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03
Feb

Using Smarty’s count_words and count_characters in design

This product page inspired me to write this post. It was launched around February last year (uh oh time flies!) and the first successful order was made around that time too. By then, there were only about 20 products or less, and really short attributes i.e. volumes in 8, 12 or 16 oz. strength like mild, regular, etc. Last monday, new products came in for addition to the site and they have quite longer attributes. It could have had a liquid width on the attribute and cart buttons but they had a really good design advisers and wanted to follow the design to the pixel.

Initially, this html code composes the product attribute and cart button, notice that <span class="c">Cherry</span> is a one word attribute for scent

<div class="cartbutton" style="background-image: url(images/button-long-add-to-bag.gif);">
  <span class="c">Cherry</span>
  <span class="c">8 oz.</span>
  <span class="c">$5.99</span>
  <span class="d">
    <a class="e" href="cart.php?product=5|33404&amp;as=5">Add to bag</a>
  </span>
  <span class="e">» ITEM: 33404</span>
</div>

And the new ones came with the colors “Casino Red”, “Golden Chestnut” and “Orchid Black” – long attributes, and two others “Copper” and “Spice” – short and manageable, as the column width will fit the entire word.

I was really planning to rewrite the whole attribute and cart button section, but I didn’t had much time. I figured I can make the font smaller and paddings or margins can go smaller than the regular so that two lines would fit in the box if the attribute value is a word longer. But I cannot be in PHP, its not really the way to go. So, if I can add another class that would override existing font-size and parent margin/padding, that would work. Here, I thought, word count doesn’t really need be in the PHP side and since I’m using Smarty, I found in it a variable modifier that can print the number of words in a variable, and that’s it. I can add another class in the column span like words-10 or countwords-3 in my template by the number of words that is present in the variable. Below is the generated code

<div class="cartbutton" style="background-image: url('images/button-long-add-to-bag.gif');">
  <span class="c col-color words-2">Casino Red</span>  	  	  	  	  	  	
  <span class="c col-volume">8 oz.</span>  	  	
  <span class="c">$11.39</span>
  <span class="d">
    <a href="cart.php?product=28|33825&amp;as=14" class="e">Add to bag</a>
  </span>
  <span class="e">&raquo; ITEM: 33825</span>
</div>

CSS rules

/* default rules */
.cartbutton { height: 23px; background: url('/images/button-add-to-bag.gif') no-repeat left center; color: #333; }
.cartbutton span { display: block; text-align: center; float: left; font-weight: bold; font-size: 10px; padding-top: 5px; }
.cartbutton span.c { width: 45px;  }
.cartbutton span.d { width: 80px;}
.cartbutton span.d a { color: #fff; text-decoration: none; }
.cartbutton span.e { margin-left: 10px; width: 100px; }
/* special rule for two word attribute */
span.words-2 { padding-top: 3px; line-height: 98%; font-size: 9px; }

And this is how it is setup in the template.

<div class="cartbutton" style="background-image: url('images/button-long-add-to-bag.gif');">
{if $attr[at].color}
  <span class="c col-color words-{$attr[at].color|count_words}">{$attr[at].color}</span>
{/if}
{if $attr[at].strength}
  <span class="c col-strength words-{$attr[at].strength|count_words}">{$attr[at].strength}</span>
{/if}
{if $attr[at].scent}
  <span class="c col-scent">{$attr[at].scent}</span>
{/if}
{if $attr[at].volume}
  <span class="c col-volume">{$attr[at].volume}</span>
{/if}
<span class="c">
  $ {if !$attr[at].amount} {$results[r].amount} {else} {math equation="x" x=$attr[at].amount format="%.2f"} {/if}
</span>
<span class="d">
  <a href="cart.php?product={$results[r].id}|{if $results[r].sku && !$attr[at].sku}{$results[r].sku}{elseif $attr[at].sku}{$attr[at].sku}{/if}&amp;as={$attr[at].pas_id}" class="e">Add to bag</a>
</span>
<span class="e">&raquo; ITEM: {if $results[r].sku && !$attr[at].sku}{$results[r].sku}{elseif $attr[at].sku}{$attr[at].sku}{/if}</span>
</div>

Those extra class names like col-volume, col-scent and col-strength are only for future use, who knows what other formatting and adjustments on the data and theme will happen. Its really fun working with MVC model. Hope it helps

Happy coding!

Posted in job, me stuff, work related | 1 Comment »

10
Nov

If Windows, Linux and OSX Opened Cafes

What if really… LOL! I found this from DaniWeb, it’s short and entertaining! Read on…

The New York Times reported today that Apple has opened its first Apple Store in Paris, underneath the Louvre no less, and just two weeks after Microsoft opened up a Windows 7 cafe in Paris in another location. The idea of these two companies competing in a retail environment, and especially a Windows-themed cafe, got me thinking about what would happen if three cafes opened each run in the same style of the operating system it was named for. I figure it might look something like this:

Windows Cafe

The Windows Cafe is in a bland store front. The furniture consists of straight wooden chairs with tables with sharp angles. Unfortunately, every so often when you sit in a chair it crashes the to the floor, but you get used to this and figure it’s just part of the experience of going to the Windows Cafe. (To be fair they have been testing chairs from a new manufacturer and they are reportedly less prone to breaking in this fashion.) Pictures of a smiling Bill Gates and Windows logos adorn the walls. The coffee tastes fine most of the time, but a surprising number of patrons get sick there, so that it’s become standard practice to use hand sanitizer before you go in to protect yourself. The coffee is expensive, and refills are definitely not free, but it’s a known quantity, and many people are comfortable going there.

Linux Cafe

The Linux Cafe is a funky place in an artsy neighborhood with eclectic furniture donated by the patrons. It doesn’t match, but it’s comfortable and the walls are covered with donated pictures and paintings by local artists. The coffee is free, served in black cups (or you can just bring your own), but you need to make it yourself. If you can’t do it yourself, the cafe has consultants available to help you for a fee. It’s great for people who know about coffee brewing, but many people are intimidated by the idea of making their own coffee and stay away, even though very few people ever get sick who go there.

Apple Cafe

The Apple Cafe is a modern, state-of-the-art facility. The tables are stainless steel and the chairs are ultra-contemporary. Shrines to Apple CEO Steve Jobs are dotted around the wide space. The cups are cool and come in a variety of bright colors. The coffee is well made by a highly trained staff, and even though it costs a lot more, people line up around the block for a chance to drink it. Just don’t ask the staff about their coffee-making techniques because they are extremely tight lipped about this. People occasionally get sick there, but it’s rare enough for the cafe to brag about its safety record.

So there you have it. Three cafes with three distinct personalities just like the operating systems they represent

Source: http://www.daniweb.com/news/story236836.html?urlhash=yp4q&trk=nus_ritm-title by Ron Miller

Tags: apple, funky, linux, windows
Posted in me stuff, productivity, work related | No Comments »

12
Oct

SSH Login without password

This is actually a repost from the tutorial I often ran onto when working with servers. Lately, the sys-ad I was working with changed users home directory and also changed their passwords, but gave me the root pass. However, I don’t want to bother him for new passwords, and I guess he setup new ones from password generator apps/scripts, which are of course, really really recommended nowadays. Since I have the root pass, and I don’t want to go back to chmod-chown each and every files/folders I created via root, I thought I can automate logging in with each account I need to work ‘as’ their respective users. Or I can use cat /etc/passwd to know their home directories.

First log in on A as user a and generate a pair of authentication keys. Do not enter a passphrase:

a@A:~> ssh-keygen -t rsa
Generating public/private rsa key pair.
Enter file in which to save the key (/home/a/.ssh/id_rsa):
Created directory '/home/a/.ssh'.
Enter passphrase (empty for no passphrase):
Enter same passphrase again:
Your identification has been saved in /home/a/.ssh/id_rsa.
Your public key has been saved in /home/a/.ssh/id_rsa.pub.
The key fingerprint is:
3e:4f:05:79:3a:9f:96:7c:3b:ad:e9:58:37:bc:37:e4 a@A

Now use ssh to create a directory ~/.ssh as user b on B. (The directory may already exist, which is fine):

a@A:~> ssh b@B mkdir -p .ssh
b@B's password:

Finally append a’s new public key to b@B:.ssh/authorized_keys and enter b’s password one last time:

a@A:~> cat .ssh/id_rsa.pub | ssh b@B 'cat >> .ssh/authorized_keys'
b@B's password:

Now I can work as ‘owner’ and ‘user’ within each user home directory.

a@A:~> ssh b@B hostname
B

Some notes, depending on your version of SSH you might also have to do the following changes:

Put the public key in .ssh/authorized_keys2
Change the permissions of .ssh to 700
Change the permissions of .ssh/authorized_keys2 to 640

Source: http://linuxproblem.org/art_9.html

Posted in job, work related | 1 Comment »

25
Sep

PHP code block – bringing order to chaos

I had to come up with this post because I’ve been working on an old CMS about 3 years old (or even more) and I had been wondering why the calendar links cuts off from 2001 to 2003.

Task: List a year/month links from the present to the oldest published image sets.

Sounds easy, and I believe it is.

But when I checked on the existing script, this is what I got.

 $month_array = array("1"=>'January',"2"=>'February',"3"=>'March',"4"=>'April',"5"=>'May',"6"=>'June',"7"=>'July',"8"=>'August',"9"=>'September',"10"=>'October',"11"=>'November',"12"=>'December');
	$smarty->assign('y2day',$y2day); $y=0;
	for ($q=12; $q >= 1; $q--){
			$month = $month_array[$q];
			if( ($_GET[year] < '2000') && ($m2day ==$q ) ) $w_string = $week_string; else  $w_string ='';
			if( ($_GET[year] == '2007') && ($_GET[month] == $q) ) $w_string = $week_string;
 
		  if($m2day >= $q){
			$tmp_cal_month_now_array = array(
					'month' => $month,
					'string' => $w_string,
					'link' => $q
					); $date_month_now_array[$y++] =  $tmp_cal_month_now_array;	 }
		} //for
 
	 $smarty->assign('calendar_now_month',$date_month_now_array);
 
	$y=0;	$c_yeartoday = date("Y") -1; //echo $c_yeartoday;
	for($q=0; $q < = 5; $q++){
			$tmp =$c_yeartoday - $q; //echo $tmp;
 
		 $tmp_cal_date_array = array(
					  'year' => $tmp
 
				 );  $date_year_array[$y++] =  $tmp_cal_date_array;
	 } //for
 
	$smarty->assign('calendar_year',$date_year_array);
 
	    $y=0;
		for($q=12; $q >= 1; $q--)
		{
			$month = $month_array[$q];
			if( $_GET[month] == $q ) $w_string = $week_string; else $w_string='';
			$tmp_cal_month_array = array(
					'month' => $month,
					'string' => $w_string,
					'link' => $q
					); $date_month_array[$y++] =  $tmp_cal_month_array;
 
		}//for
	 $smarty->assign('calendar_month',$date_month_array);
 
	 $y=0;
		for($q=12; $q >= 10; $q--)
		{
			$month = $month_array[$q];
			if( ($_GET[year] == '2000') && ($_GET[month] == $q) ) $w_string = $week_string; else $w_string='';
			$tmp_cal_month_old_array = array(
					'month' => $month,
					'string' => $w_string,
					'link' => $q
					); $date_month_old_array[$y++] =  $tmp_cal_month_old_array;
 
		}//for
	 $smarty->assign('calendar_month_old',$date_month_old_array);

(more…)

Tags: basic programming, calendar, ezsql, grumble, month-year, php, smarty
Posted in job, me stuff, work related | No Comments »

11
Sep

Variable, variables and lots of variables

List of variable names, oddly named and other stuff I’m glad I bumped into . Found them in project about 5 or 6 yrs old that needs modification and I believe optimization too, yes really. So why glad? Because I realized the way I named my variables isn’t that bad at all.

/**
 * This one is on top of a movie player page. Maybe 'he' wasn't so sure 
 * that the parameters passed on to this page is for a 'video'. Just making
 * sure for the nth time I guess.
 */
$videoistrue=0;
/**
 * I think 'he' hate lines. And this one is good, page title is saved 
 * in a session variable, so if another programmer writes a new page
 * and forgot to assign $_SESSION['pagetitle'] a new value for an FAQ
 * page, say faq.php, it'd show up <title>Show Series</title>
 */
session_start();$_SESSION['pagetitle'] = "Show Series";
/**
 * ... and it went on and on
 * $_SESSION['pagetitle'] = "Calendar";
 * session_start();$_SESSION['pagetitle'] = "Browse Model";
 *
 * Hmmmm, $ii as iteration variable, struggling with names? I often 
 * use $i, $n or $x, sometime $c, hehehe! I've seen $i for many. And 
 * have you noticed the class name 'smalleditnoline', can it be any 
 * longer? Yes! and if he had enough time, it may have look like 
 * 'smalleditnolinewitharialbold' or 'smalleditnolineFFFbgcolor333fgcolor'
 * crazy! This is CSS anyway, will surely post one for that, hahaha!
 */
for ($ii=1;$ii< =$totalpages;$ii++)
{
  if ($ii==$page) {
    echo "<font class='smallediton'>[$ii]";
  }
  else {
    echo "<a href='?sort=" . $_GET['sort'] . "&page=$ii' class='smalleditnoline'>[$ii]</a>";
  }
}
/**
 * more variables with default values, note that this is set just
 * before a loop starts
 */
$thisCat = "";
$firstrun = true;
$firstrow = 0;
$rowcount = 0;
/**
 * "NO QUOTES" for key names in square brackets :( 
 * if only my IDE could complain
 */
$GLOBALS[catadded] = false;
$GLOBALS[keywordadded] = false;
$GLOBALS[modeladded] = false;
/**
 * Consistent! Maybe 'He' doesn't want anybody to easily understand 
 * the script that's why no new lines after semi-colon at least.
 */
if ($seriesRow[seriesNo] < 10) $seriesNoTxt = "0".$seriesRow[seriesNo]; else $seriesNoTxt = $seriesRow[seriesNo];

Ok, enough of grumbling here. I have released my frustration for today, going back to work. But if I am to start a project or even a simple script, I follow formatting conventions, consistent quotes and escapes, logical variable names and useful comments with links and samples. It doesn't only make your code readable, it helps a lot for the next programmer to just add-in the stuff he needs to and keeping his sanity.

Tags: php
Posted in me stuff, work related | No Comments »