that every web developer faces.

Visit Snook.ca


]]> http://dev-tips.com/featured/5-must-bookmark-websites-for-web-developers/feed 9 http://dev-tips.com/featured/5-must-bookmark-websites-for-web-developers