For documentation, please see the Jquery documentation. Using the firebug console, you can test the following javascript commands on any of your own forms.


// find a div with an id of "edit-taxonomy"
$("div[id=edit-taxonomy]").each(function(i,item){
console.log("Found");
})
// find a textarea with that has edit anywhere in the id
$("textarea[id*='edit']").each(function(i,item){
console.log("Found");
})
// find an input that has an id that starts with title
console.log($("input[id^='title']").length);


“Would you like to receive your tickets via post, or collect them as an e-ticket?” Ideally, I would like a member of their staff to deliver my tickets on an cushion fit for a king. I guess first class post will do. I will never arrange an “e-ticket” what does that even mean? When I use national rail, which may I say, are much better than the Virgin ticket sales site. It translates as a ticket reference number that you use to collect your tickets at the station.

The first time I asked for a Virgin e-ticket they sent me a reference number. Great – all sorted I thought. I got to the station to type it into the “fast-ticket” machine which lead to an epic fail. I realised then, the number was a transaction reference code. Could I get any help from the station staff? Perhaps in a couple of hours once the que had died down. My train was due in 10 minutes. Faced with the prospect of paying X hundreds of pounds for new tickets and facing an upset wife and baby. I begged and pleaded with the train guard to let us on.

Whilst being questioned, humiliated and made to feel like a stow-away at every given moment by the guards. We finally completed our journey to face the enormous task of trying to reclaim our return tickets. It turned out that Virgin had completely messed up and not processed my ticket order. Still, they were happy to take payment!

Thankfully, I was able to arrange the return tickets. But ordering my tickets just now on their website. Was like jumping through endless hoops, with no chance of changing the journey details. For that matter, being able to stay logged in! There was a couple of buttons that took me back instead of forward. A good website should not require the level of concentration required to complete the last level of computer game!

My rant is over.

• NicEdit
• TinyMCE

Whilst a decision on which editor is the best for you’re project depends entirely on your own circumstances. I am only focusing on these two for now and don’t claim to be a master on either.

Downloading

There’s one thing that bugs me about the process of downloading NicEdit. It smells of the Mootools Javascript framework for one particular reason. There’s a range of additional extras and packages that are included in the download. The problem is that if you need to download it again for any reason. How can you be sure you include everything that you need?

I much prefer the editor to arrive as a complete core package, rather than it being a combination of various features. I feel that TinyMCE make it easier for you by offering the whole lot, even with a version designed entirely for the JQuery javascript framework.

Size

Looking at the downloads for each editor, I was impressed with NicEdit for having on single JS file and and sprite image for the buttons. Since CodeIgniter is super trim and lightweight, it immediately felt like the right thing to use. Some say that a full blown template library like smarty is overkill for CodeIgniter. I use smarty all the time in CodeIgniter, as such, perhaps TinyMCE is an acceptable size. Also, the TinyMCE folder structure includes a designated plugins directory. Which brings me onto my next topic.

Plugins

It’s clear for every developer that every wysiwyg editor needs to be customisable so it can meet its technical or design requirements. So the main questions are which offers the easiest integration and which offer the most power. I am afraid to confess that I have not written a plugin for TinyMCE yet so cannot comment on how it works out for that. However, I have been able to extend NicEdit quite easily. It’s possible to override the data that’s provided to buttons. For instance I have supplied my editor with a tree of available links and a library of images to choose from. I could post the code if the interest is there.

Documentation

There’s a wiki and a small section of demonstrations for NicEdit. The wiki includes some information about how to interact with it using plugins. But the content is limited. On the contrary, the TinyMCE api documentation is fantastic. I think those two points were the deciding factors in which wysiwyg to use for my CodeIgniter project. I wanted to pick it up and run with it. It felt like I could get everything done quicker using NicEdit as it was easier to digest. And thankfully. it all worked straight away.

Conclusion

I am yet to determine if it’s possible to isolate the cursor position within the content. That would be helpful for a range of tasks, like image insertion from an alternative source. I am happy with using NicEdit for now, it suites my needs. However, I am really worried that I will need a feature that it does not support. Even worse, it does, but was not downloaded with the package included.

Given that the existing home page has to remain the same until your ready to “activate” the new one. You can modify the .htaccess file so the Wordpress site will only respond if the homepage has been called with a particular query string. This means you can test the Wordpress build without interrupting the main index page.

In order to do this, you have to modify your .htaccess file in the website root. Below is the modified .htaccess file, take a backup before testing!


# BEGIN WordPress
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/wp-content/
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/wp-includes/
RewriteRule . /$1/?test=true [L]
# END WordPress


Replace your existing .htaccess file with the code above and you are half way. Next modify your index.php in the wordpress site.


if(isset($_GET["test"])){
define('WP_USE_THEMES', true);
/* Loads the WordPress Environment and Template */
require('./wp-blog-header.php');
}else{
/* Your holding page HTML / include file */
}


You can redirect to, or include the existing index page within the else clause as described above. The links should still be intact because the .htaccess file is appending your url with the required query string.

So when you visit the site your existing homepage should remain the same. When you visit http://yoursite.com/?test=true your wordpress site should wake up and run accordingly.

A facebook group called “Calling all Badgers!!” has been created, lets see who makes it. The event is planned around September 2009, i am looking forward to it already.

There is still one consideration to make. At the moment, the video meta data from youTube is not cached. It gets requested every time a page loads. So it’s clear to me that the youTube video data should be acquired as soon as the post is published. There’s a Wordpress action hook available which I can use to save the results as post meta data.

I am not sure how much video I will shoot, nor how much data I want to save. Until I decide exactly what I want to do with it, I will probably leave it exactly the way it is.

• We are being dismissed from hospital, yay! Photo coming soon8:59 AM Mar 10thfrom twidroid
• Introducing to the world, Luke Alan Hardcastle #hardcastlebaby1:49 AM Mar 9th from twidroid
• @andygirvan how about any firebug esk extensions? I have not looked into it yet10:50 PM Mar 8th from web in reply to andygirvan
• @andymurphy I am reading Sebs copy of watchmen graphic novel. I will return it as soon as I finish. Its good but might spoil da film 4 me!1:39 AM Mar 8th from web in reply to andymurphy
• @brixtonholloway yes. It’s day 4 for us in hospital, going home tues. Time goes by .. so slowly .. and time.1:33 AM Mar 8th from web in reply to brixtonholloway
• http://twitpic.com/1wlc1 – Our son just nomed 100 ml of sma in one sitting!6:00 AM Mar 7th from TwitPic
• @glynroberts thanks. Ubuntu 9.10 is titled “karmic koala” – so that’s already taken hardcastlebaby5:47 AM Mar 5th from web in reply to glynroberts
• @yamietech the #hardcastlebaby is now a twitter search term search.twitter.com5:43 AM Mar 5th from web in reply to yamietech
• http://twitpic.com/1v17p – Thanks to my mom for the roses and gifts!5:27 AM Mar 5th from TwitPic
• The great name debate rages on. For now its #hardcastlebaby – will let you know in good time5:06 AM Mar 5th from twidroid
• I have a spare two minutes to thank everyone for tweets of support and praise. We will speak 2 y’all real soon!5:00 AM Mar 5th from twidroid
• http://twitpic.com/1uxmz – Both Ruth and baby are doing fine1:55 AM Mar 5th from TwitPic
• http://twitpic.com/1uiz4 – Our baby boy 3280 grams / 7.2 lb11:51 AM Mar 4th from TwitPic
• Our baby boy has arrived! Delivered @ 19:25 – pic to follow10:59 AM Mar 4th from twidroid
• @yamietech yeah I deleted it cos it was really un complimentary5:45 AM Mar 4th from web in reply to yamietech
• To everyones surprise, ruth is fully dilated! Baby will be with us very soon. I have my cigar ready!!!5:16 AM Mar 4th from twidroid
• The head is at minus 3 position. 3 cm dilated1:12 AM Mar 4th from twidroid
• http://twitpic.com/1u5bn – Ruth live at the scene12:39 AM Mar 4th from TwitPic
• We have decided to go for an eppy-drupal11:38 PM Mar 3rd from twidroid
• All ok. Ruth has a drip, we have a room we a dawn view over houses of parliament. Seems like good progress4:56 PM Mar 3rd from twidroid
• OMG like totally off to hospital to meet midwifes with Ruth and her mum. Could this be it??3:27 PM Mar 3rd from web
• Theres very little news about Ruths labour. It feels like process has stalled!6:13 AM Mar 3rd from web
• Contractions at the moment are suspected to be about 15 minutes apart. Midwife on the way for checkup. No hospital yet.12:43 AM Mar 3rd from web
• No need for hospital just yet. Ruth will be at home with her mum. I am off to work on standby.4:41 PM Mar 2nd from twidroid
• Due to a “show” last night. We think that early stages of labour is on its way.9:19 PM Mar 2nd from twidroid
• Just testing twitpic, in preparation for baby photos. Its due in one week and two hours!6:52 AM Mar 2nd from TwitterFox
• http://twitpic.com/1t1rc -11:47 AM Mar 2nd from TwitPic
• Arggh! smarty.net is down!1:37 AM Mar 1st from web
• @philaskew Dr Seuss rocks, I love the illustrations. I am on the look out for some uber cool original Peter Rabbit aswell.11:32 PM Feb 25th from TwitterFox in reply to philaskew
• Story time failed – cos its “too violent”12:56 PM Feb 25th from twidroid
• Thanks to @spol the new bed time story for by soon-to-be-born son is the watchmen comic12:50 PM Feb 25th from twidroid