Sebastien on Software

CSS dropdown menu

2012-02-29T11:44:00.000-05:00

I was looking to make a CSS dropdown menu and I stumbled upon this post at CSS Wizardry. I tried his solution and it works well. Harry makes a good job at explaining every lines he puts in the CSS. I invite you to go read Harry's post for all the details.

Here is a sample I gathered from Harry's post.

HTML


<ul id="menu">
  <li><a href="#">Menu 1</a></li>
  <li>
    <a href="#">Menu 2</a>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Item 2</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Item 3</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="#">Menu 3</a>
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Item 2</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Item 3</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">Menu 4</a></li>
</ul>

CSS


#menu {list-style:none;float:left;width:100%;margin-bottom:10px;}
#menu li {float:left;position:relative;margin-right:10px;}
#menu a {display:block;text-decoration:none;padding:5px;}
#menu a:hover {text-decoration:underline;}
#menu ul {
  background:white;list-style:none;position:absolute;left:-9999px;
}
#menu ul li {padding-top:1px;float:none;}
#menu ul a {white-space:nowrap;}
#menu li:hover ul {left:0;}
#menu li:hover a {text-decoration:underline;}
#menu li:hover ul a {text-decoration:none;}
#menu li:hover ul li a:hover {text-decoration:underline;}

Cheers! :)

How to write in a file in VBScript

2012-02-20T07:48:00.000-05:00

Scripting.FileSystemObject


dim objFileSystem
set objFileSystem = _
  server.createObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

This object is used to access the file system.

Writing/Overwriting


CONST WRITING = 2

dim objTextStream
set objTextStream = _
  objFileSystem.openTextFile(_
  server.mapPath("text-stream.output"), WRITING, true)
objTextStream.writeLine "Hello World!"
objTextStream.close


Hello World!

We wrote Hello World! in the text-stream.output file.

Appending


CONST APPENDING = 8

set objTextStream = _
  objFileSystem.openTextFile(_
  server.mapPath("text-stream.output"), APPENDING, true)
objTextStream.writeLine "Hello World!"
objTextStream.close


Hello World!
Hello World!

We appended Hello World! to the text-stream.output file. Now we have two lines in the file.

Reading


CONST READING = 1

set objTextStream = _
  objFileSystem.openTextFile(_
  server.mapPath("text-stream.output"), READING, true)
do until objTextStream.atEndOfStream
  response.write objTextStream.readLine & "<br />"
loop  
objTextStream.close


Hello World!
Hello World!

We read all the lines in the file. We used the readLine function to read a line. The atEndOfStream function told us that we are at the end of the file.

ASP Classic Scripting.Dictionary

2012-02-13T07:55:00.000-05:00

Sometimes you need more than an array in your code because you want keys to indentify the items. Here are some of my notes about the Scripting.Dictionary component.

Filling the Dictionary


dim col : set col = server.createObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
col.add 1, "Number 1"
col.add 4, "Number 4"
col.add 3, "Number 3"
col.add 2, "Number 2"

Note that a key must be unique otherwise the add method will throw an error.

Iterating through the Dictionary


dim intKey
for each intKey in col
  response.write "Key: " & intKey _
    & " Value: " & col.item(intKey) _
    & " <br />"
next


Key: 1 Value: Number 1
Key: 4 Value: Number 4
Key: 3 Value: Number 3
Key: 2 Value: Number 2

You can get a value by is key with the item method.

Iterating through the values


dim strValue
for each strValue in col.items
  response.write "Value: " & strValue _
    & " <br />"
next


Value: Number 1
Value: Number 4
Value: Number 3
Value: Number 2

By calling the items method you can iterate through the values.

Checking if a key exists


response.write "The number 4 exists: " & col.exists(4) & "<br />"
response.write "The number 25 exists: " & col.exists(25) & "<br />"


The number 4 exists: True
The number 25 exists: False

By calling the exists method you can find if the key already exists in the Dictionary.

Counting


response.write "Count: " & col.count & "<br />"


Count: 4

By calling the count method you can find how many items the Dictionary contains.

Conclusion

Arrays are useful, but I think Dictionaries work better than arrays on accessing random elements. Don't you think?

Using System.Collections.ArrayList in ASP Classic

2012-02-07T07:30:00.000-05:00

Introduction

In a previous post I wrote about System.Collections.SortedList. I made a list of some other classes we could try. Here is an example on how we could use System.Collections.ArrayList class.

Sample


dim col : set col = _
  server.createObject("System.Collections.ArrayList")
col.add "D"
col.add "C"
col.add "B"
col.add "A"
dim str
for each str in col
  response.write str & "<br />"
next
response.write col.contains("A") & "<br />"
response.write col.contains("V") & "<br />"

Output


D
C
B
A
True
False

Using System.Collections.SortedList in ASP Classic

2012-01-30T11:06:00.002-05:00

Introduction

Here is a quick example on how you could use .NET System.Collections.SortedList class in ASP Classic.

Sample

dim col
set col = server.createObject("System.Collections.SortedList")
col.add "C", "CC"
col.add "B", "BB"
col.add "A", "AA"
dim i
for i = 0 to col.count - 1
  response.write col.getKey(i) & " = "_ 
    & col.getByIndex(i) & "<br />"
next

Output

A = AA
B = BB
C = CC

There's more

It seems that we can use other .NET classes. You could also try some of those:

System.Collections.Queue
System.Collections.Stack
System.Collections.ArrayList
System.Collections.Hashtable
System.IO.StringWriter
System.IO.MemoryStream

Measuring execution time in VBScript

2012-01-23T11:43:00.000-05:00

Introduction

There is multiple techniques to measure the execution time of your code. Here is an example with the VBScript Timer function.

Sample


dim dblTimeStarted : dblTimeStarted = timer
dim i
for i = 0 to 100000000
next
dim dblTimeEnded : dblTimeEnded = timer
response.write "Time: " _
  & formatNumber(dblTimeEnded - dblTimeStarted, 0)

Output


Time: 3

Conclusion

A profiler could probably help you achieve the same result. But if you need to do a quick check I think this technique is fine.

Cheers :)

How to send an email in .NET

2012-01-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

Here's a quick post on how to send an email in .NET.

We need


using System.Net;
using System.Net.Mail;

The hard coded way


MailMessage message = new MailMessage();
message.From = new MailAddress("from@email.com");
message.To.Add(new MailAddress("to@email.com"));
message.Subject = "Email subject";
message.Body = "Email body";
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
smtp.Host = "your.smtp.com";
smtp.Port = 25;
smtp.Credentials = 
  new NetworkCredential("username", "password");
smtp.Send(message);

The configured way

 
MailMessage message = new MailMessage();
message.From = new MailAddress("from@email.com");
message.To.Add(new MailAddress("to@email.com"));
message.Subject = "Email subject";
message.Body = "Email body";
SmtpClient smtp = new SmtpClient();
smtp.Send(message);

In the config file


<system.net>
  <mailSettings>
    <smtp>
      <network 
        host="your.smtp.com" 
        port="25" 
        userName="username" 
        password="password" />
    </smtp>
  </mailSettings>
</system.net>

Cheers! :)

Submit is not a function

2011-11-22T13:14:00.000-05:00

Prologue

How do you submit a form in JavaScript? It's simple. You get the form object and you use the submit method on it. But wait! Why do I get an error saying Submit is not a function?

What happened?

Let's say you have this form on your page:


<form name="myForm" method="post"

action="javascript-submit-demo.asp">

<div>
<input type="button" name="submit"
value="Submit" onclick="submitMyForm();" />
</div>
</form>

You want to submit this form using JavaScript:


function submitMyForm() { document.myForm.submit(); }

If you try this code you'll get an error saying document.myForm.submit is not a function. The problem is our form has an input named submit. We have overwritten the submit method of the form object. We have now a reference to the input element. It should be obvious by now that you should rename the input.

Epilogue

When creating your HTML form choose the name of your inputs fields with care. If you can avoid overwriting the methods and the properties of the JavaScript Form Object your code should be less error-prone.

It's the first time I stumble upon this kind of behavior. Is it JavaScript general knowledge?

How to exclude a folder from Visual Studio

2011-11-16T07:21:00.000-05:00

Introduction

When you have a project where the sources are controlled by Mercurial, you have a .hg folder in your project folder. In Visual Studio, the .hg folder is visible in the Solution Explorer. It means that the .hg folder is part of the project. If you have a web site project and you're using the Visual Studio Publish Web Site tool, it means the .hg folder will be published with your web application.

Set the .hg hidden property

A simple way to avoid publishing your .hg folder is by setting the hidden property in the Windows Explorer.

Conclusion

There are a lot of ways to avoid publishing a folder with Visual Studio. I think this tip is simple enough to keep you going. Is there someone out there that resolved the same issue with another trick?

How did I installed Apache HTTP Server and PHP on my Windows XP box

2011-09-09T17:21:00.000-04:00

It's not funny when your computer crashes and you have to reinstall everything from scratch. Last night I was installing Apache HTTP Server on my Windows XP box because I'm currently making some websites with PHP. The process was a little bit bumpy so I decided to write this post to keep some notes about it.

Apache HTTP Server Installation

First of all I installed the Apache HTTP Server. It was pretty straightfoward. I downloaded the installer for the latest stable release and I launched it. A little test on 127.1.1.1 told me that everything was fine.

PHP Installation

Next I went to the PHP website to download the installer for Windows. I read the "Which version do I choose?" column to be able to get the right version. So far so good. For Apache HTTP Server I needed to get the VC6 x86 version. After that it got a little bit foggy but I found that if your running Apache on a Windows box you should install the "Thread Safe" version. I chose to let the installer integrate PHP with my Apache HTTP Server installation.

Can't load PHP module

Again I did a test to see if PHP was installed properly but it seems that something went wrong. I restarted the Apache service and at my grand surprise, Apache refused to start. To be able to track the problem I opened the error log. It seems that my PHP integration with Apache was wrong. I found that Apache was unable to load the "php5apache2_2.dll" cause the path to the file was wrong.

How to fix it

To fix this problem I opened the httpd.conf file. It's the configuration for the Apache HTTP Server. At the bottom of the file the PHP installer wrote two lines.

First I changed the first line that indicated the path to the PHP installation:

PHPIniDir "C:/Program Files/PHP"

Second I changed the second line that loads the PHP module:

LoadModule php5_module "C:/Program Files/PHP/php5apache2_2.dll"

Finally I restarted the Apache service and it worked!

Serving index.php

I had to configure Apache to serve the index.php when someone tries to access a directory on the web server. Also in the httpd.conf file I changed the instructions to dir_module:

<IfModule dir_module>
DirectoryIndex index.php index.html
</IfModule>

For example if a call is made to "127.1.1.1/test" the web server will try to serve index.php first and index.html in second.

Dynamic DNS

I configured my router to forward the HTTP requests from the web to my server because I wanted to use my dynamic DNS to access the sites hosted on it. Everything was fine with the router but I needed to add the apache.exe file to the Windows Firewall to make it work.

Bedtime

It took me an evening to setup everything. It's not too bad because I had to do a lot of reading to configure everything properly. But now that I have those notes I hope that my next installation will go more smoothly.

Has anyone out there had a similar experience (or better) at installing Apache and PHP on a Windows box?

How to pass a parameter to a function called by setTimeout

2011-09-06T14:50:00.000-04:00

Let's say that you have this function:

function say(p_message) {
    alert(p_message);
}

To use this function you need to pass a message in parameter. So if you wish to say hello to your visitors, you could use this function like this:

say("Hello World!");

It can be tempting to use setTimeout like this:

setTimeout(say("Hello World"), 10000);

But it's not going to work the way you think. You just made an invalid call to setTimeout. Here's a simple way to do it:

setTimeout(function() {say("Hello World!")}, 10000);

Now, "Hello World!" will appear to the screen after 10 secondes.

Cheers :)

How to disable an element with jQuery

2011-08-04T13:37:00.001-04:00

Here's a quick post that shows how to disable and enable an element with jQuery.

Disable an element

$("#save").attr("disabled", "disabled");

Enable an element

$("#save").removeAttr("disabled");

For example, I'm using this when I want to disable a submit button upon a form submission.

Cheers :)

How to get the first day of the month in SQL

2011-07-26T11:06:00.000-04:00

Let's say that you have a table that keeps all the purchases made by some clients. In that table you have a field that indicates the date of a given purchase. I'll call it purchase_date. Now, someone need a report on the purchases by month. You should be able to provide this report with a SQL query similar to:

select dateadd(month, datediff(month, 0, purchase_date), 0), count(purchase_number)
from purchase group by dateadd(month, datediff(month, 0, purchase_date), 0)

I'm using the SQL dateadd and datediff functions to bring the purchase_date to the first of the month. Basically, with the datediff function, I calculate the number of months from purchase_date to date zero. Then, with the dateadd function, I add the calculated number of months to date zero to get the first of the month.

Cheers :)

How to round up in SQL

2011-07-07T08:01:00.009-04:00

I was looking around to find how to round up a number in one of my SQL query.

The thing is that it depends on your SQL engine. For exemple on PSQL you can use the ceiling function like this:

select ceiling(1.3)

Check out your database vendor documentation to find a similar function. I'll bet that there is one.

Cheers :)