Happy National Regex Day!

To celebrate I'd like to share some tips for working with Regular Expressions that have helped me over the years I've been using them. I've got 5 tips to share today (#1 is already in the post on Ben Nadel's blog that I linked to but thought it worthwhile to repeat here, sorry if it is a dupe for you...)

Tip #1, for Dreamweaver Users: If you're a Dreamweaver user and need to build a regular expression, start learning about the Server Behavior Builder. When you create a server behavior, Dreamweaver generates a regular expression to match the code block(s). If you're in a hurry (or especially if you're just learning regular expressions), the regexes Dreamweaver generates can be a good starting point. You'll find the regexes it generates are in your user's Configuration in .edml files (which are XML files).

Tip #2, for CFEclipse users (assuming this works in other flavors of Eclipse as well): When you use the Search dialog (ctrl+H on the Mac), there's the obvious Regular Expression checkbox. With your focus in the Containing Text field, press Ctrl+Space to get a handy regex cheat sheet.

Tip #3, a Workflow Tip: When trying to come up with that perfect regex, take the time to build a static page or two that has what you want to match in it. Essentially, create a use case document. Then use your favorite regex capable Find and Replace tool to work up to creating the perfect regex. For instance, if you have a huge string to match, start by trying to match only the first 5 characters then add on to your regex and test again. When you've got it matching your use cases, then go ahead and plug it into your ColdFusion or JavaScript code (you don't use other code right? ;-))

Tip #4, Debugging Regular Expressions: You'll most likely find yourself debugging a regex at some point or another, and for me its usually because I missed a use case. (That's when its time to update the use case document.) Any time I've got a regex that isn't quite working right, I trim it back. In other words, I do the opposite of what I described in the first part of my workflow tip above. Stop trying to match what you really want to match in its entirety, take a bit away from the regex at a time until it starts matching your use case file. (If you didn't make a use case file, now is the time to do it!) Then build that regex back up again little by little until you have it matching everything you want.

Tip #5, Application Comments: In the case of using a regex in an application (versus in Find and Replace), always, always make a comment on what that regex means in plain English terms and why you need to use it in the first place. Sooner or later, someone will look at the regex and quite possibly have their eyes glaze over -- it could be you! So do yourself and others a favor and take a couple minutes to comment it. If you're extra geeky you'll have your comment refer to your use case file so they can actually see exactly what the heck that fancy string of characters is supposed to match.

First print ads, now I'm on TV! Ok, so it isn't regular TV, it's SYS-CON.TV but its still TV...

On Tuesday (October 18, 2005) at about 5:45pm I was interviewed by SYS-CON.TV's Jeremy Geelan, live and unscripted. The interview was recorded at MAX 2005 right there in SYS-CON's booth. The interview appears to be completely unedited*, lasting a bit over 5 minutes.

*The interview is a bit of a blur, I was so tired at the time. To the best of my memory, everything recorded is being played.

I think the camera added a good 10lbs., I say "um" and "uh" a whole lot, and my grammar could have been better if I'd thought a bit more before answering, but otherwise it was pretty good for me. (I'm probably my worst critic...) Once you watch the interview, feel free to leave a comment here on my blog to let me know what you thought.

You asked for it, now you can get it; Cartweaver 2 PHP is now available. (If you didn't ask for it, we'll still let you buy it don't worry.)

As you can probably tell, we're quite excited to have a new product to offer. PHP is a very popular server model and many people have contacted Cartweaver support to inquire about a PHP version of our popular shopping cart software.

The ASP, ColdFusion and PHP versions all look the same online. To make it easier for developers who code in multiple server models, we kept all three versions as similar as possible structurally.

As for the Dreamweaver extensions, between all versions everything is identical with the exception of a few minor differences in the installation and setup due to server model requirements.

Special thanks to Tom Muck, our PHP developer for all of his hard work. You've done an incredible job Tom!

Due out soon, is Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7 Web Application Construction Kit by Ben Forta and Ray Camden with Leon Chalnick and Angela C. Buraglia (that's me!). I only wrote chapter 2, which is an overview of Dreamweaver geared towards ColdFusion developers. (The new ColdFusion MX 7 extensions for Dreamweaver are covered in other chapters, not the one I wrote.)

Ben will be posting the table of contents on his site. I do have the back cover copy from the book that I can share:

Macromedia® ColdFusion® MX 7 Web application construction kit

The ColdFusion MX 7 Web Application Construction Kit is the latest edition of the best-selling ColdFusion book of all time-the one that most ColdFusion developers used to first learn the product.

This reference starts with ColdFusion fundamentals, then progresses to techniques for all the most critical functions, including creating data-driven pages, building complete applications, implementing security mechanisms, integration with email, building reusable functions and components, generating data driven reports and graphs, interacting with Macromedia Flash, and much more. From design and installation, to application deployment and troubleshooting, this book is all you need to succeed with ColdFusion MX 7.

New ColdFusion MX 7 features and options covered in this edition include:

• Using Dreamweaver MX 2004 extensions to simplify application development

• Creating printable documents in PDF and FlashPaper formats

• Leveraging ColdFusion's new reporting tool

• Generating engaging Flash forms

• Harnessing the power of XForms and XSL

• And much, much more

CD-ROM includes:

• Developer edition of ColdFusion MX 7

• Evaluation version of Dreamweaver MX 2004

• Ten bonus chapters on more advanced ColdFusion topics

• All source code and example applications

I just got done reading a post by Tom Muck about rogue extensions for Dreamweaver. Though his post is geared towards Dreamweaver, it is important to note that the same issues exist for other Macromedia programs such as Flash and Fireworks which also rely on the Extension Manager to install/uninstall extensions. Tom's post is a must-read for anyone using any Macromedia product that uses the Extension Manager to install extensions.

A rogue extension can come from any extension developer, including reputable companies. There are no regulations in place to prevent extensions from the problems described in Tom's post.

For the average user it is not easy to determine if the extensions offered by any particular person or business are safe to install without worry that their configuration will be corrupted. At this point, the average user is left to trial and error...

Rest assured that any extension that I've written and will write will never "overwrite" a Macromedia default file. If it means that I can't release the extension without modifying one of Macromedia's files, oh well. I'd rather know that I haven't caused the frustration of even a single extension user than be selfish and write my extensions without regard to repercussions.

I feel it is important to spread the word about the potential for problems. Tom's points are all very valid concerns. At the same time, I hesitate to write on this topic because it could easily be seen as trying to bash a potential competitor or further my own business.

On the other hand, if I say nothing at all, then what? The potential for conflicting extensions becoming a common problem is definitely there in my opinion. I can't just sit back knowing this and say absolutely nothing about it.

This post alone possibly risks causing certain companies/people to become upset with me for speaking out about it. I sure hope it doesn't ruffle any feathers because my intentions are good, but I guess that's a chance I'm taking...

I doubt it is Tom's intention, and it certainly is not my intention to scare people into avoiding extensions. If you run into a problem, removing\renaming your User's Configuration should restore things normal. Worst case scenario, you'll have to reinstall.

It's almost time for the 2nd Annual March Mingle to be held this Wednesday, March 16th at Dave N Busters in San Diego, California. There's no cost to attend, with free pool and finger foods. Just bring a few bucks for drinks.

There will be about 20 user groups represented this year from all over Southern California, who's focus range from web design, to Macromedia products, to operating systems, and programming languages. ColdFusion, .Net, PHP and general geeks alike (that's a compliment) will gather to eat, drink, shoot pool, socialize and network from 6:30pm to 10pm.

Oh, and you don't have to be a user group memeber to attend either. So even if you're not a user group member, you should come and shoot some pool, meet some people, and possibly win some very cool door prizes.

For the Dreamweaver users attending, Site-Drive Inc. (DWfaq.com) is donating a bundle of all DWfaq.com Dreamweaver extensions and Application Dynamics Inc. (Cartweaver.com) is donating a license of Cartweaver as door prizes.

There will even be some not-necessarily-just-for-geeks prizes, a very cool Cuetec Black Graphite Cue and a poker chip set courtesy of FiveStarBilliards.com. There will be more door prizes from Macromedia, The O'Reilly User Group Program, Sterling Ledet and Associates, and That Technical Bookstore too. With as many prizes as there are to be given away, there's a pretty good chance of winning something.

We've been working on Cartweaver ASP for what seemed like an eternity, and now it is finally available. Dan posted on his blog that he's finally done. Ha, he's too funny. There will be customers to support, add-ons to create and who knows what else... The way I see it, we're never "done". <grin />

Writing a single toolbar to manage multiple Cartweaver server models was no easy task let me tell you. (It's ok if you give me a blank stare, nearly everyone else does when I start talking about coding extensions.) I laid the groundwork for multiple versions from day one, but there were things that I couldn't have accounted for that needed adjusting when the time came to actually support multiple server models.

As it turned out, the ASP version required several more fields in its Setup, so that brought along a whole new interface for the Setup that is similar to the Preferences dialog in Dreamweaver. Then "feature creep" set in and I started adding other new features to the extension. Before we knew it I'd added context help icons for nearly every field in each dialog that pop up a little window that tells you what the field is for and its valid values.

I added a bunch more little features here and there that most people would take for granted. I won't bore you with all of them, but one of them is that if you make a mistake in a certain field, the error message tells you which field, then switches to the right category for you and puts focus in that field so you can make the correction right away.

If you read my post yesterday you know all about DWfaq CCR. Cartweaver ASP uses DWfaq CCR's syntax for conditional regions already because Dan has been using CCR nearly 2 years now. So it was decided among the Cartweaver Team that it would be cool if Cartweaver ASP could render the tabbed regions like you see when using <cfif> in ColdFusion.

So we decided to go ahead and add an ultra-lite version of the CCR translator, of DWfaq's CCR for Cartweaver since I already had the work done. Cartweaver ASP customers will see "CWASP: If" in the tab, but if DWfaq's CCR is installed the If statement itself renders in the tab.

You're still reading this? Wow, that's great...thank you. Anyway, I don't want to bore you so I'll quit while I'm ahead. <wink />

I'm sure I'll end up babbling about Cartweaver here again soon. Thanks for listening...

Since I've been back from MAX it's been non-stop work! I've been coding extensions and making site updates all day and all night... Below is the official announcement of some the work I've been doing in addition to the soon-to-be-released Cartweaver 2 ASP.

If you have any questions please let me know!

CCR began nearly 2 years ago, but never got packaged for public use because I always had one thing or another going on. I can't express how pleased that I am to finally release it! I must take this opportunity to thank Dan for all his hard work and patience. I'd also like to thank Tom Muck for introducing me to writing translators the EDML way nearly 2 years ago. I wouldn't have been able to do CCR without you two...thanks guys! I'll add another tick to the tally of beers I owe you both... ;-)

Thursday was the final day of Macromedia MAX 2004. This year was even better than the last, and I'm already looking forward to next year's MAX. (Hopefully, next year will be scheduled a tad further away from Halloween or other holiday.)

I met a few people at lunch yesterday that were at the same table who were at MAX last year and caught my last year's session and my session this year. I'd been worried that people who attended both years would not be happy to see some of the same tips. They assured me they were more than satisfied with the ammount of new content, so I'm relieved.

There were a few people I didn't meet that I had hoped to meet. If you're Steve from Fig Leaf or Randy Edmunds from Macromedia and you're reading this, I kept my eye out for you but didn't find you. Mike Hazard, I was also hoping I'd get the chance to introduce myself and say congrats on the MAX award. When they played the video, your name seemed very familiar to me, and sure enough you're also a DWfaq.com customer. :-) Hopefully I'll get to meet all three of you next time!

It's always nice to meet the people that I exchange emails with and DWfaq.com or Cartweaver.com customers. This year I met Cornel Ivanescu, who is using Cartweaver to sell registration for the upcoming ColdFusion and Flash focussed Powered by Detroit conference in April 2005. (Cornel, it was a pleasure meeting you and see you in April!) I also met Scott Fegette, Christine Lawson, Ray Camden, Rob Christiansen, Angela Kozlowski, Michael and Judy Dinowitz, Adam Bell, Shlomy Gantz, Simon Horwith and quite a few people who's first names I remember and last names I can't remember how to spell so please forgive the exclusion here. ;-)

It's an overwhelming experience meeting so many people! Here's hoping that I get to see all of you again next year at MAX (or other event) and if I draw a blank on your name, please don't hold it against me. I'm terrible with names, but after we meet a second time I usually can remember...

Until next year...cheers!

Those who read my blog regularly are probably noticing an influx of posts... Well, I wrote the previous post at MAX in a .txt file then forgot to post it much until later. Sorry! I'm also fudging the time stamp on this one and a few more. I know, I know... Cut me a little slack will ya? These conferences are so busy that I just didn't find the time to post sooner. Now, on with Tuesday...

Last night Dan, Joe Marini and I went to a tasty little place in the French Quarter called Bayona with the folks from Lynda.com. The food was incredible, and the company was very nice. It's always fun hanging out with Joe and talking about Dreamweaver's extensibility.

If you get the chance to go to Bayona and you're a fan of garlic like I am, be sure to try the Cream of Garlic Soup. Yummmmm

I just finished my first presenation of Dreamweaver Killer Tips at Macromedia MAX 2004. Aside from a few typos in my slides (the slides should be updated on Macromedia's site in the coming week) and a projection glitch, I think it went over pretty well. Whenever I give a tips session, I make it my goal to teach the audience at least two things they didn't know before they came to my session. From the show of hands it looks like I accomplished my goal.

Unfortunately a problem with the projector got me started about 5 minutes late. It was cutting off the first 300 pixels of my screen so I had to adjust. Instead of doing the Power Point full screen as a slide show, I had to open Power Point and click through the slides along the left. Things weren't as large this way unfortunately but at least it was all showing.

My presentation is available online at Macromedia's site for conference attendees. I noticed a few typos in the slides, and will get those fixed and over to Macromedia so they can upload the changes. The typos weren't anything too major. I'll list them here so that those who don't want to download again (or wait for Macromedia to upload the changes).

On the slide "How to Create collapsing Borders" it should say: table.tabulardata, tabular.tabulardata td, tabular.tabulardata th{ border: 1px solid #000000; border-collapse: collapse; }

There was a funky character encoding going on in the "Resources: Extensions for Dreamweaver" slide that changed a line continuation character into something that looked like an E with a ^ above it. The URL should be: http://www.macromedia.com/exchange/dreamweaver/

Two silly mistakes of which I'm sorry. Hopefully if you were there you learned at least 2 things and that made up for the typos and projector glitches. Thanks to everyone for their patience with the pojection issue.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions here on my blog or shoot me an email (at the address on the last slide). I'm always my worst critic, and know I'll do better the next 3 times. :-)

Thanks!

Phew! I finally finished Template-Lover's Suite 3 a few days ago and am able to let everyone know it. TLS3 (because I'm to lazy to type out the whole name over and over again) took way more work than I was expecting it to and as a result, a whole lot longer to release than I'd ever imagined.

I began working on TLS3 almost exactly one year ago. Time sure flies... For those wondering what took sooooo long, it was a matter of creating all new PNG icons for Dreamweaver MX 2004 and having to fight with Dreamweaver for MX and Macintosh compatibility. I'm making it sound much simpler than it is, really... Anyhow, it is finally done and I'm thrilled with the results.

TLS 3 adds a new Template-Lover's Suite toolbar, Jump to Region, and Insert Template Parameter. For more info on my latest creation, check out the details at DWfaq.com.

Great big thanks to all my beta testers that I drove crazy with questions and my usual pickiness. (I simply can't release something until I'm pleased with it. "Satisfied" doesn't cut it.) Thanks to all of the TLS2 customers who've been waiting anxiously yet patiently for the new version.

Extra special thanks to Dan Short, my partner in DWfaq, for putting up with me through the tedious process of getting this product tested and online. I owe you even more...

Yesterday's presentation was my first time presenting using Breeze Live. It seemed the presentation was well received despite that I wasn't as collected in my thoughts as I usually am. Had the hours prior to the session not been so hectic, I'd have been more "together". Although friends present said they couldn't tell anything was wrong, it still affected me to a small degree.

To do a Breeze Live presentation, it is recommended that you have a second computer set up in the meeting as a guest. This computer is used to see what your audience sees so that you can account for delays.

So I turn on my desktop and the mouse is busted. I run out to Circuit City to pick up a new one. I get back, restart, and my keyboard doesn't work! I have a required login, so I can't even get logged in. I try everything, finally resorting to an old keyboard from another computer (that won't start either and can't connect to the internet). Luckily, it worked!

Now it is nearing time for me to join the meeting. I have to be hardwired (as oposed to my wireless connection) during the presentation. I switch over and my entire internet connection dies on the network. I'm frantic by now, thinking I'm not going to make it. With some sound advice and calming words from Dan, I rebooted the router and after a couple of minutes the internet came back up. Phew!

Once I'm in the meeting, I am looking around for the special Presenter controls and I'm not finding them. I buzzed the moderator and didn't get a reply. I'm in the room only as a guest, uh oh. I try to send a message to her, and accidentally send it to the whole meeting...D'oh! Amy called me, and got me hooked up just in time.

I didn't have my usual couple of minutes to collect my thoughts and get in presenter mode, but it went fine. After a few minutes, I was alright.

It's tricky doing Breeze Live, and next time it will be much easier. There is so much to pay attention to. You have to watch the other monitor to be sure it is updating for the audience. You need to remember to click a few buttons (wish it were just one) to share the screen. You have to remember to then switch back to slides. All the while you are supposed to try and ignore the chat window that's whizzing past you. Then your other computer goes to screensaver and you have to wake it up so you can make sure what the audience is seeing is the same thing you're talking about.

As overwhelming as it was, I loved it. I know I could give the same presentation again much better, and hope to have the opportunity to do so. Even if I do a different one, now I know what to expect with Breeze Live and it will go much smoother next time.

Thanks to all who attended for being there, especially the Cartweaver customers who joined us. It was nice to see so many familiar names present. The thanks and grattitude was overwhelming. Thanks again to those who sent private chats and email. You're all so very kind!

Of course, thanks to Dan for helping me out -- both with the internet connection and fielding questions during the presentation.

If any of you have any feedback, I'd be happy to hear it as it really helps me to do better in the future. I'm really looking forward to doing this again.

7 weeks in the making, Toggle-O-Matic Suite is finally released! I can't even begin to explain how excited I am about this extension package. What is this Toggle-O-Matic stuff anyway you ask? Allow me to explain...

Toggle-O-Matic Suite was inspired by my project (Project 2: Toggle-O-Matic Menus) for Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic. Toggle-O-Matic Suite is comprised of three behaviors: Toggle-O-Matic Class, Toggle-O-Matic Display, Toggle-O-Matic Visbility. The Toggle-O-Matic behaviors switch an ID'd element's class, display property or visibility property respectively between what is specified and the element's original state.

Sound's technical doesn't it? It's really not. It's very very simple. In fact, the navigation on DWmommmy.com and the comments both use Toggle-O-Matic. You can toggle any ID'd element, with the only limitations being your imagination and browser support for your CSS.

Toggle-O-Matic is $45 and only available at the DWfaq Store. (Cartweaver 2 customers may purchase at 50% off by May 16th! Log in at DWfaq to verify eligibility.)

Full documentation is available online with a bunch of examples too. There's also a list of sites using Toggle-O-Matic so you can see how it is put to use in the real world.

If you have any questions about Toggle-O-Matic, please feel free to ask!

Special thanks to Dan Short for all his help (especially the examples). A big thanks to Alex Mariño for the sketch of the product logo. Thanks to all the beta testers (you know who you are). You guys and gals have been fantastic!

Get your mind out of the gutter people... :-) Last week I released a new extension, Strip List Whitespace, which fixes a bug in Internet Explorer on the PC. The download response to this extension has been utterly amazing. I think it is because this is one of those "must have" type of free extensions. There are other ways to remove the whitespace, but it all comes down to personal preference, and this happens to be mine.

I also updated Strip <?xml?> Tag, which removes the XML prologue which throws Internet Explorer into quirks mode. The update was to fix a bug found only in Dreamweaver MX 2004, that kept the extension from running if the document was currently in Code view.

They're both on my Free Extensions page, so you can read more about them there. As always, they're only available for download from the DWfaq Store, where I host all my free and commercial products.

Nobody can explain XFN better than its creators, Tantek Çelik, Matthew Mullenweg, and Eric Meyer. At the request of Eric, I'll be making an extension based on the XFN Creator for Dreamweaver. I'm honored to be involved.

Yes, I know as of this post I haven't XFN'd my links yet. I'll do them once I've finished writing the extension.;-)

Wow, time is really flying by lately. I'm pretty much recoverred from surgery now. In about a week or so I can start excercising again. Better news than that, I'll be able to eat low-fat instead of darn-near-close-to-non-fat. For those curious, low-fat means 15g of fat or less per day. That's hardly anything! I did zero fat the first 4 weeks, and admittedly have about 4g of fat a day since then though I am supposed to have done non-fat for 6 weeks. I just couldn't take it anymore. At least I lost some of the weight I gained back over the summer, but not all of it and I definitely need to excercise to get back in shape again.

Why haven't I posted lately? Busy! Sooooo busy. I've a huge extension project I'm working on that's in beta and will hopefully be complete soon. Dreamweaver MX 2004 Killer Tips has shipped to the printer and we're wrapping things up on Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic now. So yeah, I've been rather busy, I'd say. More from me about some of the other cool things I'm working on as soon as I'm allowed to say more ;-) Oh yeah, I got my Dreamwever MX certification finally too. Yep, I think that's all there is to tell now...back to work!

Three people – who could have checked the source code because they know how – have asked me already if the navigation on the left is Menu Magic 1, by Project Seven. No, it's not Menu Magic 1. :-) If you don't believe me choose View » Source.

Menu Magic 1 is a great extension and I use it on the current version of Site-Drive.com. Actually the new DWmommy menu was done for the upcoming new version of DWfaq.com. I liked it so much that I decided to use it here too. Dan and I are still refining the JavaScript and CSS. Eventually I'll be making an extension out of the final code. Of course, I'll talk about it here first...

Had a great time working on some top secret stuff in San Francisco from the 14th thru 18th. (Try not to draw too many conclusions about why we were there.<wink />)There are some pictures in the gallery if you're interested.

While there, we visited Macromedia twice. Billy Ray took us for a long walk up many hills to have sushi. Well worth every step to get there. Billy also took us on a tour of Macromedia, which is spread out over 3 buildings. Our first visit was Thursday and there were hardly anyone left. Apparantly they all went to go see Matrix 2. Didn't anyone tell them we were coming? Oh, the nerve. :-) So we returned on Friday and met many of the Macromedians we exchange email with or see on the newsgroup, including John Dowdell, George Fox, Heather Hollander, Chris Valliquet, Donald Booth, Jeff VonWard, and Scott Unterberg. (Please excuse any mispellings!) It is always nice to put names and faces together.

Only bad thing about the trip was that my laptop died on Saturday night so I didn't get much done after that happened. Luckily Dell will be here by tomorrow (hopefully) to fix it. Meanwhile, I'm stuck on my desktop...

What an evening... Sushi, then Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake ice cream from the container, then a glass of fine champagne while watching a chick flick with a good friend. To finish of the night, I'll be listening to some tunes, and working on a Server Behavior that I'll hopefully send to beta tomorrow.

By the way, I had a couple confessions (see yesterday's post), but none of them turned out to be the culprit. I guess they were just guilty, and not paying attention to the timestamp...busted!

I wrote a server format suite yesterday and so far it seems to be working perfectly. I'll package it up and put it into beta by tomorrow. As for the server behavior, I'm getting some feature requests that are going to be extremely difficult to implement. I have to decide if I want to release it as is and add features later or take the time to do them now. I used to be the one that came up with wild feature requests now the tables are turned I feel guilty for my crazy requests. They say what goes around, comes around...well I'm getting it all back now!

Over 24 hours later, my craving is getting satisfied... :-)

The extension I was working on is now in beta. Danilo's trying hard to add features but I'm not budging until I get more votes. ;-)

Finally! It's taken quite a bit of work, but I've done it. I've written a really cool Server Behavior and translator that uses some fancy shmancy conditional code that's new to extensibility in MX (all undocumented stuff of course!). Thanks to Tom Muck for pointing me in the right direction!

This extension is commercial, but I'll have a light version available for free soon as I am able to put that together. (So far this is ASP/VBScript only. I may do a ColdFusion version, but no promises!) As usual, you'll hear all about it here first.

So much to do, so little time! I'm getting things ready for my trip to MXNorth over the next couple of days. I'm anxious to break free and relax with friends while being a geek around people who'll understand! This is certainly going to be a new experience for me. A) I'm not used to snow or cold weather. I'm very Californian like that :-) B)Dan and I are going to have sushi at a little Japanese place called Fune that's close to the hotel. It'll be my first sushi experience, and I'm scared!

Meanwhile I have too much to get done. Thankfully I'm done with the Free Image Gallery extension for nCubed. I'll announce that here when it goes public. It's pretty darn cool if I do say so myself. I'll be adding a sample gallery to the site with it soon too. Back to work for me...

Such a proud mommy moment that I must share... Gaetano came up to me with a plastic bundle of baloons from his 1st birthday cake. He pointed to one and said "That's red" and he was right! Then he did each color in the bundle successfully. Colors are something I haven't really worked with him that much on --least not as much as I should. So I'm pleasantly surprised that he's caught on so quick. Before I know it he'll be using Dreamweaver and writing extensions ;-)

My how time flies; it has been nearly a week since I posted. Well let's see... I've been building extensions for an upcoming product from a new company. Learning tons through this experience and finding that I really enjoy extension development. As complicated as things get and as frustrating as bug fixing can be, when I create something challenging that works I get such an awesome rush out of it. I have the feeling I'll be doing a lot more extension development this year. :-)

I've been fighting off a sore throat all day. Let's hope I'm not getting sick again.

The moment I've been waiting for since July has finally come and I barely know what to say... Dreamweaver MX Killer Tips by Joseph Lowery and yours truly is now available!

Today is my dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad, I hope I made you proud :-)

Sheesh, not even one email asking if a power outage has kept me from adding new entries (see previous entry). Oh well... The answer is no, power didn't go out here, but about 20 minutes away the power was out for almost 2 days in some areas the news reported.

Anyhow, I've been busy working on CSS Assistant. This extension is going to be so much more than originally planned. I'm very excited about this one since it is something I've been wanting to code for over a year but wasn't skilled enough that long ago to pull it off. I still have a few hurdles to get over though since there are some rather advanced things going on, however I do have Danilo Celic as a co-creator on this extension to help when needed. I'll be revealing details about CSS Assistant as it nears completion. I'd say it is only at its 1/2 way point now, so it will be awhile but well worth the wait!

I also forgot to mention that there is an update for Strip <?xml?> Tag now, version 1.5.0. This version is to fix it so that the xml declaration is removed from PHP files, which it was not set up to do in version 1.0.0.

Oops! I forgot to mention here that JavaScript Assistant is now available for FREE from the DWfaq Store. CSS Assistant is well underway now, and I hope to have that done soon.

Merry Christmas!!! I didn't have time to get JavaScript Assistant ready for Christmas delivery, but I do have one extension to treat you with. Strip <? xml ?> Tag is now available from the DWfaq Store, free! Happy Holidays, and keep your eyes open for JavaScript Assistant coming soon.

I'm feeling pretty motivated now that the stress of the holidays are almost over and the book is at the printer. (It is on schedule and should be out in mid to late January.) Provided that I get everything all done for Christmas tonight, tomorrow morning I'll finish up some backend work on the DWfaq.com Store and give out 2 new extensions free in time for Christmas. Cross your fingers for me folks :-).

Well folks, I finally got it finished. JavaScript Assistant will go into beta some time today and be released in a few days. Here's just some of what it does:

The JavaScript Assistant is a toolbar that can be used in any kind of document that you'd use JavaScript.JavaScript Assistant is designed to analyze your selection and place the cursor in the next logical position based on that selection. For example, if you select a single word, then click the function button, the cursor is placed inside the () since you may need to add arguments to the function. If your selection contains multiple words or multiple lines of code, the cursor is put before the () so that you can give the function a name. The same principle applies to the Insert If Statement, Insert Else Statement, and Insert For Loop buttons.

There are 11 buttons in the JavaScript Assistant. This extension will be free, and available from the DWfaq Store.

Well today didn't turn out nearly as bad as I thought. :-) Had some difficulties getting my dentist appointments on time, but in the end I finally got there alright and had the work done. I'm feeling much better than before too.

Good news, I think I have solved the bug that was holding up production of JavaScript Assistant and CSS Assistant. If my solution continues to work as I re-introduce the code I removed for debugging, I'm gonna be thrilled! I've workd well over a hundred hours on CSS Assistant alone, plus Danilo has put a lot of time into it. It would have been a shame if the world never saw it because of a stupid bug. I just don't like releasing a product if a bug this bad can't be fixed or worked around unless. I'll definitely post my progress here as always.

The past 2 days have been very frustrating when it comes to coding my latest 2 extensions. I'm basically battling a bug in Dreamweaver and it is one I'm clueless how to squish at this point. Basically both of my new extensions involve the ability to wrap the user's selection with some code. That all works fine and dandy. The problems start when the user changes their mind and does and Undo. If the user does an Undo, then makes another selection, the selection is not recognized and the code is inserted after their previous selection before the Undo. It is very annoying to say the least and will prevent these two extensions from being released if I cannot find a workaround. Wish me luck folks, I seriously need it.

I should learn to not get over anxious and think certain things are simple. :-) It turns out there are some nasty little bugs that need squishing in JavaScript Assistant. I'll work with it while coding CSS Assistant too, and not rush releasing it until bugs are properly squished. Just wishful thinking on my part that this would be easy... and yes, I've added features -- only because I'm lazy and I know they'll help me in the end. If they help me, they may help others... that's the plan at least! :-)

This morning I was chatting with Laurie and decided that I didn't feel like working on CSS Assistant, because I was lazy writing all that same JavaScript over and over again. So I decided I'll make a JavaScript Assistant as a freebie, since it was so easy to write that in 20 minutes I was done. Well, excpept for the icons (that's always the tough part). Besides, I could have made them all Snippets; there aren't any real special features or anything. I just happen to lik clicking buttons and having them in easy reach. When I'm coding JavaScript, I like to have the full width of the window, so I tend to hide all panels. Really, nothing special, just a matter of comfort for this one. I'll be releasing this one probably late tonight, or possibly tomorrow. Stay tuned...

I forgot to mention it... shame on me! That adorable little hand in the ad for Color Assistant belongs to none other than my adorable little Gaetano :-)

I always announce here first, as promised :-). The Color Assistant is now officially launched, and available for just $10 at the DWfaq Store. I hope you enjoy using it as much as I have!

As always, I show it to you here first :-). Here's the Color Assistant Flash Demo for the DWfaq Store. I'll post the link to the store soon as it is ready for sale, which should be in about an hour or so. Thanks to all my beta testers for your help, you're the greatest!

Getting 2 cavities filled was definitely not the way to start my morning...OUCH! :-( 10 hours later it still hurts. I probably would have been better off if he'd just pulled the thing. I don't look forward to the dental visit with Gaetano. He needs caps on several teeth (a result of bad grinding in his sleep). I hope he doesn't cry as much as I did today. Seriously, labor hurt less than this torture -- even before the epidural.

So needless to say, I haven't been in a very good mood all day. I'm working on a Flash demo for Color Assistant since it is the kind of product that you don't realize how useful it is without seeing it in action. I am a total Flash dummy and now have gained a respect for Flash folks who have the patience to learn the program. It isn't as easy as it looks!

The problem with adding new features is that it almost always introduces new bugs! Sure enough several bugs were found in the new features, and I believe I've squished them all now. Assuming beta testers confirm I've fixed all their findings, and don't discover anything new, it won't be too long before Color Assistant is released. The more I use the extension, the more I like it... and several of the beta testers have told me the same. I'm hoping that's the general perception for it, but we shall see...:-)

So far beta feedback has been very helpful, which means enhancements need to be made. I can take it though. :-) I've already fixed 3 bugs, 2 typos, and added 1 new feature. If I can add one more feature this release, I'll do it, otherwise I'll work on it for a dot release because it is a cool idea. Since you've been so patient, I'll tell you that the name of the product is Color Assistant. It is the first in what may turn out to be a line of "Assistant" extensions. I don't want to release feature details just yet, but soon as they're locked down, shortly before release I'll post it here first. :-)

I'm very excited about this little extension I must say. I've added all the features into this release. I'm just writing the help file that explains how the preferences work, then I'll package it up again and send it off to beta testers for checking. Writing this extension has taught me quite a bit and will help me finish the next extension, CSS Assistant. I'm looking forward to beta feedback on this version, since it incorporates some things that they requested. I'll keep you posted!

I forgot to mention earlier... would you believe that yet another feature has creeped into this release? Yep, another. The latest 2 features are some user preferences. I've coded the preferences menu already and have the checkmarks toggling as they should. Now it is just a matter of adding those features to the output code. Should be pretty simple to do that part. I have it mapped out in my brain already. These past 3 weeks have been really good for me from a JavaScript perspective. I've learned so much and ideas keep lighting off in my mind now. I knew eventually things would snap into place for me; it is definitely a great feeling.

Feature creep has struck again. The extension is totally done and ready to go and working well, and then I go and think of a new feature. I think this would really add to the usefulness of this extension so I'm going to try hard to get it into this release. If not, it will be a dot release soon as I sort it all out. Here's another hint for those of you dying to know what this is all about... hue,saturation & luminosity.:-)

I've added some validation routines to the extension now to prevent bad input from a user. (Thanks to Danilo for help with the Regular Expression - got me going in the right direction.) A clue for those of you still wondering what this is all about. Here's part of the regular expression #[1-9A-F]{6}. We're getting closer to a final product now. I can't wait!

Woo hoo!!! I've got a prototype working now of the fix/enhancement request that my beta testers asked for. So when I get back from Halloween festivites, I'll fix that right up and ship it off to beta again :-)

Beta feedback on my new toolbar extension has been great. We've caught quite a few bugs and I've squished all of them. I have one more adjustment to make...make the selection replaced with the input rather than putting the data before the selection. Early on I tried this, but it wiped out the entire CSS file, which is why I opted for inserting before the selection. I've found out about some other means for inserting the data so I'll give those a shot. As soon as I'm done with that, I can release this baby.

Speaking of babies... my son is taking his nap now. Soon as he wakes up, I'll dress him up as Elmo and take him to my mom's so he can go to about 4 or 5 houses for trick or treating. I'll post pictures of him soon as I can. I also have some to share from our visit earlier today at the pumpkin patch. No play (making albums) until after I get this extension released though!

Just a friendly reminder that today is the last day to get my Template-Lover's Suite at only $2. Tomorrow the price goes up to $6.

I've added one feature of the two fully and it is working great for me. As for the second feature, I'm not really sure it is worth my time. I still need to do some research to be sure though. I am now contemplating releasing it with the single extra feature only, but will get more beta feedback first on the second feature. So far feedback has indicated that the second feature, though cool, isn't that important. I'll ask a few more people to test and see what they think and go from there.

I talked it over with the other developer, and he doesn't mind if I add features to my extension and sell it. He's decided to let his out for free and not develop it further since I am doing so. I've started adding one new feature already and have a story board for how the other should work. Now I just have to figure out how to code it all!

Well there goes my idea! I asked a friend for input on possible causes for a global variable issue I was having. So I told him what my extension was and he had done the same thing already. He plans to release his next week along with others. So, sorry folks this one isn't getting released publicly. I'll think of something else though. I already have a few ideas brewing...

Two reasons to celebrate today: Dan's Birthday and the Anaheim Angels won tonight. Tomorrow is game 7 of the World Series. I suspect my sister-in-law will have the baby around the ninth inning tomorrow making it a very exciting day... We'll see!

Meanwhile, I'll be coding away at my next extension. It has just one bug that I'm fighting and once I get that settled off it goes to beta. If you hand-code your CSS in Dreamweaver you're going to love this! More clues as I near beta :-)...

Phew, I did it! I finally released the upgrade to the Template-Lover's Suite. Originally I planned to add only 3 new objects, but of course my beta testers asked for more. Ask and ye shall receive (this time at least)! I have another extension in the works and lots of other good things going on to keep me busy. As always, this is the place to keep up with what's going on in my life... stay tuned!

Today I'll be tidying up the Template-Lover's Suite upgrade. I plan to release it by Friday if all goes well, but could be as soon as tonight. More details to come... stay tuned.

We're official! Dan has just announced our DWfaq Date/Time Server Formats on the newsgroups and on DWfaq. Thanks to everyone for your support and encouragement.

We're only a few hours away from release now. Just working on setting up the store for the product and some last minute touches on the help file. We asked our beta testers and several people who were shown our promotional material (that sounds so professional but all it means is screenshots and demos) and got a wide range of price suggestions. Prices suggested were as low as $20 and as high as $65 (I'm not gonna count the one guy who said $150! We think he was a little too excited and is welcome to pay that much if he'd like :-)). We've settled on "The bargain price of $29.95". Those asked all said that it would take them hours and hours to figure out the ASP and they'd not have the convenience of Dreamweaver to use the code again (except by snippets which isn't as convenient). Dan and I both put a lot of days and time (pun intended) into this one. We hop people find it as useful as we have. :-)

I can breathe a nice relaxing sigh now, and get back to work on the Server Formats. I've just sent in the last Author Review (that's what they call it when the author looks over and addresses the Tech Editor's and Copy Editor's questions/suggestions). The next phase is reviewing the chapters all laid out with their respective screenshots. We'll make sure that it reads well, and the shots make sense as cropped and their given size. After that, it goes to the printer. January will be here before I know it...

105 server formats! We're in beta now, and hoping for a realease probably on Friday.

Ok, before I go, I had to take a few screenshots of the formats to show you. This is the current (and likely final) layout for all the menu options in the DWfaq Date/Time Formats menu. Here's what the Edit Formats List looks like with the editable DWfaq Formats listed. Last but not least, here is a sample of one of the dialogs used to make your own variations of the DWfaq Date/Time formats. Okay, now I'm really leaving...

Server Formats are all done. I just need to make the final MXP and get it into Beta. I'll do that soon as I get back from shopping. Yep, I'm playing hookie from work for a few hours to spend time shopping and have dinner with my son and husband. Of course when I get in I'll get back to work as always.

Whew! There sure are a lot of server formats in this suite... I'm up to 86 built in ones and have yet to decide what to include for the Past format and Future format. That'll put us definitely over the 100 mark easily. I started doing the math to figure out the potential number of custom format (not counting delimiters as a factor in difference) and I lost count after 2,600. I'm too tired for math right now anyhow :-). It may sound like overkill, but we wanted our customers to be able to have any possible regional format they could imagine, so that's why I built in all the customization stuff. Aside from deciding the defaults for those 2 formats, I'm all done. I'll consult with Dan on those, add them in, and then release the MXP to our beta testers. We'll be ready to release this sometime this week. More on that soon as beta feedback starts rolling in. ;-)

Well folks, I'm almost done with the Server Formats. So far there are 76 potential formatting options! By the time I'm done there will be over 100. Don't forget, you can even customize many of them to make your own. I've looked around to see what is out there comparatively and I just couldn't find a suite of Server Formats this expansive. I've yet to find any that are written in a way to allow for you to make more of your own either. Sorry, but I can't help but get excited about this... I'm looking forward to your (the public's) opinions about it. So far I've had a few emails from some of you reading this and the feedback has been great. I'll keep you posted...

The Server Formats saga continues... I've thought up several more Server Formats that will be done after the Date/Time ones as separate products. I'm about 1/2 way through making the Date/Time ones now. Here's a screenshot of what I've done so far. Yeah I know it looks like a lot of menus, but if we don't do it this way, the main menu would be way too long. We'll have demos up and screenshots within the next few days. We'll run it through some beta testing, and in a week or less it should all be ready.

I know I mentioned a potential price in a previous post I made... Well, so much has changed and improved that we'll have to account for that of course. We've not decided on a price yet, but I'll let you know when we do. (Don't worry it won't be expensive.) If you have any questions about the Server Formats, please feel free to ask me.

We just had a case of Feature Creep. Dan and I spent a whole hour talking about all the potential Server Formats we could add to the suite. This has grown exponentially... by how much, I'm not exactly sure but it is going to be really cool. We'll be letting users create their own formats from predefined ones. For instance, we supply you with Current Month, Previous Month, and Next Month. You could then make your own that will do 6 months ago, or 3 months from now. I spent a bunch of time playing with Weekday Name earlier just for fun. That one can be used to figure out things like what day of the week you were born based on your date and year of birth. Lots of fun to be had with these Server Formats. Stay tuned for more info as it becomes available...

We've added 2 more Server Formats to the list. They are: 13. Seconds Stripper With Dots - 9:50 P.M. 14. Seconds Stripper Lowercase Without Dots - 9:50 pm

You'll notice that the difference betwen 11 thru 14 is whether or not there are dots and if the time of day is lowercase or uppercase. These will all be found under a Date/Time» Seconds Stripper submenu. I've done 11 thru 14 now so that's 4 done and 10 to go.

Dan was proud. :-) He also helped me to better my function as well. Within a matter of a few minutes, we decided to put together a suite of 12 VBScript Date/Time formats that we'll be selling from DWfaq. Right now we're planning on $10 and the list of formats are currently:

1. Week Start
2. Week End
3. Week Range
4. Weekday Name
5. Month Name
6. Days In Month
7. First Day of Month
8. Previous Month
9. Next Month
10. Last Day of Month
11. Seconds Stripper - 9:50 PM
12. Seconds Stripper Lowercase - 9:50 p.m.

We should be done with it in only a few days. Of course Dan and I will both mention it in our blogs when it becomes available. With luck, I'll figure out the ColdFusion equivelants and release those seperately.

Dan's gonna be so proud...I actually wrote my first VBScript function late Saturday night. I spent most of my day on Sunday with my friend for her birthday, but my mind was on getting home to work on converting the function (which I'd already made into a working Server Behavior) into a Server Format. What's the difference you ask? Well first let me tell you what my function does. Dreamweaver offers Date/Time Formats through the Format column of the Bindings panel. None of them output the time in a 12 hour clock format without seconds. For example, look here at my blog. See that the time for this entry is 5:39:27 AM? What if I wanted to remove the seconds so it shows 5:39 AM? I'd use my new function ;-). I originally made it a Server Behavior, but the problem with that is, rather than convert the selectiom. DW assumes I have yet to enter the field on the page. Second problem is that the Server Behaviors panel is cluttered with things enough as it is, and really shouldn't have something that is just done for the sake of formatting. So, I set out to build a Server Format. Now that I've done it once, I think I'm unstoppable... I just need to read up on how to package a Server Format because it requires adding to the Formats.xml file, and I'm all set. Next, I'll see if I can tackle the same concept for ColdFusion, and I'll release both when they're ready. I needed to apply this code to at least 10 pages and I wasn't about to handcode it each time or use Snippets. So "necessity is the mother of extensions", also known as my need to be lazy ;-). As Laurie put it to me on MSN, "laziness is the mother of extensions". Stay tuned for an announcement for the release of "Seconds Stripper" some time (much) later today...

Well it is only 11 days left until TODCON and I've 4 pounds left to lose before I reach my goal. One less pound and I'll have lost 20lbs. since the last TODCON, so I hope I at least lose that. Yesterday and today I did a Salsa dancing aerobics workout for 30 minutes. I just got back a little while ago from a 1 hour walk. I'm guessing it was about 2 miles, but I'm not sure. I had a good idea for a major upgrade to an extensio I wrote awhile back. I'm working on that tonight, and if I can get it done in the next few days that would be great. It would be my second commercial extension.

Things are going well... some exciting new things are coming to the DWfaq Store (especially in a couple more months). I wish I could say more, but I can't just yet.

Tonight is my sister-in-law Maria's 23rd birthday so we're taking her out to T.G.I. Friday's. She has no idea what I do for a living at all. In fact, all of my husband's immediate family just thinks that I design web pages. I think I'll finally clue Maria in tonight. She's been the most supportive of me working from home out of all my in-laws.