| pg 1 of 2 | More |
revford blog
That was a heroic effort!
Site Search Added
Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:11:02 GMT
Added a simple search tool to the site, click Search in the menu and use the box that pops down.
Dumping Flash on YouTube
Fri, 25 Nov 2011 10:25:55 GMT
Some people are still getting the Flash version of YouTube videos embedded on this site, if that's the case you're still using the Flash version of YouTube, not the updated HTML5 one. If you're using a sensible modern browser (or IE9+) you've no need to suffer Flash on YouTube any more.
To be free of Flash on most YouTube videos, just follow the link and click on Join the HTML5 trial.
Site Code Updates
Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:20:33 GMT
Updates to Firefox over the year mean that the -moz CSS3 additions are no longer needed, so I can drop them. This means layout code for the site is now just standard CSS3 and displays correctly on all sensible modern browsers.
It shouldn't make any difference to how things look, it's just going to make pages a tiny bit smaller so load a tiny bit faster.
Firefox 4 beta 9 improves CSS3 support
Sat, 22 Jan 2011 18:03:44 GMT
Playing around with the latest beta of Firefox (or to be exact Iceweasel) and it looks like all the CSS3 code I use on the site is finally supported without special -moz properties.
This means when Firefox 4 is released, I can drop all the non-standard CSS from the site, which will speed up the load time a tiny bit and make me happier because everything will validate.
Chrome, along with it's WebKit cousins like Safari and Epiphany, as well as Opera already support these features.
As an aside, I've updated the script for YouTube videos used on the site to call the HTML5 video player for WebM video where supported, but fall back to Flash where it's not. Before long we'll be free of Flash.
More on embedding the HTML5 player and WebM here:
A New Way To Embed YouTube Videos
About the WebM Project
No double standards: supporting Google's push for WebM
CSS update
Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:53:05 GMT
Another under the hood code update to the site, moved all the Mozilla specific CSS into a separate file.
Shouldn't make any difference to viewers, it's just to make the old code easier to remove when Firefox 4 and it's Gecko 2.0 cousins are released that use the CSS3 standard code.
Site Update, Better CSS, Less Javascript
Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:15:35 GMT
Minor code updates to the site, removing some javascript and replacing it with smarter CSS. Should cause the main page and news post pages to render faster, while improving the way layout is handled for mobile phones and text browsers.
Traveller UWP Decoder Update
Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:44:57 GMT
Just a quick update, the decoder was borking over system names with spaces in, all fixed now.
Traveller Search Galaxy, proof of concept
Tue, 31 Aug 2010 02:14:46 GMT
Another new Traveller tool for the website, it's a search tool to find planetary information.
Searches return UWPs you can click on to get a plain English description, they lead to the decode UWP page I update the other day.
You can search on any part of a UWP, most useful would be a planet name or remark. For example, searching for Green would return all systems with Green in the name, while searching for Ga would return all planets with Ga in the name and all planets with the remark Ga for Garden World.
This is very much a test of concept, it currently only covers a few subsectors of the Spinward Marches and Foreven Sectors. This will improve once I get motivated to enter more data, or talk David into doing some more of it.
As we create our own universes for Traveller games, I'll add search boxes for them too.
Audio Player Updated
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:32:45 GMT
Updated the media player slightly, simplified it to a one button that switches between play and pause, rather than two individual buttons.
There is also a movie player in the code, but I've got no movies to post at the mo.
Grab the code from the links at the bottom.
Traveller UWP decoder updated, now useful
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:38:13 GMT
I've finally made the traveller UWP decoder useful.
It now has two modes of operation, you can access it with a link as before:
Emape 0103 B564500-B N I Ag Ga NI A G
Or just go directly to the page where you'll get a box like this one, where you can enter your own UWP and hit enter to decode.
As a bonus it now translates the remarks to plan text descriptions, to save you remembering what Ag and Ht mean.
I am planning more features, like a searchable database of OTU worlds, but all that is for the future. It's taken most of the year for me to drag my lazy arse back to this and add an entry box.
HTML5 and CSS3
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:47:31 GMT
HTML5
I should have mentioned this in one of the previous site update posts, but I've moved over to HTML5 for the site now.
This is long overdue as it makes things easier for me and all the modern browsers have great support for it.
The only thing holding me back was a Firefox validator extension, but I've given up waiting on it to add HTML5 support. This means I'm back to having validator links on the pages, they don't hurt so don't worry about them.
CSS3
The code that's causing pages to not validate is still the -moz- variants of border-radius for Gecko. I like the effect
too much to give it up to make my code validate. The WebKit browsers no longer require the -webkit- addition. Come on
Mozilla, catch up.
It doesn't cause problems for browsers that don't support it. It just gets ignored. But it's still irritating.
So that's it, the site is now updated to the latest web standards and ready for the crazy future world we've all ended up living in.
New Audio Player
Sun, 29 Aug 2010 01:37:42 GMT
Some fiddling about with HTML5 and Javascript has created a new simple media player for the site.
Thanks to the <audio> tag in HTML5 I can move over from the mess of browser and plugin detection scripts I used to have to one simple player. No plugins required.
I've tested it in sensible browsers (Firefox/Chromium/Opera/Safari) on GNU/Linux and MacOS. It should work in recent versions of these and similar browsers for other platforms too.
Mac users will still need to install the Quicktime Components for Free media formats, I use Ogg Vorbis for audio on this site. MacOS doesn't include support for reasons of wanky Apple corporate greed.
B Movie Madness on YouTube
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 13:15:50 GMT
YouTube in the UK has now launched a movie section, carrying all sorts of B movies. It's like Harvey's movie collection, but online.
Tons of Jackie Chan, a few MST3K classics and plenty of Zombies.
Site Updates
Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:54:53 GMT
A few minor code updates to the website today.
WebKit no longer requires the -webkit-border-radius CSS code, it now follows the standard border-radius, so I've updated the website. This leaves the Mozilla -moz-border-radius as the only non-standard CSS I include on the site. Come on Mozilla, your CSS3 is lagging behind Opera and WebKit now. :)
Also a minor change to the RSS feed, the current recommendation is to have the actual items as the last elements in the channel, so I moved the link up to the top. The old layout was valid, but the changes now matches all the RSS Best Practices Profile recommendations.
All this shouldn't make any difference to how the site works, other than it being slightly quicker to load (6 or so fewer lines of code, I don't think anyone could notice the difference) and a step closer to prefect standards compliance (which possibly only matters to me).
Traveller UWP decoder
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:37:31 GMT
I've added a simple web based UWP (Universal World Profile) decoder, it should turn regular Traveller UWPs into a human readable description of the world.
I've turned all the UWPs on the Machine Parts Transit Solutions page into links that decode them. Which is much more useful than code only Dave can read. :)
Here are a few examples:
- Iderati 0702 A887798-C N I Ht Ri Ag Ga Cap G
- Penelope 0503 C460642-4 I Ri NI De Lt G
- Mirriam 0303 B9998A6-A N I IWS A G
- Emape 0103 B564500-B N I Ag Ga NI A G
Site Updated
Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:46:38 GMT
It's been months but I've finally managed to sit down and write some more proper code.
I've replaced more of the Javascript that drives this site with Perl, this means more of the work is carried out offline, on my machine that generates and uploads this site, leaving less work for the web browsers of visitors to do.
Basically that means the whole site should speed up a bit. We should loose that second or so delay before the menu and logo appear.
I've also stopped trying to fix things for IE 6 now. Seriously now if you're still using IE 6 you should either switch to a standards compliant browser [Firefox| Opera|Chrome| Safari|Lynx] or at worst upgrade to a more recent version of IE.
Updated CSS
Tue, 26 May 2009 12:29:13 GMT
A while back Jak mentioned that he couldn't read the text on this page clearly, after a chat it turned out that the transparency on the page divs was the problem. The variations in the shades of grey on the text made it tricky to read.
So I've dropped the transparency and updated the colours used, borrowing the palette from the Tango open desktop project to hopefully provide a nice clear colour scheme.
That should solve any legibility issues.
You can grab all the CSS used on the site here:
Bookmarks
Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:35:09 GMT
As a special bonus for Harvey, you can now access my browser bookmarks here:
We've Moved!
Wed, 04 Feb 2009 12:24:27 GMT
Transfer complete, we've now moved from revford.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk to revford.co.uk.
Everything should have crossed over now and a magical redirection page at the old address should give you the right link to the new site.
Nothing should really change right away, other than a much neater address. I've got a few new features planned that should appear over the next few months.
TVCatchup, web based Freeview
Wed, 26 Nov 2008 22:21:45 GMT
A nice addition to the iPlayer and the BBC Live streams, TVCatchup is a free (ad supported) web service that streams a whole mess of UK freeview channels live.
Strangely it doesn't include a catchup service as the name suggests, but it's quite handy to add ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 live streaming to the existing BBC services.
| pg 1 of 2 | More |
HTML