Xah's Web Dev Blog

Internet Explorer Anime Girl

Declaring Character Set in CSS File

by default, CSS file is assumed to be UTF-8 encoded, unless the server or other mechanism says otherwise.

however, you can declare it in your CSS file, by putting the following in the first line:

@charset "UTF-8";

reference. 〔Declaring character encodings in CSS 2010-08-07 By W3C. @ www.w3.org…〕

User Interface Design: Gray or White

Web Design: Say No to Grey Text on White Background

dollar sign in JavaScript

lots JavaScript libs use dollar sign “$” as the name of their primary function.

It seems, it started with the prototype lib, then others picked it up, in particular jQuery.

here's a quote from stackoverflow

As far as I can see, it's not recommended to use because the ECMAScript specification states that:

The dollar sign ($) and the underscore (_) are permitted anywhere in an identifier. The dollar sign is intended for use only in mechanically generated code.

Update: The above refers to ECMA-262 3.0. However, this is no longer the latest edition. Currently, 5.1 is the latest edition. In ECMA-262 5.1 the above text is changed to:

The dollar sign ($) and the underscore (_) are permitted anywhere in an IdentifierName.

That is, it seems that they dropped the “restriction” or whatever you want to call it.

So, is this the case where practice forced a change in spec?

Interface Design: How JavaScript Breaks UI, and the Evolution of User Interface

so many “modern” pure JavaScript based websites f�cks up the page so that basic universal browser operations broke. For example:

• Control+click or middle click on a link to open in new tab, or 【Ctrl+n】 to open new page, will not always work.

Perpetrator include Google's Google Plus, Twitter.

When a key that works only sometimes, it's annoying, but also dangerous, because after a few times of non-working, you stop using that key. Instead, user goes for the sure way of using the more cumbersome mouse.

• When a page contains Video (Flash) such as YouTube, almost always your keys such as ⇟ Page ▽, don't work anymore, because the “focus” is on Flash or some particular JavaScript scripted element, so key input got stolen. You need to click somewhere outside the video first.

From user's perspective, it's plainly annoying. However, the thing is, these fancy sites don't care, for good reasons, because, vast majority of people, probably 90%, don't even know about basic keys. Control+Click would be considered advanced.

so, how do we take this? should this be considered the inevitable progress of UI, or is it simply crassness of the corporations?

The Unfortunate Fate of Music MIDI File

MIDI is really a great tech, but unfortunately, it never picked up in computer.

MIDI is tiny in size, especially great for piano music. For example, a 5 minute piano piece is only 11k bytes.

10 years ago, i'd expect by now that on each computer we have high quality sampled sound library for MIDI, so that perhaps just a 100 mega bytes you'd have entire collection of piano music in history, recorded by professionals. Not so.

Today, on the web, MIDI isn't supported in html5 audio. 〔☛ HTML5 Audio Tag Example〕 〔☛ HTML5 Tags〕 And it won't play on Linux by default.

Here's entire collection of Bach's 〈Well Tempered Clavier〉, just 529k. Music: MIDI Collection of Bach 🎶

New JavaScript Toy: Literature Annotation Popup

new JavaScript toy. the Story of Cupid and Psyche. Hoover annotated words to see its annotation highlighted.

some selection of other stories and essays with annotation:

• To Build a Fire
• The Tale Of The Bull And The Ass
• Time Machine: Chapter I
• Politics and the English Language (George Orwell)
• Why I am Not a Christian (Bertrand Russell)

CSS Trick: Display Language Name in Code Snippet

first, look at this page: Python, Ruby, Perl: Print Version String from Script

The language name at bottom right are done with CSS. Like this:

pre.python:after
{content:"Python₂";
position:relative;
bottom:0ex;
right:1ex;
float:right;
color:gray; background-color:hsl(0,0%,95%)}

discovered vanilla-js.com, its use surpasses JQuery. Amazing.

via Craig Lennox

there are lots JavaScript libs and even alternative js langs. For example, CoffeeScript, Google's Dart, Microsoft's TypeScript. My recommendation is, don't use any of it. Master JavaScript+DOM fair and square.

few new articles from my Programing Blog

• Apache Rewrites History: Why is it Named “Apache”?
• Apache HTTP Server Tutorial
• nginx Tutorial

JavaScript App for Unicode

wrote a JavaScript app. Goto Unicode Emoticons, Faces 😸, hover your mouse over (or click if you are on tablet). Unicode name and char number will show.

also created the following pages.

• Unicode: Transport ＆ Map Symbols
• Unicode Animal/Insect Icons
• Unicode Office Icons
• Unicode Sports Games Icons
• Unicode Astronomy/Astrology Symbols
• Unicode Weather Symbols/Icons
• Unicode Music Symbols

Can CSS z-index be negative?

Can JavaScript var name contain hyphen?

I ranted about Web Design: Say No to Grey Text on White Background. And now discovered there's a site dedicated to this.

〔contrast rebellion 2013-01-22 By Zoltán Gócza, Richard Gazdik. @ contrastrebellion.com…〕

(thx to Mikay Gao)

btw, i remember reading more than one blog, by supposedly design gurus, who tell us that we should use low-contrast, because, they say, in nature nothing is in high-contrast. LOL.

this is like, Hacker Fads ＆ Fashions: Is XML Syntax the Stupid Brother of Lisp? Hey, Check Out Their Young Sister HTML5!

Unicode Icons for Food and Drink

Unicode Icons: Food, Drink

On my Microsoft Windows 7 machine, only Firefox display them well (missing just 2 characters).

All other browsers, Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 9, got nothing.

I do have Unicode 6 fonts installed (Symbola, Segoe UI Symbol). Somehow these browsers are not picking it up. 〔☛ Best Unicode Fonts for Programing〕 〔☛ Unicode 6 Emoticons and Supporting Fonts〕

On Linux, default setup of Ubuntu 12.04, none of them shows up in Firefox.

What's your experience? (tell me your OS, browser, their versions, and whether you have installed special fonts yourself.)

Google AdSense Ban

Google is banning me left and right. Now, this page 〈GNAA Weev Troll Song (Kesha — TiK ToK)〉 http://xahlee.org/music/gnaa_weev_song.html , they say is violating their AdSense rules.

Here's other moral-sensitive songs. 〈Sensitive Songs Index〉 http://xahlee.org/music/music_index_sensitive.html

I started to put Google ads in 2005. Within one month, they ban'd me, probably because i say f�ck George Bush in front page. See: 〈Google AdSense Ban on XahLee.org〉 http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/tr/google_adsense_ban.html

So, since 2005 to 2011, i did not run any ads.

In 2012 July, i separated out my articles to different domains, so that all my none-controversial articles (which is about 95%) can benefit from ads.

Then, Google ban'd my xaharts.org for ads. See 〈Google AdSense Ban on Ancient Asian Goddess Sculpture Page〉 http://xahlee.info/w/Google_AdSense_ban_on_ancient_sculpture_2012-09-02.html and now is warning me about that troll song.

the moral here is, if you wanna make money, stay in line! Or, be one of those unscrupulous ad-ridden SEO site or a spammer!

Browser Stat 2012

for my site ergoemacs.org (on emacs):

• Chrome → 45%
• Firefox → 35%
• Safari → 8%
• Internet Explorer → 4%
• Opera → 1%

For xahlee.info (programing and math), Internet Explorer is higher:

• Chrome → 44%
• Firefox → 31%
• Internet Explorer → 12%
• Safari → 7%
• Opera → 2%

For non-technical sites { xahlee.org ◇ wordyenglish.com ◇ xaharts.org ◇ xahmusic.org ◇ xahsl.org ◇ … }, Internet Explorer is higher still:

• Chrome → 37%
• Firefox → 23%
• Internet Explorer → 17%
• Safari → 13%

Auto-Resize Image, Progressive JPEG, CSS Window Size Trick

There's this hurricane site with interesting tech: 〔Hurricane Sandy Bears Down on East Coast 2012-10-29 @ nation.time.com…〕

here's a few interesting things:

• They seem to be using progressive jpeg. (the photo fills area then gradually gets clearer; as opposed to loading pixels line by line)
• With JavaScript on, if you resize window, the image size changes dynamically.
• With JavaScript off, if you resize window, the right panel would disappear entirely when your window is small.

what JavaScript trick, lib, or CSS trick are used to achieve these? Can you create a simple HTML page example with these features?

Started to use Chinese micro-blog Sina Weibo. In 2 days, i already got 2 spams. This one is funny:

There are spam selling followers on Twitter, Facebook, G+. The Chinese ain't falling behind on this.

China's Sina Weibo vs Twitter GUI Fight

China's Sina Weibo's UI is much better than twitter. You can list all replies to you, or all your replies to others, list mutual follower, and list private chat that also act as INSTANT chat, and pic upload that works, faster too despite lots ads. It's somewhat more like Facebook than Twitter.

+1 for China. Thumbs down on tweeter.

According to Wikipedia, Sina Weibo has 3M users, while Twitter has 5M. Sina Weibo has 1M posts per day, while Twitter 3.4M.

My account on weibo is http://www.weibo.com/xahlee/. 求关注! 求粉丝! 😸

The Pain of Ampersand in HTML

Tip: whenever you want to write the ampersand symbol in HTML/XML, don't use &, use FULLWIDTH AMPERSAND ＆ instead. For example:

AT&t
vs
AT＆T

Here's how your browser renders it: AT&T vs AT＆T

You can set up in emacs to easily type it, or setup a key layout in any of {Windows, Mac, Linux}. See:

• Creating Keyboard Layout and Keybinding in Mac OS X
• Linux: Keyboard Layout, Keymapping, Keybinding, Tools ⌨
• Keyboard Layout ＆ Key Macro tools for Windows
• How to Create a APL or Math Symbols Keyboard Layout

See also: Semantic of Symbols: HTML Entities, Ampersand, Unicode.

If you are using Opera browser, here's 2 special config. Type them in the URL bar.

opera:gpu

opera:config

How Much You'd Make from Google AdSense

This is my estimate of how much you get from Google AdSense, based on my experience and some web research. Note that the figure could vary a lot.

From search, 1k visits ≈ $2. If from sites like Reddit, 10k ≈ $1.