When I was looking through my demo templates, I came across an example that showed some features in qForms v2.0 that I had forgotten I implemented, but it's something that's very cool and provides a lot of flexibility. What is this code you ask? Well, it deals with the createDepedencyTo() method.
For those of you who aren't familiar with this method, in a nutshell the createDependencyTo() method is used to build rule logic into your forms. For example, maybe you only want to require a user to enter their e-mail address if they've actually selected to have something e-mailed to them. You could do that like this:
oForm.email.createDependencyTo("EmailNewsletter", "yes");
I was doing some surfing today and came across a cool effect on the w3compliler Contact Us form. When you're focused on a form field, the field's label style will change to give you a better visual representation of where you're at on the form. I thought to myself, that's pretty cool--I bet I can do that with just a coupe of lines of code in qForms v2.
In the w3compiler Contact Form, they're using tables to layout the form, but I wanted to do something using strictly CSS and HTML. So I decided to use the actual <label> tag as the field label—this allows you to click on the label to set the focus to the form field. Check out my version:
Ok, here's some live demos of the qForms. If you attempt to download the source and use it in a project, you're using it at your own risk—your on your own.
http://www.pengoworks.com/qforms/v2/demo/
I'll try to keep this fairly up-to-date w/what's going on with the source code, especially if more demos are put together.
I sent this letter to the qForms Mailing List earlier and figured I'd better post it here. Leave me a comment if you're interested in helping with development.
I know many of you have been waiting a long time for news on v2. Believe it or not, it does actually exist. The reason why it's been in sort of permanent hiatus was because I really wasn't doing any work that corresponded w/furthering the development.
qForms v2 is like 95% complete, and has been, for a long time. There have been a few key features I just have never had the time to sit down and really figure out. The key features I wanted to introduce for rev 2 that aren't done to my satisfaction yet are:
- Applying validation rules to a qGroups (a qGroup is a group of fields that work as a single field. Picture splitting a phone number into separate fields for area code, prefix, suffix, etc and being able to use getValue()/setValue() to retrieve the values of all the fields as one string.)
- Event queuing. One of the things I want to do is get it to the point where you can safely write add-on hooks w/out fear of them interfering w/other add-ons you must load. This still needs improvement.
- Masking—still needs some improvements. I've re-written the code from scratch several times.
There are other things that can probably be done to improve things and I think the project really needs some new energy as I think that will help re-spark my energy for the project.
So, where am I going w/all this? Well, last night I submitted a new project request at Tigris.org. I'm hoping that those guys will approve the project soon (or I'll be looking for a new SVN home.)
What's this mean? Well, I'm planning on opening up the SVN repository for open development. Instead of opening the floodgates and letting everyone have access to the SVN repository, I'd prefer to have some volunteers from some of you who are willing to help out on the project.
So, I'm looking for experience JS programmers who have some experience w/Subversion (that's the source control I'm using) and who would like to help out on the qForms project.
As soon as the guys at Tigris approve the project, the URL for qForms SVN will be:
For those of you not interested in following the actual day-to-day things, keep going to www.pengoworks.com/qforms for updates. However, if you're always interested in playing around w/the latest and possibly unstable builds, that's the place to go.
I'm also going to be posting the language files there (as qForms v2 supports internationalization.)
For those of who never saw it or what to see it again, you can view a preview of qForms v2 at:
http://www.pengoworks.com/qforms/preview/
Here's a brief list of what I have added:
- Internationalization
- Auto tabbing (via the setMaxLenght() method)
- Remove validation rules on-the-fly
- Keystroke dynamic masking
- Disable/Enable validation rules per form
- Much more customizable. (See the preview for how you can replace the default alert() handlers and drive everything via DHTML.)
-Dan
Ok, so it's been a while since I've blogged anything useful—so I figure it's about time I do!
I've been using Thunderbird as my primary e-mail client for my new job. I figured I'd try making the switch away from Outlook to see how it goes. Overall there are a lot of things I really like about Thunderbird. It's definitely faster than Outlook and creating/sending e-mails definitely seems quicker. There are things I miss from Outlook—mainly the complete integration between tasks & e-mail. I've been using the Mozilla Calender project, but I'd like to see all the pieces integrated.
However, the biggest problem I've always had in every e-mail client I've used is that I hate, and I mean hate, HTML e-mail. I find it cumbersome and it's usually harder to read. It seems like everytime I get an e-mail in HTML there are several different fonts. I rarely get an HTML e-mail from someone that actually looks elegant. I also find creating inline responses (which is my preference) is much cleaner and easier to follow when done in Plain Text. That's why I always use Plain Text as my default send method.
The photo album has been updated!
The following photo albums have been added:
I arrived at St. Vincents right around 3pm, so I missed the guys coming out on the field. I sat on the hill side of things on the 50 yard line. I didn't get a very good view of the Defense going through warmups, but I was mainly interested in the Offense—specifically Roethlisberger.
I also took some pictures and videos, which I'll post links to below.
NOTES:
Apparently the world is coming to an end on Sept 29th—or at least that will be the beginning of the end. My favorite quote is problem:
Some humans will be saved, and Johnson says many are already being abducted to other planets to be used as super computers.
It's great that we as human have such great intellect and capacity for learning, but I would think that civilization that has the ability to travel through solar systems, wouldn't need humans for their knowledge. Granted, we use only a small portion of our brains, but I'm thinking they wouldn't need us for brains (maybe our good looks though.) Dr. Johnson has a theory on how humans will be used as super computers.
Well I just dropped Nikki off at the Vets a little over an hour ago in order to have her spayed. We've opted to pay the extra money again to have the surgery performed by laser. I like the fact that it cauterizes the wound at the same time it makes the cut.
I always hate dropping the dogs off for any kind of procedure like this, but I know that getting the dog spayed before her first period provides for many health benefits. I just hate that my "baby" is going to be filling bad. One of the hardest things for her is probably going to be the fact that she can't really play w/her sister for the next week or so.
Speaking of which, I left Maddie at the house when I took Nikki to the kennel. When I got back, Maddie spent the first 5 minutes sniffing me and looking at me like: "Where's my sister at? What did you do with her?!?" I'll be curious to see how Maddie reacts to Nikki when she comes back w/the cone collar on. Maddie hated wearing that.