I have been working on a project non-stop for 2 weeks to get the final features up and running. But I just couldn’t stop squeezing in some good-to-have features to boost the overall “value” of the product a bit. Here’s a short list of what I thought were really slick features:
1. Javascript lightbox: This one feature can probably single-handedly describe what the Web2.0 movement is all about. The BEST part is, integrating Lokesh Dhakar’s code to the project (or ANY project, really) is just a couple of copy and pastes and one line of code change!! That guy is a genius.
2. Recursive delete: This a pretty kick-ass class for recursively deleting whole directory structures even if they are not empty (PHP programming in Unix environments, this is a big deal). My project requires my PHP scripts to interact with physical directories. I thought it’d be a complete waste of my time to write a function/class to do this if someone else’s already got a solid script. Implementing this just took one line of code.
3. Directory compress & backup: I used this script to work in conjunction with “Recursive delete”. Basically before anyone deletes a whole directory, my PHP application will automatically back it up and nicely tug the compressed file in a safe place. Again, this is a kick ass class because it only takes a copy/paste and defining of a couple of variables.
4. Unique ID check via Ajax + PHP: I wrote this myself using an Ajax class I assembled from prior projects. It simply goes to the database and checks if whatever the user ID (or product ID or whatever) already exists. One bug I encountered under Safari was that if
1 | XMLHttpRequest |
returns nothing from the database (which means the ID the user entered was unique), Safari makes
1 | status undefined |
or
1 | null value |
complaints. One way to get past solve this problem is for
1 | XMLHttpRequest |
to return an empty space via PHP (or whatever language you prefer)… i.e.
1 | echo " " |
. Here’s a nice blog about Ajax related issues. This issue is also pretty well documented here though “bitterpill.org’s particular trick didn’t solve the problem for me.
5. Multiple file uploads: The Stickman has some really neat references to a handful of technologies I am currently exploring. This “multiple file upload” script isn’t particularly elegant but does its job exceptionally well. I was able to integrate this, along with everything above, into one coherent code base, fortunately.
6. Snif (stands for “simple and nice index file” ) is probably one of the best-looking and utilitarian directory and file index script I have found thus far. There are tons of others that do way too much or too little (some of which cost quite a bit too). The downside of snif is that the code hasn’t been maintained for quite a while, and its forum is littered with more questions than answers. But I did find some nice “mods” to enhance its core functionalities quite a bit. Another problem I had with snif was how hard it was to integrate into my existing code base. That said, snif is still a very solid standalone directory index script though!
7. By accident, I stumbled upon a list of Web2.0 sites from Tucows. I look forward to studying up the latest eye candies these sites offer for my future projects.
So now that most of the core features are done, I just need to find a fast(er) Windows environment to test the css layouts, mostly for IE. I wish IE would just go away so that us web programming types don’t have to deal with Microsoft’s snobbish approach towards web standards. Go Firefox, Opera and Safari.
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Apple finally decided to release Core 2 Dual version of MacBook Pro right before Christmas! How kind. I made a pseudo promise that I’d get a MacBook Pro if they upgraded it to Core 2 Dual… not knowing they’d do it before January’s Macworld… But since the budget is kind of tight these days, I will hang on to my trusty old PowerBook G4 until OSX.5 Leopard comes standard with MacBook Pros! Hah!