Category Archives: Code Snippets

Here you will find various snippets and code examples that I have used to make some thing in my life a little easier to deal with.

IMPROVED: Open all external links in a new window using jQuery

3 Replies

In the original post I covered how to use jQuery to automatically make external links open in a new window. The method however was slightly flawed in my opinion since…

  1. It did not check form action attributes
  2. It assumed ANY link starting with “http[s]://” was external

Here is my new and improved method for making all external site links open in a new window. It now includes form tags, one less selector for secure and non-secure link urls, AND excludes any of those which link to an internal page where the full url may have been specified.

$('a[href*="://"], form[action*="://"]').not($('a[href*="://'+location.host+'"]')).attr('target','_blank');

A quick breakdown…

  1. a[href*=”://“] and form[action*=”://“] matches the elements where a full url has been specified
  2. .not($(‘a[href*=”://’+location.host+'”]’)) excludes all matched items that include the current host (eg: http://www.robertmullaney.com/)
  3. finally we update the target attribute of the the remaining links open in a new window

Why this is important:

Once you have a user on your site, the worst thing you can do is send them away. Also, you will easily annoy them if all links open in new windows and cause them to leave anyhow. This way, only the links that pull them away from site site are opened in new windows. When they are done on the external sites, they close the browser and there your site remains.

Calculate the total height of child elements of a clipped (overflow: hidden) parent tag

3 Replies

Ever have an element with clipped content and wanted to know the total height of the elements contained therein? I have a client who wants the height of the main content to be clipped to a preset height (don’t ask me why). Which means I need to dynamically add a “read more” link to expand the container and show all the content.

Well, here’s how you calculate the combined height of the children with jQuery… Continue reading →

Remove www prefix from domain using PHP

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I see this question a lot and usually it comes down to getting the current host name for use with cookies. Lets say I want to make a domain-wide cookie, that does not include the standard www prefix such as www.robertmullaney.com. In order for the cookie to work with or without the www prefix, it needs to become ‘.robertmullaney.com’.

preg_replace('/^www\./i', '.', $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'])

Now, some of you may be looking for a way to determine the top-level domain for something like this.subdomain.robertmullaney.com. That is not an easy solution (since many TLDs have multiple suffixes like .co.uk). If that’s what you’re looking for, check back later and see if I have come up with a good solution… that one’s tricky.

My HTML5 base template (skeleton file) with jQuery from Google CDN

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Below is the standard HTML5 template I start most of my projects with. It includes the latest 1.x version of jQuery, jQuery UI, and the desired jQuery UI theme. It also has a conditional comment that checks to see if the current browser older than IE9 and includes HTML5Shiv to make sure new elements are rendered properly in older IE browsers.

While I don’t claim this is the best skeleton HTML5 template, I think it is a very solid foundation to start from 😉

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8">
<title>Untitled</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="">
<meta name="description" content="">
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1/themes/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css">
<!--[if lt IE 9]><script src="//html5shiv.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/html5.js"></script><![endif]-->
<script>
$(function() {
    //DOM is Ready
});
</script>
</head>
<body>

</body>
</html>

PHP: Incrementing/decrementing a numeric string that has letter (alpha) prefixes

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I see this question quite a bit in programming discussions and forums. I’ll be linking to this post from now on to avoid re-posting the same replies every time someone asks.

String Value: XYZ123

Desired Result: XYZ124

The majority of solutions I have read regarding this problem require splitting the string or using regular expressions to manipulate the numeric portion. The overhead for complex solutions for such a simple problem are simply overkill. The example below shows the easiest way to increment the string  and requires minimal overhead… Continue reading →

Bookmarklet: Submit a login form using javascript within a bookmark

3 Replies

If you’re like me, you have many bookmarks to administration areas that require authentication. For you, this script is a priceless time-saver.

Let’s say your login page has a form similar to the following…

<form action="/login.php" method="post">
    <label>Username: <input type="text" name="user"></label>
    <label>Password: <input type="password" name="pass"></label>
    <input type="submit" value="Log In">
</form>

Some logins simply cannot be stored in the browser’s password system. So, to save you the extra effort of manually logging in on each visit to such pages, create a bookmark that automatically logs you into the system.

Here’s the code to submit that form using a bookmarklet… Continue reading →

jQuery Add Bookmark to Favorites Script

2 Replies

Here is a quick example of how to use jQuery along with traditional browser sniffing techniques to create a dynamic “Bookmark Us” link.

Google CDN (latest 1.x version, theme)…

<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
<link type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" href="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1/themes/blitzer/jquery-ui.css" />

The javascript… Continue reading →

Make the jQuery UI Datepicker use a jQuery Button

4 Replies

It has been bugging me for some time that the datepicker widget uses a normal button unless you tell it to use an image. Seeing that we are using the jQuery-UI framework, it makes sense to me that the button should be styled as such. After playing with the selectors and trying it a few different ways, here is how I made that boring datepicker button become a jQuery-UI button (with calendar icon). Continue reading →

Submit ajax form in jQuery-UI Dialog with Enter Key

11 Replies

This question is posted quite a bit and nobody seems to be able to provide a good solution that won’t behave questionably. So here’s my take on it…

$('<div id="myDialog"></div>').appendTo('body').dialog({
    autoOpen: false,
    modal: true,
    closeOnEscape: true,
    buttons: {
        OK: function() {
            $.ajax({
                type: 'POST',
                url: 'save.php',
                data: $('#myDialog :input').serialize(),
                error: function(xml, status, error) {
                    $('#myDialog').html('<p><strong>Error Code:</strong> '+status+'</p><p><strong>Explanation:</strong> '+error+'</p>');
                }
            });
        },
        Cancel: function() {
            $(this).dialog('close');
        }
    },
    open: function() {
        $(this).html('').load('form.php');
    },
    focus: function() {
        $(':input', this).keyup(function(event) {
            if (event.keyCode == 13) {
                $('.ui-dialog-buttonpane button:first').click();
            }
        });
    }
});

Note: You can also trigger the event on any element (not just form fields) by using $(this) as the selector.

That’s it, enjoy 🙂

Change CodeIgniter’s Form_validation error delimiters globally!

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I have seen this question all over the web and am surprised that nobody has actually offered such a simple solution.

Anyway, here is a quick, simple and painless way to set CodeIgniter’s error delimiters (used by the Form_validation library) one time for your entire application. Create “application/libraries/MY_Form_validation.php” with the following contents… Continue reading →

Easily load multiple views with CodeIgniter

2 Replies

It is not uncommon to load a common header, footer and other views in each controller. While this can be achieved like so…

$this->load->view('header', $header_data);
$this->load->view('content', $content_data);
$this->load->view('footer', $footer_data);

I wanted the ability to do the same thing with a single line of code. So I decided to extend the core Loader library by creating “application/core/MY_Loader.php” with the following code… Continue reading →