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The Web Applications Working Group has published a Working Draft of Gamepad. The Gamepad specification defines a low-level interface that represents gamepad devices. Currently, the only way for a gamepad to be used as input would be to emulate mouse or keyboard events, however this would lose information and require additional software outside of the user agent to accomplish emulation. The Gamepad API provides a solution to this problem by specifying interfaces that allow web applications to directly act on gamepad data. Learn more about the Rich Web Client Activity.
]]>Regardless of the language you're programming in, we always want to try to produce clean, concise, and correct code. This is a sign of a good programmer and it lets you know your apps are running properly. Linting helps with this by analyzing your code and highlighting common issues regarding syntax and coding conventions based on best practices.
JSLint is one of the best tools for finding common JavaScript errors. So in this screencast, we're going to take a look at how to setup the linting process within your web development workflow using a fork of JSLint called JSHint. Let the show begin:
Seeing how there weren't many resources out there that explained how to add JSHint to your web development workflow, I hope this has helped streamline that process and made it a little easier for you to get it integrated into your projects. Happy debugging!
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Thanks to a leak of Syrian web censorship data, internet researchers have been able to analyse, for the first time, exactly what steps an authoritarian regime takes to restrict traffic.
Back in October 2011, a group of hackers and net activists called Telecomix leaked the logs showing exactly how Syrian authorities were monitoring and filtering internet traffic within the country. The logs comprised of 600 GB of data representing 750 million requests on the web and showing exactly which requests were allowed and which were denied.
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Horizontal layouts of all kinds have intrigued me ever since I found out you could do that. I don’t know exactly why I’m fascinated with them… maybe it’s just my inner rebel talking. Whatever the reason, I’m just about ready to declare vertical scrolling obsolete, passé, and soooo last millennium.
Okay, that’s not really what I mean. Still, with the sudden increase in the amount of touch screens lying around, it becomes more difficult to assert that “up and down” are our best options. “Right and left” have become viable directions for content placement, as long as you’re not dealing with substantial volumes of text.
I never bothered to really build any horizontal layouts, though. The technical problems and limitations always seemed to outweigh any stylistic or navigational benefits there might be. That was before, however; and this is now…
I came across the technique described in this article the way I usually come across things: by trying to do something else entirely. I was attempting (you can laugh) to create a CSS grid framework based on display: table-cell (okay, stop laughing now).
Well, for reasons that now seem obvious, it didn’t work. You try making a responsive image grid with the table-cell property. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Simply put, table cells are designed to form a single, horizontal row. (I said stop laughing!) That’s what they do, and they don’t like it when you try to make them do anything else. I gave up on that project. A few weeks later, though, I was considering redesigning my portfolio again.
I thought it would be nice to put all of my projects on one page. I considered several organizational solutions for displaying my web, writing, and photography projects, and came up with this: I want to display these three categories as horizontally scrolling rows of thumbnails.
That’s when it hit me: “Table cells would be perfect for that. Also, you can vertically center things inside them! I’m so smart it hurts!” [Some dramatization here.]
I haven’t gone and redesigned my site yet, instead, I coded up the two examples of my technique that are in the .zip file linked to at the bottom of this article.
So, to give you a visual, here’s a demo I’ve worked up.
Here’s how each row is marked up:
<div class="horizontal">
<div class="table">
<article>
<h3>Project Title</h3>
</article>
<!-- Repeat this part as many times as necessary. -->
</div>
</div>
From there, the CSS required to make it work is simple enough:
// This container element gives us the scrollbars we want.
div.horizontal {
width: 100%;
height: 400px;
overflow: auto;
}
// table-layout: fixed does a lot of the magic, here. It makes sure that the "table cells" retain the pixel dimensions you want.
.table {
display: table;
table-layout: fixed;
width: 100%;
}
// Arranging your content inside the "cells" is as simple as using the vertical-align and text-align properties. Floats work, too.
article {
width: 400px;
height: 400px;
display: table-cell;
background: #e3e3e3;
vertical-align: middle;
text-align: center;
}
// Some styling for contrast.
article:nth-child(2n+2)
{
background: #d1d1d1;
}
Some horizontal layout techniques require the container element (div.horizontal, in this case) to have a defined pixel width equal to the combined width of the elements it contains. Other techniques require display: inline-block; I’m not a fan of this technique. With table-cell, just keep adding elements whenever you need to, and you’re good to go — it’s perfect for use with a CMS.
Okay, the other kind of horizontal layout is the full-screen horizontal layout. Creating this with the table-cell property requires some JavaScript. I used jQuery to speed things up. The JS requirement might make this technique more situationally useful, but it’s still cool.
Here’s a working demo.
The markup is similar:
<div class="horizontal">
<div class="table">
<section>
<h1>Full-Screen Horizontal Layouts</h1>
<p>Made with <code>display: table-cell;</code></p>
<p>By Ezequiel Bruni</p>
</section>
<!-- Repeat this part as necessary. -->
</div>
</div>
Here, however, it’s just one “row” that’s been made to fit the size of the browser window. Each <section> has, in this case, also been made to fit the browser window.
Here’s the CSS:
// Don't touch this part. It helps.
html, body {
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
}
// In this case, I didn't want a scrollbar, so I used overflow: hidden. The container element is more essential than ever, though. The body element will not do.
div.horizontal {
display: block;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
overflow: hidden;
position: static;
}
.table {
display: table;
table-layout: fixed;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
}
.table > section {
width: 1600px; // The width is based on my monitor. It's replaced by jQuery anyway. Percentage widths do not work.
height: 100%;
display: table-cell;
background: #e3e3e3;
vertical-align: middle;
text-align: center;
}
As stated above, percentage widths do not work. Pixel widths are required. If you want to make each section fit your window dimensions, you’ll need to do it with JavaScript:
$(window).load(function() {
var vWidth = $(window).width();
var vHeight = $(window).height();
$('.table > section').css('width', vWidth).css('height', vHeight);
});
$(window).resize(function() {
var vWidth = $(window).width();
var vHeight = $(window).height();
$('.table > section').css('width', vWidth).css('height', vHeight);
}); You’ll notice that I also added the height. Well, that’s for Firefox. Firefox doesn’t play nice with percentage heights on the table-cell elements (incidentally, Firefox also throws a hissy fit if you make cells relatively positioned, and place absolutely positioned elements inside them).
Well, that’s my technique for horizontally placing content. You can download the source files here.
Have you designed a horizontal site? Have you used a different technique for horizontal scrolling? Let us know in the comments.
Featured image/thumbnail, sideways image via Shutterstock.
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