waltdesign.com » Client Side Web Programming

Strong Password – a new free JavaScript tool

Walter Wimberly — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 12:26:30 +0000

In the same spirit in which Validator was released in this post, I am also releasing several other JavaScript tools. It has taken a little longer than I expected to prepare them for release. But I wanted to release the tools with good documentation, and several examples.

Strong Password has been in soft release since Validator, and now is being fully released.

It includes 4 separate examples on how to use and extend the Strong Password tool, including making visual graphs, custom text, and integrating with Form Validator to prevent users from using weak passwords on your site.

Strong Password is completely customizable so you can set anything you want including, what constitutes password strength, how strong each of the 4 settings are, and more. So check out Strong Password and see what it can do for your users.

Validator – Improved Samples

Walter Wimberly — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 03:06:29 +0000

I’ve updated the samples provided with validator to clearly show the code used on the sample page, instead of making you view the source code. Hopefully it will be helpful to those who are looking to use a simple Form Validation tool.

Form Validator is a free JavaScript form validation tool that requires almost no knowledge of JavaScript, just simple HTML skills.

Update to Validator – a JavaScript Form Validator

Walter Wimberly — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 12:14:32 +0000

I small bug was discovered and fixed in the Validator JavaScript library. The new upload (version 0.9.1) has been released. The bug related to how the minval function was working.

About Validator

Validator is a easy to use form validation tool. If your client machine has JavaScript enabled, it will capture almost any kind of Form Validation you might need. Some basic benefits of Validator are:

Do not have to know JavaScript
23 different validation rules to test against!
Validates different types of input forms, not just text and text areas.
Maintains separation of content, display, and interaction on the web page.
External JavaScript file so it can be cached and used on multiple pages efficiently.
Tested on Fire Fox 2, IE 6, and IE7. (Should work on others as well.)
Customizable error messages by setting attributes.
Customizable error messages by using CSS styles.

These will allow you to validate your forms quickly, easily, and reduce the time and effort you have to put into building your own validation techniques.

Why Ajax doesn’t need Dreamweaver

Walter Wimberly — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 04:18:40 +0000

There have been several discussions recently on if Ajax developers need Dreamweaver or not. Dreamweaver is a good tool, but it is just a tool not a solution.

The more I use Dreamweaver, the more I can see both its strengths and weaknesses. Let’s look from both points of view to determine if Ajax really needs Dreamweaver. As someone who doesn’t work for Adobe, but has used Dreamweaver for over six (6) years, I am a little bit more objective than some of the voices that have spoken.

Why using Dreamweaver makes sense:

Dreamweaver is sold (basically) as a WYSIWYG editor. And it does more or less a good job at approximating what you see on the screen.
The ability to synchronize files is probably the number one reason for me to use Dreamweaver, especially on websites with several hundred pages.
Dreamweaver makes it easy to import/export site settings so you can move between machines/users.
HTML code completion and attribute assistance in code and split view.
Server side code completion – if you hold CTRL + Space button in code and split view. (Why do I have to have a key code combination for this?)

Why using Dreamweaver doesn’t make sense(in respect to Ajax):

No code completion for JavaScript, even when working with an external JavaScript file.
Not all attributes can be edited in Design view through the property inspector.
No support for external (non-Adobe) established frameworks. Many established and effective frameworks (jQuery, prototype, yui, etc.) exist; yet Dreamweaver does not directly support them.
As CSS gets more complex, the rendering of it becomes slower and less accurate for the screen display, causing pages to take sometimes in excess of 20-30 seconds to load and render in design/split mode.
Code collapse requires that you highlight the code section to collapse. Other editors recognize function and tag blocks and allow you to quickly collapse/expand your code block.
No built-in Debugger

When I started at my current employer I wondered how I was going to work because they didn’t have Dreamweaver. However, I didn’t really have a problem. I’ve recently started using Visual Studio Web Developer Express for the server side ASP programming and Aptana for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and for the Server Side programming. These free tools have allowed me to do almost everything that I can do with Dreamweaver. (I miss syncing files.) I’ve been pleasantly surprised by Aptana in many areas, including code completion of external JavaScript files, reading JavaDoc comments for external files, and having an excellent preview pane. I wish it could perform rich text copy/paste and (mostly) WYSIWYG editing like Dreamweaver, but it is not a complete version yet, and it is free.

The fact of the matter is, for a designer, who doesn’t want to write any code; Dreamweaver will do almost everything they need. However, if you need to use something that doesn’t come out of the box, or perform “real” programming for the web, you will find that Dreamweaver may not be the best tool for you.

Validator – JavaScript Form Validator

Walter Wimberly — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 03:54:13 +0000

OK so I said I would be releasing some of the tools I’ve developed over time to the general public. Well here is the first one: Validator.

It is a JavaScript (not that you’ll have to write hardly any of it) form validator. With just a one line of code to initialize it, and a couple of easy attributes to add to your form elements, you can have access to 23 (yes count them 23 – actually do count them I’m afraid of missing one or two) different types of validation for your form inputs.

I wrote Validator after not finding something that worked for me and what I was wanting. I found some that required specific server side languages to be used (not portable), others required complicated JavaScript initialization, or limited you to only specific browsers. I wanted something that just worked, and worked where ever I took it, regardless of the server or the clien’s browser. With that in mind, I developed a portable, customizable Form Validation Library that meets each of these goals, and then some. There are some advantages to using Validator over other methods:

Do not have to know JavaScript
Validates for many different types of input values
Validates different types of input forms, not just text fields.
Maintains separation of content (xhtml/html), display/style (CSS), and interaction (JavaScript) on the web page.
External JavaScript file so it can be cached and used on multiple pages efficiently.
Tested and works on Firefox 2, IE 6, and IE7. (Should work on others as well.)
Fully customizable error messages by setting attributes.
Fully customizable error styles by using CSS styles.
Good documentation on how to use it, and sample pages.

Feel free to check out the Validator Library and post comments and suggestions.

Note: As this is client side validation, it is possible for someone to skip the validation process entirely – so never rely solely on client side validation, always back-up your efforts with server side validation if possible. The client side simply keeps from having to perform too many round trip efforts in the validation process.