Posts Tagged ‘web technology’

What is a query string?

Monday, January 18th, 2010

This post goes out to all of those people out there who have seen all of those numbers and letters jumbled up at the end of a URL that really do not make any sense. This is the query string, and it makes sense to web browsers! The query string always starts with a ? mark after the URL. After the question mark a query string has a parameter and value, e.g. color=Blue. This is a way for a link to call out to a web page that has .

Example:


http//scottlassiter.com/index.php?color=blue

This parameter will be sent through the query string and intercepted by a code within a web page that is usually hidden in the view source option. The web receiving web page has parameters that look for a certain parameter, e.g. color, and then parses what the value of that parameter is, e.g. blue.

So if I have a page that is looking for a Query String parameter of color=blue, then I may have a function to list all of the logos I have created that are classified as blue.

Each URL can have several parameters passed through the query string. To add another parameter, you add an ampersand & followed by the next parameter.

Example:


http//scottlassiter.com/index.php?color=blue&logo=3

This example would be calling for logo=3. In my code I could have a logo that is listed as 3, so that logo would show.

There are many ways to use the parameters and their values to extract specific data from a web page. Query strings give an easy way for links to communicate to websites to pull information. Next time you are on Facebook or twitter, check out the query string, it will show all kinds of interesting values. Some will look to make sense and others not. Hopefully this helps you understand the web a little more!

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Posted in web development | No Comments »

Website Review of the Day – Speak Visual

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

speak_visSpeak Visual -
http://www.speakvisual.com

NVIDIA, a computer company that builds graphics cards has recently created a website to promote its technology. The theme, Speak Visual is centered around several [people speaking about how they use NVIDIA cards to “Speak Visual” to the world. The vibrant color, contrast, and use of white space all work together to create a very well rounded site that is full of video clips, graphical imagery, and animation. Basically the company is visually introducing you to some of the things that their graphics processors can do and why you should upgrade your PC. The site is captivating and very realistic, with movement, video of people, and interviews. This is what I believe thaat the web will evolve into, a high definition portal to visually interact with.

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Posted in Web Site Review | No Comments »

Modal Windows for opening images and websites without leaving your website

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

I have been working with and designing Modal windows for quite some time now. For the most part I have designed what I want them to look like and then I have used some type of open source to make them work. There are several different types of modal window javascript library’s to download, however I have chosen to use 2, mainly due to thier flexibility and ease of adaptation.

The first type of modal window is what I specifically use to show images. The beauty of a modal window is that you can open an image or a webpage without ever leaving that page or openinig up a pop up window. The modal window can be closed easily by the user and usually it is very light and easy to work with. For the first type of modal window, I would like to promote the Lightbox JS provided by http://huddletogether.com. This is a javascript library, that is open source to the public. It is customizable and works great. I currently use it on my site for some of my images; check out the logo links on the right hand side of this page: http://scottlassiter.com/logos.php. Here you will see that whenever you click on a link it darkens the screen and opens a box the size of your logo or image on the fly. It is very easy to set up and requires intermediate web developing skills to implement.

The second type of modal window I would like to talk about is called “graybox”, you can download it at http://orangoo.com/labs/GreyBox/.  This is a very powerful modal window that provides the ability to open a window to another website. Lets say that you want to promote a certain website, or want to preview a website you have developed or designed. Implement the graybox code on your website and wallah, you can provide a “window” into just about any website. For example, I use this on my website to provide previews of some of the websites that I have developed and designed. Check out “Web Design” on my portfolio page: http://scottlassiter.com/portfolio.php, to see it working in action. Basically, you have to set it so that the window is smaller that the web page you aqre previewing on. In many cases you will have to use the “scroll bars” in the graybox window, however this works great if you just want to show another site as an example and do not necessarily want the user to leave your page, which is key!

Do you have a modal window application that you specifically like or think is easy to work with? Drop a link here or give me a review

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Posted in Open Source, web design | 2 Comments »

Designers Vs Developers

Thursday, July 23rd, 2009

Sometimes I like to rant a little about the separation between designers and developers. Some will say that a developer is anyone who can build a web page. Many say that a true developer can write a 2000 line SQL stored procedure in his sleep. Obviously if this was true, anyone less in skill would just be called a Web Editor or something like that. I am not sure what is the right title, I do not really care, all I know is that there is a major rift between programmers and designers – which there should be to a certain degree.
Many of my issues come with territory. Is it a designer’s territory to learn about front end development such as CSS and web page layout, absolutely! In my opinion, there are two types of web designers out there, designers that can develop and designers that are clueless about web technology. From what I understand in many design schools, web technology is not being stressed enough such as PHO, CSS, MySQL, and web server administration. These tools are essential to the web designer! These are the things that a web designer needs to know and continually practice so that he or she can build or know how to design a web page. In many cases there is no design thought of dynamism in Web Pages other than flashy animation and style by the designer. Do we ever think about how text might change to break a layout? D0 we ever think about how a search field should look? Sometimes, but most of the time we just make it “pretty” and go from there.
What do I recommend for up and coming designers? Technolgy will always change so knowing what is hot is good, however the ability to design and creativity will never change, you either have it or you don’t it is not something that can just be learned through a book. Aesthetics are what they are, however the ability to truly combine technolgy and design is not just a skill but a talent.

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Posted in web design | No Comments »