Zenji Web Development

The trouble with the right-alignment of input fields

Jason — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 10:32:31 +0000

Everyone knows that when you have a text box which accepts a number, it should automatically right-align the text content. Well maybe not everyone, but accountants certainly do and if you’re writing an application for an accountant it just won’t look right unless the values are right-aligned.

Simple, I thought - text-align:right in the CSS and the jobs a good ‘un. Well yes, you would think so. The fact of the matter is that text-align:right is only supposed to apply to block level elements (according to the CSS2 specs), although it isn’t quite implemented that way in all browsers. So, add display:block in there as well just to be on the safe side:

Left Align:

Right Align:

Job done! Well, not quite if you are viewing this in Internet Explorer 7. Click in the input field which is aligned to the right and no cursor displays at all! I must be tired today because this took me ages to work out and I found no reference to it anywhere in the web. For some reason the cursor is there - it’s just off to the right a little too far. I say ’some reason’ when I now know that the actual reason is that the padding is set to 0px. The reason for this happens to be because it has inherited the property from other elements in my form layout, but in this example I have added it specifically. Add a little padding to the right and hey presto:

Left Align:

Right Align:

That’s just strange. Zero padding displays the cursor on the left, but not the right. Except in Firefox, which just shows it correctly in either case.

Google Maps proof of concept

Jason — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:14:06 +0000

An interesting job this one - develop a proof of concept application for vehicle tracking using the Google Maps API. The vehicles in question are already fitted with a GPS positioning system which also provide various other useful bits of information, most notably g-forces. (more…)

ConfigureIIS running on systems without IIS

Jason — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:53:15 +0000

These days I always seem to find myself writing installers for clients using WiX. What usually happens is I get there to find they are really struggling to maintain their current installers, more often then not in InstallShield. So I go and tell them they should try WiX since it has so many advantages over certain other products. For a start it’s actually maintained by several Microsoft guys and enjoys a big support community. Also since the source code is written in XML it is much easier to check in to source control and maintain.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, my evangelising on the subject usually ends in the words ‘here you go then, write an installer for that’. And so I end up with the job yet again.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have its issues like so many other things in the world of software development, especially when you end up writing some monster installer that installs a web-client, web-services, windows-services and the odd database or two.

Today’s issue was ConfigureIIS which is a custom action executed if you are creating a . Unfortunately even if you are not installing the web component that needs IIS to be configured it will still attempt to execute ConfigureIIS which causes an error to appear if IIS is not installed. Just having a web component in your installer is enough to fire it off.

Looking on the WiX mailing lists it seems that it is a known issue and the only way around it currently is by modifying and recompiling the source code for WiX itself. Not a lot of fun when you just want to write an installer and it takes you away from the currently released code, which I find it is best to avoid when working for other clients.

However, in the process of modifying the source I found the property SKIPCONFIGUREIIS. Set this to true and it no longer runs the ConfigureIIS custom action. Obviously you need to make sure it’s only turned off for the relevant features of your installer. It’s just a shame they didn’t make it a little more widely known!

To be honest I could have kicked myself since I already knew of the SKIPINSTALLSQLDATA for turning off the database activity when not required. That one is a little more published though.

Financial Advice Client Management

Jason — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 10:07:52 +0000

Starting soon is a new application for accountants David Newton to assist the financial advice team in managing their client base and ensuring they are meeting all of their clients financial needs. (more…)

Mortgage Calculator

Jason — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:20:58 +0000

Here’s a helpful little gadget I just knocked up.

Zenji Website v2.0

Jason — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 18:30:07 +0000

Much like the shoe-makers children we’ve been too busy working for others to actually make much needed improvements to our own site! It has been in need of attention since, well since I can remember actually.

(more…)

Adrian Johnson Website Goes Live

Jason — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:19:05 +0000

With great fanfare the new site for the artist Adrian Johnson has now gone live! With a few months delay while Adrian has been out of the country promoting his works (I think I’m in the wrong job!) the site is now ready to do business. And with Adrian’s carefully selected artworks the site certainly has come alive. The design gives a great presentation framework for the art and allows the site owner to modify the layout at will. As a result the content is always fresh and well presented. (more…)

S&J Link Jobcard Web Application

Jason — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 16:15:07 +0000

This is an application we have been working on for a couple of months for conservatory manufacturer S&J Link Ltd. The requirement was for a zero install application which could take the place of their current, paper-based job tracking system. (more…)

AdrianJohnson.org.uk

Jason — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:40:49 +0000

A new site is in the pipeline for the artist Adrian Johnson. This time we’ll be working with Ben from Radio Design who is preparing the visual design to sit on top of a fully content managed website. (more…)

Samba server connections on a Mac

Jason — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 08:21:44 +0000

Since I got the Mac a couple of months ago there is one thing that keeps bugging me; connecting to my server is not particularly reliable. Dropped connections seemed to be pretty much guaranteed half way through a job that involves anything more than a couple of Mb of data. Since I tend to use the server for automated backups of my other machines it just hasn’t been happening for the Mac. Slowly I’ve got more and more concerned about having no regular backups.

A chance comment I came across whilst Googling for something else seems to have cleared up the issue. It seems my technique of using the Network utility in the Finder was the main issue. It is certainly the simplest option and most people seem to use it for that very reason. The trouble is it doesn’t always get the protocol right. You can check this by creating a connection to your server (in the finder choose Network and then browse to your server and connect to a share), selecting the new connection and then checking the info (Apple key and I). Mine shows up as:

cifs://my_server/backup

Since my Linux server uses Samba for the network shares it’s far better to connect using the Samba protocol:

smb://my_server/backup

The easiest way to set this up is through the ‘Connect to Server’ utility in the Finder. This also stores your server connections for easy future access. You should be able to simply type the connection string in and then connect at will. Hopefully you’ll see a much more stable connection in future.

(An extra tip - once you have the connection set up you can automatically connect at login by adding it to the list in System Preferences->Accounts->Login Items)