Ideas weblog

Logging (16 November 2005)

Create a client-side javascript logging library, somewhat like this one, but I'm missing:

~~Listeners: I want to connect to Mozilla's JavaScript Console, Safari's counterpart or even to a server (for example via JSON-RPC).~~ I changed my mind: not because you can, you have to do this. What would be the advantage of this anyways...
Variabel inspection: this one is really important, otherwise you'll end up writing info("Node #"+i+"'s class is:"+nodes[i].getClass()); instead of info("Node #"+i+"'s class is:"+nodes[i].getClass());. See my work in progress.
It has to work seamlessly: default nothing is shown; when pressing the hotkey (ctrl+\) the console is shown (it should get inserted by the code). When shown, it needs an collapse/expand behaviour: when collapsed, a small block-element handler should stay visible (just like the show/hide thing in wiki's). This behaviour must be persisted by cookies.
The filter-mechanism of fvlogger should be altered to match the FireFox javascript console behaviour: when pressing warn, also error and fatal entries need to be displayed (logging-levels). Also: there's no need for a debug entry. Further: the [erase] link needs to be distinguished from the filter-actions.

FireFox: mark IE CSS declarations in Javascript-console (1 November 2005)

Create an extension to mark dropped CSS declarations in the Javascript-console as IE-extensions. This would benefit FireFox as an development "platform".

Client-side persistence via Flash (26 October 2005)

Investigate if it's possible to persist client-side (HTML) form data in Flash. I got this idea because in the settings of the Flash player it's possible to adjust the size some local storage. After some documentation browsing I discovered persisting data in Flash is done by creating (getting) an object which seems to be persisted automatically. The code is SharedObject.GetLocal("name").

The thing to do now is create a movie (without UI) that communicates with HTML to persist the form-data by means of the onchange event of the form/controls or setInterval.

gmail iSync plugin (22 October 2005)

It would be really nice if my address book on my Mac got synchronized with my GMail address book. It shouldn't be that difficult. I found some documentation. There is some kind of GMail API, although it only retrieves address book entries at the moment. And at Apple is seems you can do something with iSync with their Sync Services.

Anyways, I probably won't find time to implement this. If you do, please notify me. And while we're busy, also look into MozBackup to backup Mozilla related data with iSync.

Wiki Flow Charts (22 October 2005)

Another application the world is waiting for ;-) is flow charting for Wiki's. I think the usage of flow charts would enrich Wiki's enormously. Basically, a flow chart consists of shapes (rectangles, circles) with text, connected by lines. Imagine the following "markup":

It wouldn't be that difficult to convert this to graphics, for example with SVG (or VML if you must), or even draw it on the canvas.

Of course, before it's real usable to normal people, a lot of work has to be done. Maybe a wysiwyg editor needs to be made, but I just couldn't believe nothing exists yet. I might implement something...

Resources: SVG in HTML introduction.

I found a hint of somebody wanting flow chars in their wiki's.

RegExp.NET (7 August 2003)

One of the problems with regular expressions is that it's cryptic. Another problem is (at least in javascript) you can't have sub-expressions. The idea is to use one token per line, and use words for them and use comments. This is actually not new, I've seen this somewhere (please email me the URL if you know it).

The actual idea is to integrate this with the .NET framework; create a regular expression language and a compiler. This code can for simplicity be compiled to C# and .NET framework regular expressions.

XPath.js (7 August 2003)

XPath implementation in javascript, so the MS selectNodes method of the DOMDocument class can be used on HTML documents as well (and cross-browser idem dito).

Deploy tool (18 March 2003)

A tool for copying the development website to a test-server or whatever server, only copying the changed files, according to the configuration for that server, copy using either SMB (network), FTP or WebDAV (HTTP), let javascript files be processed with an cruncher, configuration-files be configured, all determined by a deploy-file.

Yes, that would be very nice (I personally forget somehow to upload some files...).

IIS and Rendezvous (16 March 2003)

Wouldn't it be great to have an option to advertise webserver and virtual directories through Rendezvous. For virtual directories, the Application Name could be used as Rendezvous-name.

About this web-log (16 March 2003)

This web-log is meant for keeping track of my ideas. Because I have so many ideas, I can't implement them all. I now try to organize them, and keep prioritizing them. This log still needs mechanisms like last-updated, categories and some others, but this will do for now.

log.js		Ideas weblog
		Logging (16 November 2005) Create a client-side javascript logging library, somewhat like this one, but I'm missing: ~~Listeners: I want to connect to Mozilla's JavaScript Console, Safari's counterpart or even to a server (for example via JSON-RPC).~~ I changed my mind: not because you can, you have to do this. What would be the advantage of this anyways... Variabel inspection: this one is really important, otherwise you'll end up writing `info("Node #"+i+"'s class is:"+nodes[i].getClass());` instead of `info("Node #"+i+"'s class is:"+nodes[i].getClass());`. See my work in progress. It has to work seamlessly: default nothing is shown; when pressing the hotkey (ctrl+\) the console is shown (it should get inserted by the code). When shown, it needs an collapse/expand behaviour: when collapsed, a small block-element handler should stay visible (just like the show/hide thing in wiki's). This behaviour must be persisted by cookies. The filter-mechanism of fvlogger should be altered to match the FireFox javascript console behaviour: when pressing `warn`, also `error` and `fatal` entries need to be displayed (logging-levels). Also: there's no need for a `debug` entry. Further: the [erase] link needs to be distinguished from the filter-actions. \| FireFox: mark IE CSS declarations in Javascript-console (1 November 2005) Create an extension to mark dropped CSS declarations in the Javascript-console as IE-extensions. This would benefit FireFox as an development "platform". \| Client-side persistence via Flash (26 October 2005) Investigate if it's possible to persist client-side (HTML) form data in Flash. I got this idea because in the settings of the Flash player it's possible to adjust the size some local storage. After some documentation browsing I discovered persisting data in Flash is done by creating (getting) an object which seems to be persisted automatically. The code is `SharedObject.GetLocal("name")`. The thing to do now is create a movie (without UI) that communicates with HTML to persist the form-data by means of the `onchange` event of the form/controls or `setInterval`. \| gmail iSync plugin (22 October 2005) It would be really nice if my address book on my Mac got synchronized with my GMail address book. It shouldn't be that difficult. I found some documentation. There is some kind of GMail API, although it only retrieves address book entries at the moment. And at Apple is seems you can do something with iSync with their Sync Services. Anyways, I probably won't find time to implement this. If you do, please notify me. And while we're busy, also look into MozBackup to backup Mozilla related data with iSync. \| Wiki Flow Charts (22 October 2005) Another application the world is waiting for ;-) is flow charting for Wiki's. I think the usage of flow charts would enrich Wiki's enormously. Basically, a flow chart consists of shapes (rectangles, circles) with text, connected by lines. Imagine the following "markup": It wouldn't be that difficult to convert this to graphics, for example with SVG (or VML if you must), or even draw it on the canvas. Of course, before it's real usable to normal people, a lot of work has to be done. Maybe a wysiwyg editor needs to be made, but I just couldn't believe nothing exists yet. I might implement something... Resources: SVG in HTML introduction. I found a hint of somebody wanting flow chars in their wiki's. \| RegExp.NET (7 August 2003) One of the problems with regular expressions is that it's cryptic. Another problem is (at least in javascript) you can't have sub-expressions. The idea is to use one token per line, and use words for them and use comments. This is actually not new, I've seen this somewhere (please email me the URL if you know it). The actual idea is to integrate this with the .NET framework; create a regular expression language and a compiler. This code can for simplicity be compiled to C# and .NET framework regular expressions. XPath.js (7 August 2003) XPath implementation in javascript, so the MS selectNodes method of the DOMDocument class can be used on HTML documents as well (and cross-browser idem dito). \| Deploy tool (18 March 2003) A tool for copying the development website to a test-server or whatever server, only copying the changed files, according to the configuration for that server, copy using either SMB (network), FTP or WebDAV (HTTP), let javascript files be processed with an cruncher, configuration-files be configured, all determined by a deploy-file. Yes, that would be very nice (I personally forget somehow to upload some files...). IIS and Rendezvous (16 March 2003) Wouldn't it be great to have an option to advertise webserver and virtual directories through Rendezvous. For virtual directories, the Application Name could be used as Rendezvous-name. About this web-log (16 March 2003) This web-log is meant for keeping track of my ideas. Because I have so many ideas, I can't implement them all. I now try to organize them, and keep prioritizing them. This log still needs mechanisms like last-updated, categories and some others, but this will do for now. Doeke Zanstra, 2002-2005. The xml-version can be downloaded as well.