Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year 2012!

I'm looking forward to a great New Year 2012 and I hope everyone else is and we all get a happy and prosperous New Year!

I finished last year with a bad case of flu that I am just slowly recovering from now but I have many plans for my blogging this year.

I know this is another New Years resolution, to do better at blogging, but I am determined now and throughout the year to do it!

I am so keen on this I just had to put this post straight up without thinking too much about content etc. It is good to post spontaneously sometimes and this is one such moment.

Recently I have been coding away. My projects still include HTML5 & PHP and I am now looking at FLASH and AIR! I have also been sharpening up my video producing skills-so talented-LOL! Anyways I have a lot to keep me going and it is all very interesting.

In brief on the blogging front I hope to be opening my new blogging site very soon and I am looking forward to programming tools for it.

Hopefully soon I shall be getting somewhere with my chess project goal and releasing details but that is not as urgent as my blogging project. So I am looking forward to the coming New Year on the World Wide Web! Stay tuned here for further breaking news :-)

Posted in Blog, Chess, Home, Html5, Internet Marketing, Technical | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments | Permalink | 11464 Views

RIP Dad-17/5/28-3/11/11

Mum, Dad, & baby Gill Africa c1959

Mum, Dad, & baby Gill Africa c1959

 

RIP Douglas John Ronald Dickinson

Posted in Blog, Home | Tagged | Leave a comment | Permalink | 10045 Views

Html5 dragndrop chessboard update

A month since my last post about my new html5 drag and drop chessboard!
The chessboard still does not have satisfactory html5 drag and drop.
I have researched for help with this on GOOGLE search of course and left posts for help on several programming type websites (eg Sitepoint/StackOverflow & Twitter tweets!)-yet so far I have not solved the problem.

I will solve this even if it takes a long time! Meanwhile if any can help me with it I would be most grateful!

STOP PRESS!!:

Just after posting this I have had a really helpful reply from Xavi on StackOverflow:

The reason the <li/> is being moved (thus rearranging the chess board) is because in your drop function is calling appendChild:

function drop(event) {     var element = event.dataTransfer.getData("Text");     // This changes the DOM     event.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(element));     event.stopPropagation();     return false; } 

Instead of moving that actual DOM node, the drop function should copy the innerHTML of the node that’s being dragged. Here’s how the new drop would look function:

function drop(event) {     var coordinate = event.dataTransfer.getData("Text");     var element = document.getElementById(coordinate);     event.target.innerHTML = element.innerHTML; // Moving piece to new cell     element.innerHTML = ""; // Clearing old cell     event.stopPropagation(); // Consider using `event.preventDefault` instead     return false; } 

Also, I’d consider using event.preventDfault instead of event.stopPropagation. This makes it possible to add new drop listeners to the board or one of its parents. For example you may want to add a drop listener to the document body to handle the case where a user tries to drag a piece off the board.

As general remark, have you considering using jQueryUI draggable and droppable libraries? You’d be able to support much richer drag/drop interactions such as snap-to-grid movement and delayed starts. Also, HTML5 drag-and-drop is typically used to allow users to drag files from their OS desktop onto the a web page. The way your using it is totally fine, it’s just a little strange.

 

Thanks Xavi-
I am just going to edit my html5 chessboard code….& will post back my results……

End STOP PRESS…

I have enjoyed learning a little about html5 Canvas element as a side product of my research into Html5 DragnDrop.
Html5 really rocks! I look forward to using the canvas tags to make my drawing canvas and letting my artistic talent run wild! Hopefully I can even get Drag and Drop to work with it too!

HTML5 Canvas Demo:
see: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-html5canvas/


Change the subject_BuddyPress forum

Today I tried to add a BuddyPress forum to my blog but that needs further work!
Hopeful it should be ready soon (the joys of technology!)…..

Posted in Blog, Html5, Technical | Tagged , | Leave a comment | Permalink | 12349 Views

JavaScript and HTML5

Well it is somewhile since my last post. Why is that? Well it is because I was doing some website coding which has taken me longer than I anticipated!

I had been converting a static website to a WordPress site for the junior chess club I am webmaster too.
That was quite straightforward but the issue I have had is adding a chess game to the site. WordPress has 2 fine plugins to play through chess games but there is no plugin to play chess against an engine-ie a chess computer program. The nearest I found on the internet was Html5Chess at SourceForge. Then difficulties arose integrating this into the WordPress site and I started to look at the coding for this and while I am reasonably familiar & competent with HTML5 there was a lot of JavaScript included!

Html5 DragnDrop Chessboard

Html5 DragnDrop Chessboard

So my JavaScript coding skills are not great and I have been trying to improve them. This is not a great problem as there are many JavaScript tutorials on the internet & it has certain similarities to other programming languages I have some experience with (data handling/variables/objects etc etc).

I have though been stuck over the last few days trying to implement HTML5 Drag and Drop on the Html5/CSS (no tables) chessboard I adapted from HTML5Chess from Sourceforge. I often find that I have to adapt or start from scratch with code while using open source code as a guideline to get what I want from the application.

In the course of my trials with this I find the HTML5 Drag & Drop API does not have the greatest reputation and I have been advised to try jQueryUI Drag and Drop as an alternative. However I still want to get the HTML5 DragnDrop working so I will continue until it does work! I am very stubborn!

I have many other jobs to attend to but I do hope to find time to finish this project & use the chess game on the junior chess club website. I could always then try & produce it in WordPress plugin format!!

Posted in Blog, Chess, Home, Technical, WordPress | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments | Permalink | 11875 Views

Show casing WP TwentyEleven1.2 with sidebar

Hi

Recently a new friend of mine asked about having sidebar on single posts on WordPress theme TwentyEleven.
This is my theme edit/customisation for this. Please check it out on my demo page @
onlinewpthemetest.richard-dickinson.com

Edit details:
Add to single.php & page.php (just above get_footer code)
Comment out body class function in functions template (functions.php)

I wonder if WordPress will include the ability to have a sidebar in future versions of TwentyEleven?
It seems many people would like this feature. We will have to ask WordPress.org & see if they will!

I will leave this theme here for a little while as a demo-enjoy!

Posted in Blog, Technical, WordPress | Tagged , | 5 Comments | Permalink | 10281 Views

MS Expression Encoder4 & ScreenCapture

I have recently started to look at video production methods and have just started using Microsoft’s free products for video Expression Encoder 4 & Screen Capture.

ExpressionEncoder4Screencapture is quite useful and can produce a video clip 10 minutes in length. This is produced in .xesc format which can be converted to .wmv format by ExpressionEncoder4 free version (mp4 format needs the EEncoderPro version). Continue reading

Posted in Home, Technical, Video | Tagged , , | 2 Comments | Permalink | 10364 Views

Blog signup + free gift (Html5 Salespage template)

I have today completed the addition of AWeber email signup to my blog-see the AWeber blog signup widget in the sidebar.

All signups presently get my free gift of an HTML5 Salespage Template ideal for IM purposes.

My interest in my blog has been reignited by the IM course IBCX I am presently on. This step of adding a signup was part of my ‘accountability  plan’ which is now completed successfully for the last week!

I will now be adding at least 2 blog posts here a week as part of the 7 Day challenge at IBCX & this will be a challenge-given that I go on holiday tomorrow. I will have to take my laptop with me to add a post & hope the place I am staying in Norfolk has internet access!

Well here is to more posts on technical and general issues….I’m looking forward to it & I hope you will be too!

 

NB_IMPORTANT-10/08/11
Due to a technical difficulty with the download gift I have had to remove it from my blog & suspend registration-I hope to reinstate this as soon as possible when I have fixed the problem. My apologies

NB_IMPORTANT-13/08/11
Today I have replaced my AWeber blogn list signup. This I hope has been modified and will allow access to subscribers to my free gift-my free Html5 Salespage Template

Posted in Blog, Home, Internet Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment | Permalink | 10447 Views