jQuery

jQuery is the foremost JavaScript framework on the Net today. It is a fast and concise JavaScript Library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions for rapid web development. jQuery is designed to change the way that you write JavaScript.

Here is the best way to dive into jQuery:

• Watch the video series, jQuery for absolute beginners on lost in the woods.
• Watch Ben Nadel's intro video. And check out the awesome source code for the page.
• Get the book, jQuery Fundamentals by Rebecca Murphy.
• Get the book, jQuery From Novice To Ninja, from Sitepoint. It is a PDF.
• Download the example files, then open them in Dreamweaver. Follow along with the book.
• Keep a tab open in Firefox containing Visual jQuery, a visual reference for the framework.

Web Form Script Generator For MAT154

New this semester is a script editor. With this application, you can modify an existing script that has been generated by the Cinch Generator. Formerly, you would have to create an entirely new script to modify even a small element.

Stay tuned for an advanced look at the tutorial for Thursday's class.

The script generator is here.

Text On A Path & Isolating Image Elements

Two excellent resources to review text on a path:

1. Adobe's Creating Text On A Path.
2. A video tutorial by Deke McClelland.

Isolating parts of an image in Photoshop:

1. Improve the quality of your selections by first training the Quick Selection Tool. This simple technique shows you how to make better, more accurate selections in half the time, on Photoshop for Digital Photographers.
2. Create a temporary quick mask, on Photoshop Product Support.
3. Extract an object from its background, on Photoshop Product Support.
4. Change pixels to transparent with the Background Eraser tool, on Photoshop Product Support.

Preserving Class Work UPDATED

The best way to move files between school and home is to use a cloud-based application. Older, cloud-based resources for moving and storing files are referenced here.

Currently, I am experimenting with using Startforce. This is a cloud-based, virtual desktop. As a virtual desktop, it has the look and feel of your desktop at home. Startforce offers 5 gigs of free storage. It also has a number of native apps that you'll probably never use.

One great aspect of this service, missing on many others, is that you can upload folders. It's worth signing up just for the storage features.

NOTE: Do not use a jump drive to move your files. The best outcome that you can expect from this method is that you will not lose the drive. Every semester I find several of these left plugged into computers. Use one or more of the online applications--preferably two, giving you a redundant backup.

Indesign users should not forget to package their files.

Web Forms for MAT 153 (Updated)

A SCRIPT generated by the Cinch-O-Matic will not work until you remove enctype= "text/plain" from the form tag that you created in class. This code snippet tells the browser to send the form data in plain text. The PHP script created by the Cinch-O-Matic requires that the transmitted text be URLencoded, which the browser will do by default when the user presses "send." enctype= "text/plain" overrides the default, so that the scripted process breaks.

The mailto process, on the other hand, requires plain text. One thing to keep in mind when creating a mailto form is that users without a mail client installed will press "send," without any result. Nor will they necessarily receive an error message. And if they do, they may not understand what they get, so that they will go on with their lives thinking that you are a boob for having ignored them.

URLENCODING EXPLAINED:

URLs can only be sent over the Internet using the ASCII character-set.

Since URLs often contains characters outside the ASCII set, the URL has to be converted. URL encoding converts the URL into a valid ASCII format.

URL encoding replaces unsafe ASCII characters with "%" followed by two hexadecimal digits corresponding to the character values in the ISO-8859-1 character-set.

URLs cannot contain spaces. URL encoding normally replaces a space with a + sign.

--W3C Schools

A tutorial on using the script generator is here.

Tango Hosting requires that the "From" field contain your student name and the tangostudents.com domain. So, your "from" should read something like this: student100@tangostudents.com. Otherwise, your email will simply evaporate when the script is fired. The "Thank you" page will show, but the email--without any error message--will simply fizzle.

Online OCR

OCR Web Service has a trial license period of 30 days. You can upload scans or other image-based text, and receive the content in a number of different formats, including ascii text.

Testing provided excellent results.

Here is a PDF showing a test. The second page shows the GIF of the original used in the process. Here is the Indesign package, including the GIF file of the document. Some errors occurred, revealing the danger of using OCR. At the same time, you could have made these same errors typing in the text.

The absolutely best OCR I have ever seen resides in Acrobat Professional. If you have Acrobat, don't even fool with any of this other stuff.

See also:

• ABBYY FineReader. Not as good as OnlineOCR. See here.
• OCR Terminal, untested.
• Free-OCR. The return text had extra linefeeds where the text wrapped. I had to run the copy through eCleaner to get rid of them. If you're unlucky enough to find yourself on a Mac, you can achieve the same result in Indesign by doing a find-and-replace: ^p^p replaced by ^p.
• Cometdocs, free online document converter. This free service includes an OCR function.
• OCROnline.
• Free Online OCR: performed well testing a jpg of a page at 300ppi.
  

The Bank Card Tutorial For GDP 111

Click to see the video.

You should never, under any circumstances, distort text. Ever. Except sometimes. Look. This is the real world. Suppose that you must imitate a piece that your boss has stolen away from another house by undercutting its price. This other house, located high on a pedestal, would never distort type. Instead, they would fork out the $35 to $75 to purchase the face, and eat the cost. Your boss, on the other hand just says, make it work. Don't even think of asking him to purchase the face. So there you have it it. By the way, another trick that you should never use in a case like this is to give the bold face a thin white outline centered on the edge. This will knock the weight back a smidge toward the semibold that is called for in the spec. Be careful doing this. Some fonts work better than others. You may have to take the text into illustrator, create outlines, and then work on it there. Obviously this method would not be suitable for body text.

All of this is visual, so use your judgment. That's what judgment is for, and why you have it.

Resources:

• The PDF
• The Package

Further reading:

• Setting Indents in CS4, on the Adobe site.
• Creating a Reverse Indent, by James Fritz, on Indesign Secrets.