Beautiful Forms with JavaScript

A while back, I posted a blog called "The JavaScript Switcharoo" that presented a technique for eliminating labels from form inputs. It was pointed out in the comments that this technique not only threw errors in Internet Explorer (not good), but would also cause usability issues for screen readers and other text-only browsers (also not good). I've since rewritten the script to cooperate in the ever-troublesome IE family of browsers, as well as using accessible XHTML markup.

View the Demo | Download the Source Code

What are we going for, here?

The desired outcome of this script is to 1) create a standard comment form, 2) dynamically display form field descriptions inside each form field using the information stored in corresponding label elements, then write functions to 3) hide the description when the user... read more

SimpleCMS Part 2 - Images

In part 1 of this series, we went over the basics of reading and writing information in a database, effectively creating a very simple content management system (CMS).

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response, I've decided to continue building on this CMS. I'll be writing a series of tutorials to cover new feature additions to our CMS.

Also, due to helpful criticism from experienced programmers, I'll be trying to address security concerns that were not taken into account in the original tutorial, leaving the CMS vulnerable to attack. However, I don't claim to be a security expert, so if you see room for improvement, let me know in the comments!

Uploading Images

Images are one of the most important parts of any website, so what would our CMS be without the... read more

The JavaScript Switcharoo

NOTE: As noted in the comments, there are some usability issues with this script. An updated version is available here.

I hate form labels.

There. I said it.

I'm opposed to the idea of forcing a little snippet of text to line up next to each form element so that we know what's going on with it. It's difficult, it takes up extra space, and it tends to make something like a newsletter input eat up too much screen real estate.

However, it would be rude of me to just assume that everyone knows what the hell I'm asking for when I slap a couple inputs in the top right of a site.

To get around this issue, I wrote a quick JavaScript function to make... read more

Reading RSS with PHP

The Problem
The Internet seems to be getting easier everyday. With sites like Myspace, Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter, you can essentially create a full-on interactive web experience for free and with no knowledge of web design. This is great, but it limits your creativity, and it also requires your readers to remember multiple separate URLs.

On the flipside, you could reverse engineer all of these tools and create your own versions of them for use on your personal website, creating the same immersive user experience you get from using social tools, but that's a good deal of time and effort. The learning experience of building such tools is great, but we don't always have hundreds of hours to dedicate to rebuilding Flickr's robust photo management. Besides, doesn't it seem a little silly to reinvent the... read more

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