Formatting for task descriptions

Thanks to Sawan for this suggestion - don't know why nobody thought of this earlier

Anyway, have just finished integrating TinyMCE with task descriptions in NetOffice. So now you can add lists, include hyperlinks, stikeout previous instructions etc etc!

A couple of things have been changed:

1. Obviously, TinyMCE files need to be copied into your NetOffice installation.


2. We have added a file called tinymce.php to the /includes/ directory. It only contains Javascript, but we've used a PHP include so we can pass variables to it later if we like. That will mean we can enable or disable certain buttons dynamically depending on other page variables.


3. This file is called in the head of the page, so /themes/deepblue/header.php has been adjusted accordingly. If you're using another theme, change your header.php to include /includes/tinymce.php.


4. Then obviously /tasks/edittask.php has been adjusted - basically just giving the textareas id attributes so TinyMCE can find them. There is also a little bit of code at the top of that file that calls a function to convert < and > to their HTML entities, which we don't want any more! So that's just been commented out for now.

That all might sound scary, but if you're using the standard Deep Blue theme that comes with NetOffice 2.6, all you need to do is unzip the following file into your NetOffice directory. I've even included TinyMCE so it should be pretty straight forward.

• Download ZIP file - 1.53 Mb

This is only tested with NetOffice 2.6 - I have no idea what will happen on earlier versions.

Also... just in case, make sure you back up your NetOffice installation so you can roll back if needed...

Quickies for a Friday Arvo

Just a few quick links from around the traps today:

• 37 Signals have released Campfire - a group chat IM thingy. I quite like a lot of their stuff, but have no need for this one at all. I expect there are those that do, but I'm not one of them! I'll just stick with MSN Messenger.


• Scripto - it's Flash without Flash! Animations in HTML and CSS driven by Javascript. Will have to check this one out.


• And while we're on the subject of Flash, FlashObject lets you use Javascript to detect for the flash plugin and then embed the object. That should overcome those pesky validation issues with embedding Flash too.

Tags: campfire | 37 signals | scriptio | flash

Dropdowns for Google Search?

Heard a rumour tonight that Google are testing dropdown boxes for their search page. So instead of seeing different tabs for web, images etc, we might soon see just one search page with a dropdown box containing these options!

Can't find anything on Matt Cutts' blog or the Googleblog... so we'll see what happens there...

Technorati: google | dropdown | predictions

Google Acquires Measure Map

I was fortunate enough to be invited to join Measure Map some time ago - a great little blog statistics tool. Well, just found out that Adaptive Path (the developers) have sold it to Google.

Way to go Adaptive Path!

I'm not really surprised though. It's a great tool, simple to use, with a nice interface. One of the big boys were bound to pick it up.

Be interesting to see what they do with it!

Technorati: google | measure map

Music to Your Eyes

I've been keeping my eyes open recently for an easy way to keep this blog updated with my music playlist, and tonight I happened to stumble upon it!

First, sign up for an account with last.fm. Then download the plugin for whatever you play your music with. In my case, whatever I play in iTunes now updates my profile on last.fm - and this neat little Wordpress plugin automatically updates the sidebar here. (If you looking at my home page you'll see it - it's hidden if you're looking at this post's page.)

Installation is a breeze... And now the world can see what bad taste in music I have!

Technorati: last.fm | itunes | wordpress

Hey! A new look!

Feels like it's been ages since I posted here so I thought I'd make up for the lack of activity with a new look. Unlike last time I started with a completely empty stylesheet instead of hacking away at the one that came with wordpress.

You're looking at about 90 minutes (and 2 Woodstocks) worth of effort.

It's simple... But then again, so am I!

Technorati: woodstock | bourbon | redesign

Wordpress 2.0 is here!

Upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.0 last night, and was very relieved to find that it all went smoothly. This theme stayed intact (maybe that's not such a good thing!) and all the plugins I had installed previously still work.

The main difference so far is the Write Post page - we now have a WYSIWYG editor driven by TinyMCE. I keep hitting Enter twice to start a new paragaph, but with this now I only have to do that once. That might take some getting used to! Images and other files can be uploaded on the same page - no need to upload an image in one section, copy the URL, and go to another to write the post.

Also, extra fields around the post area (categories, timestamp etc) are tucked away and you can expand them when needed.

The preview post function now previews the whole finished, styled page - not just the text of your post. That's a bonus. My proof reading is pretty bad, I need all the help I can get!
Other than that - it still looks a lot like Wordpress, which stands to reason, I suppose!

Technorati: wordpress, blog, tinymce