Mint…

Tue Jan 24

I’ve mentioned Mint before, but it’s only now I’ve bought it for a domain I run that I realise what a supreme example of programming it is. It looks good, is easy to use, does the job fantastically, and is fully extendable. What more could we ask for?

Huge kudos is due to Shaun Inman, and the wonderful team of Pepper-writers (see here for more details).

User input validation patterns…

Tue Jan 24

There’s an interesting article here about validating user input, and the usability implications of doing so. It outlines several methods (I suppose they could be classed as patterns) of doing this and notifying - or not notifying - the user.

This was found through Harry Fuecks article on Sitepoint, where he says that there’s no real alternative to regular expressions. He’s right, of course, and over the last couple of years my use of regexp’s has increased so much that rarely does a day go by when I’m not messing about with them. However I’ll be referring to the list of “validation patterns” (as I’ll call them) as it provides a useful reminder of the different ways that user input can be handled.

New website design…

Tue Jan 24

Well, it’s finally arrived. The “Chocolate and Coffee” look is in this season, so I’m told…

Let me know what you think.

Accessibility - an idiots guide…

Tue Jan 24

As previously mentioned, I needed a place where I could easily get all the information I need to make sites accessible. This is that place. Here I’ve linked to very useful, and in some cases definitive, website from some of the worlds greatest accessibility gurus so that I - and hopefully you - can get everything you need in one place.

I will treat this entry as being always open for editing.

Tables
Tables should be used for tabular data, not for layout. As Roger Johansson explains, there’s a lot more to accessible tables than just rows and cells.

Acronyms
Acronyms are very useful, and in increasing use - especially when talking about technology. How do you make sure that everyone knows what that string of letters means? Why, by scoring the A List Apart hat-trick, of course.

Forms
All web applications have forms - sometimes many of them. Forms can be really complex, but with the WebAIM accessible forms tutorial, you’ll be forming (geddit?) perfect forms in no time.

Accessibility links
http://www.accessites.org/
http://www.thatstandardsguy.co.uk/
http://www.456bereastreet.com/
http://www.htmlhelp.com/design/accessibility/
http://www.w3.org/WAI/
http://www.webaim.org/
http://diveintoaccessibility.org/

Neophilia…

Sun Jan 22

As part of The Complex Christ’s ongoing series about neophilia (a love for new things), Kester recommends us to subvert the fantasy church.

There’s so much to take from this post I couldn’t possibly start to do justice to it all. There are implications and food for thought not just for the emerging church movement, but for all businesses and developers as well. Fascinating and thought-provoking stuff.