I skipped Memorial day festivities this weekend to focus on writing the book and preparing the presentation for AjaxExperience 2007. I was pretty productive, but felt I could have been more so. It was hard to maintain focus. There was always the waiting distraction of food, break or sidetrack. I felt like SpongeBob Squarepants when he had to write an essay for boating school. Mrs. Puff canceled the assignment, but I won’t be so lucky. Those of you without little kids may have no idea what I am talking about.
In the book, I finally got through the HTML/CSS review section and could start on the jQuery part. When I got over that hump, things started going much faster. jQuery just is so much fun.
Oh, also on the weekend, I helped a friend put together his portfolio site. (site link on request) The way I achieved the shadowing effects is particularly cool. I even did a victory lap. Check out the sructure. It’s so simple and yet so powerful. The reason I had to be so clever is that PNGs just have terrible IE support. Why can’t Microsoft figure out how to fix this in IE6? I would love a special .htx file from Microsoft which completely added png support to IE6. It would change web development if they did. Right now, I have to use hacks, none of which is perfect. There is a jQuery one, but it didn’t work right for me. There are so many and they all act a little differently. Which one is the best?
Requirements for the perfect PNG Fix:
- PNGshave transparency
- Transparency can be used as a background with REPEAT and position.
- PNGs can be stretched 100% height or width
- PNGs can be used as tiles for mouseover with transparency (background-position)
- PNGs can added via AJAX
Anyone?
Whatya think?