Dimitry Zolotaryov

Perl has a neat way to define both a getter and a setter in the same class method. The basic definition goes a little like this:

sub color {
  my $shift;
  if (@_) { # are there any more parameters?
    # yes, it's a setter:
    $self->{Color} = shift;
  } else {
    # no, it's a getter:
    $self->{Color};
  }
}

PHP can do something similar with a structure that matches quite cleanly to the code above. The example below is taken from our upcoming stand-alone form library.

public function name() {
    if ( func_num_args() ) {
        $this->_name = func_get_arg( 0 );
        return $this;
    } else {
        return $this->_name;
    }
}

In the example above, passing a value to the method named name() will set the value and return the object (to allow chaining). If the method is called without a parameter, it return the current value of the object’s name.

This structure is preferable to the magic methods __set and __get for its clarity.

Found this browsing the Sitepoint forums. A great and simple method for building templates in PHP:

class Template extends ArrayObject {
  protected $file = null;
 
  public function setFile( $file ) {
    $this->file = $file;
  }
 
  public function __toString() {
    extract($this->getArrayCopy());
 
    ob_start();
    include($file);
    return ob_get_clean();
  }
}
 
// In your controller...
 
$template = new Template();
$template->setFile( 'myTemplate.phtml' );
 
// Fictional model method to get rowset from a query
$template['rows'] = $db->getRows( $query );
 
$template['title'] = 'Hello World';
 
echo $template;

Thanks, Michael Morris.

Original post by Michael Morris

This first of a series of articles that deal with Less CSS we’ll introduce a fun way to turn an element into a button with the help of a sprite graphic. First comes the sprite map:

Each of the buttons are stacked on top of each other and every one has the same height: 27 pixels.

Next comes the Less mixin. This is where the magic happens:

@webroot: "http://domain.com"
 
.button (@position, @width: 180px) {
    @buttonHeight: 27px;
 
    display:     block;
    height:      @height;
    width:       @width;
    text-indent: -100em;
    overflow:    hidden;
    border:      0;
 
    background:  url("@{webroot}/images/buttons-en.png") no-repeat left -(@position * @buttonHeight);
}

The above code does a number of things worth going over in detail. @webroot is the root URL of the website. Less compiles all CSS into the current page making it necessary to use absolute URLs instead or URLs relative to the CSS file’s path.

Next, is the mixin declaration. It defines two parameters. The position of the button (starting with 0 for button 1) and the width of the button—set to width of the sprite map.

The button height is then hard-coded and the CSS following uses one of the common image replacement techniques.

Finally comes the background attribute. It says, use the image map positioned to the left of the container. The top of the background is determined by the button number (starting with 0) times the height of each button, subtracted from 0. In other words, button 1 will be at top 0, button 2 at top -27, button 3 at top -54, etc.

The resulting mixin is easy to use.

/**
* Makes all buttons of class 'search' use the last image in the sprite set.
* Uses the actual width of the 'search' button graphic to prevent trailing white space.
*/
button.search {
    .button(3, 82px);
}
 
/**
* All links of class 'more' use the first button in the set.
*/
a.more {
    .button(1, 91px);
}

The following error came up on a project built on Django and MySQL:
“Warning: Field ‘id’ doesn’t have a default value”

At first, it seemed as though Django was responsible. However, a quick Google search proved this was an issue with MySQL.

Some solutions returned by the search required the programmer/administrator to export and recreate the database, but the solution proved a lot more simple. For a table named auth_user, the following MySQL command fixes the above error message:

ALTER TABLE auth_user MODIFY `id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;

The above command resets the ID field of the auth_user table to an auto-incremented integer of length 11, fixing the error message for good.

Google+ may not be Facebook or Twitter but it still has steam. Today, the Plus team released Google+ Pages. Very much like Facebook Pages, Google+ Pages allow your business to broadcast itself and connect with followers via the Circles functionality.

For more on this new feature, check out Google’s own press release below.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/google-pages-connect-with-all-things.html

Pages are not open for everyone yet. Send your email to info@webit.ca and we’ll notify you when they are ready.

Update

Google+ Pages now online.

BA released today their brand new inflight entertainment section. Developed by Spafax and WebIT.ca.

The site features a monthly update to the entertainment on every BA flight to dozens of destinations.

After two months of loving labor, the new enRoute Dining Guide app is up on iTunes. Be sure to check it out and download yourself a copy.

Download the enRoute Eats iPhone app.

Content by: Sarah Steinberg (enRoute Online)
Design by: Adrian Kronowetter (Land of Visions)
Development by: Dimitry Zolotaryov (WebIT.ca)

The following terminal command is great for finding those large, hidden files on your hard drive:

cd / && sudo find . -size +1024k -ls

Substitute 1024 with a size you consider big for a file (in kilobytes). In the example, the command sequence will find all files over a megabyte in size.

In the latest iPhone app, it was necessary for a particular view to grow or shrink with respect to its visible subviews. Bellow is a quick snippet from a class called VariableHeightView, a subclass of UIView.

- (CGRect)frame
{
    CGRect frame = [super frame];
 
    float height = 0.0f;
    for (UIView *asubview in self.subviews) {
        if (![asubview isHidden]) {
            float subviewBottom = asubview.frame.size.height
                                    + asubview.frame.origin.y;
            if (subviewBottom > height) {
                height = subviewBottom;
            }
        }
    }
 
    CGRect newFrame = CGRectMake(frame.origin.x, frame.origin.y,
                                 frame.size.width, height);
    return newFrame;
}

The code is fairly simple. For a view built using the Interface Builder, the VariableHeightView’s (a superview) frame function will iterative over all subviews, looking for the one lowest in the screen. Once found, it will expand to match that sub-view’s Y origin plus height.

The drawRect function of UIView will take care of rendering the VariableHeightView using the dimension of the frame function.