Category Archives: Web development

Stuff related to web development.

September 29, 2014

Using namespaces with Silverstripe

Author
Jason
Time
9:01 pm
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I've been trying to use namespaces more in some of my work recently. Not because it was necessarily required, but so I can get into the swing of using namespaces for when it may be required. A few recent projects have involved using Laravel, and that makes use of namespaces, so I went with it. Moving back to SilverStripe. With version 3.0, SilverStripe moved to requiring at least PHP 5.3 - yeah, that was a while ago and at the time of writing, the current stable version is 3.1.6. Anyway, ... read more

June 4, 2011

Silverstripe and jQuery

Author
Jason
Time
12:38 pm
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This is just a quick post regarding non functioning jQuery plugins and Silverstripe. If, as a convenience to your admin users, you include the Silverstripe Navigator in your templates then just be aware that this could prevent any 3rd party jQuery plugins from working. If you are not aware of the Silverstripe Navigator, it is the little admin strip at the bottom of the page that provides immediate access to the admin area from the front end of your site. Whilst logged in you are ... read more

May 2, 2011

Code styles

Author
Jason
Time
4:23 pm
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It may seem a little dull and mundane, but working with a consistent coding style will always benefit whatever project that you are working on. The style, or convention, that I'll be outlining here is what I have come to use over a long period of time. It has also been honed by working with other developers, taking on new ideas and methods. It is when you are working in a team that using a consistent coding style really pays off. It helps keep all the code clean and readable, therefore more ... read more

June 19, 2010

MVC – Should you use it?

Author
Jason
Time
5:46 pm
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MVC - Model View Controller, is a sofware design pattern. The aim of MVC is to provide clean separation between data (the model) and what visitors/users see (the view). The controller sits between the model and the view marshalling data between them. MVC is a pattern that can be applied to numerous software development situations, from developing desktop/mobile applications through to websites. Here, I'll be discussing MVC in relation to website development. User <--> View ... read more

March 26, 2010

Netbeans – The conclusion

Author
Jason
Time
8:52 am
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Well, I've given it a good go, but for me this is the end of the road for Netbeans (for the time being).  There wasn't a lot in it to be honest and Eclipse does have its drawbacks too, but in the end there were just some features that I decided I missed too much. There is a handy function search in Eclipse that can be invoked by ctrl+o(on a PC anyway, the Mac key bindings probably include the apple key).  A dialog pops up listing all the functions/methods in the current file, nicely ... read more

March 15, 2010

Netbeans & remote files

Author
Jason
Time
9:19 pm
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Just come across a scenario in Netbeans that can be a bit annoying.  Editing remote files.  In short, it isn't possible without downloading the whole site. 99% of the time I work on a local copy of a site. When I get to a certain point I'll commit the changes to the associated SVN repository. When the changes are ready, I will create a tag from trunk or whatever branch I'm working on and then deploy that tag to the live site or preview site. I hasten to add I never work directly on a live ... read more

March 14, 2010

Netbeans & SVN

Author
Jason
Time
10:15 am
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I've been using Netbeans for a few days now and I have to admit, my initial worries about changing IDE are slowly being addressed. The main area where I have been experiencing some issues is the SVN support.  It doesn't seem quite as intuative as some other tools (mainly Subclipse and Tortoise).  For example, to access a repository browser, you need to start some sort of action like a commit or copy. Being able to go straight into a browser would be handy.  This is achieved in Eclipse via ... read more

March 11, 2010

Trying Netbeans

Author
Jason
Time
12:15 pm
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First off, my IDE of choice for the last few years has been Eclipse with the PDT (PHP Development Tools) plugin. It has served me well and on several platforms too - currently on Windows 7 but for about a year my work box was running Ubuntu - ahh the good times.  Anyway, back to the point. After trying lots of PHP dev tools, I stumbled across the PDT project and decided to try it out.  Never really looked back. The other day, after a bit of a conversation on Twitter, I was prompted to ... read more

March 7, 2010

Spam

Author
Jason
Time
4:40 pm
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Spam, everyone gets it, and really it's a bit of a shame. Just thinking about how much work goes into preventing people trying to either spam you, or in the case of websites, somehow screw up your work. It doesn't really bear thinking about the amount of time I have spent in ensuring form submissions are validated. However, even then, you can get spam submissions. This is where solutions such as CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart), come ... read more