16. March 2016

Use Boba.js to make work with Google Analytics easier

“Boba.js is a small, easily extensible JavaScript library that makes working with Google Analytics easier.”

tracker = new Boba

tracker = new Boba({
  siteName: 'Mandalore',
  pageName: 'Slave I',
  defaultCategory: 'category',
  defaultAction: 'action',
  defaultLabel: 'label',
  watch: [
    ['click', '.js-track-solo', trackSolo],
    ['click', '.js-track-chewie', trackChewie]
  ]
})

tracker = new Boba

tracker = new Boba({

siteName: 'Mandalore',

pageName: 'Slave I',

defaultCategory: 'category',

defaultAction: 'action',

defaultLabel: 'label',

watch: [

['click', '.js-track-solo', trackSolo],

['click', '.js-track-chewie', trackChewie]

]

})

Boba.js

10. March 2016

JSON Formatter & Validator

JSON Formatter & Validator helps debugging JSON data, either data you wrote by hand or data that has been output in one compact line :)

JSON Formatter & Validator

6. March 2016

You can touch this – Hammer.js

Hammer.js helps you add support for touch gestures and removes the 300ms delay from clicks.

Hammer.js

3. March 2016

Generic Syntax Highlighting with Regular Expressions in pure PHP

Due to Google AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) , I have been looking for a way to effectively do Syntax Highlighting without Javascript in pure PHP.

I was about to write my own, when I found an older article from phoboslab. Thanks Dominic for saving me some time ;) Its not perfect, but close enough.

A simple Syntax Highlighting Class that does just that. The class was not working with PHP 5.4.x+, as it uses preg_replace() with the /e modifier.

It will not cover all, but its better than nothing :) I will also add a section to my my AMP tweaks article to showcase the integration of Geshi.

Here an updated version using the preg_replace_callback() function.

THE SYNTAX HIGHLIGHT CLASS

class SyntaxHighlight {
   
    static $tokens = array();// This array will be filled from the regexp-callback

    public static function process($s) {
        $s = htmlspecialchars($s);

        // Workaround for escaped backslashes
        $s = str_replace('\\\\','\\\\<e>', $s); 

        $regexp = array(

            // Punctuations
            '/([\-\!\%\^\*\(\)\+\|\~\=`\{\}\[\]\:\"\'<>\?\,\.\/]+)/'
            => '<span class="P">$1</span>',

            // Numbers (also look for Hex)
            '/(?<!\w)(
                (0x|\#)[\da-f]+|
                \d+|
                \d+(px|em|cm|mm|rem|s|\%)
            )(?!\w)/ix'
            => '<span class="N">$1</span>',

            // Make the bold assumption that an
            // all uppercase word has a special meaning
            '/(?<!\w|>|\#)(
                [A-Z_0-9]{2,}
            )(?!\w)/x'
            => '<span class="D">$1</span>',

            // Keywords
            '/(?<!\w|\$|\%|\@|>)(
                and|or|xor|for|do|while|foreach|as|return|die|exit|if|then|else|
                elseif|new|delete|try|throw|catch|finally|class|function|string|
                array|object|resource|var|bool|boolean|int|integer|float|double|
                real|string|array|global|const|static|public|private|protected|
                published|extends|switch|true|false|null|void|this|self|struct|
                char|signed|unsigned|short|long
            )(?!\w|=")/ix'
            => '<span class="K">$1</span>',

            // PHP/Perl-Style Vars: $var, %var, @var
            '/(?<!\w)(
                (\$|\%|\@)(\->|\w)+
            )(?!\w)/ix'
            => '<span class="V">$1</span>'

        );      
	
        $s = preg_replace_callback( '/(
                \/\*.*?\*\/|
                \/\/.*?\n|
                \#.[^a-fA-F0-9]+?\n|
                \<\!\-\-[\s\S]+\-\-\>|
                (?<!\\\)&quot;.*?(?<!\\\)&quot;|
                (?<!\\\)\'(.*?)(?<!\\\)\'
            )/isx' , array('SyntaxHighlight', 'replaceId'),$s);
			
        $s = preg_replace(array_keys($regexp), array_values($regexp), $s);

        // Paste the comments and strings back in again
        $s = str_replace(array_keys(SyntaxHighlight::$tokens), array_values(SyntaxHighlight::$tokens), $s);

        // Delete the "Escaped Backslash Workaround Token" (TM)
        // and replace tabs with four spaces.
        $s = str_replace(array('<e>', "\t"), array('', '    '), $s);

        return '<pre>'.$s.'</pre>' ;
    }

    // Regexp-Callback to replace every comment or string with a uniqid and save
    // the matched text in an array
    // This way, strings and comments will be stripped out and wont be processed
    // by the other expressions searching for keywords etc.
     static function replaceId($match) {
        $id = "##r" . uniqid() . "##";
	
        // String or Comment?
        if(substr($match[1], 0, 2) == '//' || substr($match[1], 0, 2) == '/*' || substr($match[1], 0, 2) == '##' || substr($match[1], 0, 7) == '<!--') {
            SyntaxHighlight::$tokens[$id] = '<span class="C">' . $match[1] . '</span>';
        } else {
           SyntaxHighlight::$tokens[$id] = '<span class="S">' . $match[1] . '</span>';
        }
		
        return $id;
    }
}

class SyntaxHighlight {

static $tokens = array();// This array will be filled from the regexp-callback

public static function process($s) {

$s = htmlspecialchars($s);

// Workaround for escaped backslashes

$s = str_replace('\\\\','\\\\<e>', $s);

$regexp = array(

// Punctuations

'/([\-\!\%\^\*\+\|\~\=`\{\}\[\]\:\"\'<>\?\,\.\/]+)/'

=> '$1',

// Numbers (also look for Hex)

'/(?<!\w)(

(0x|\#)[\da-f]+|

\d+|

\d+(px|em|cm|mm|rem|s|\%)

)(?!\w)/ix'

=> '$1',

// Make the bold assumption that an

// all uppercase word has a special meaning

'/(?<!\w|>|\#)(

[A-Z_0-9]{2,}

)(?!\w)/x'

=> '$1',

// Keywords

'/(?<!\w|\$|\%|\@|>)(

and|or|xor|for|do|while|foreach|as|return|die|exit|if|then|else|

char|signed|unsigned|short|long

)(?!\w|=")/ix'

=> '$1',

// PHP/Perl-Style Vars: $var, %var, @var

'/(?<!\w)(

(\$|\%|\@)(\->|\w)+

)(?!\w)/ix'

=> '$1'

);

$s = preg_replace_callback( '/(

\/\*.*?\*\/|

\/\/.*?\n|

\#.[^a-fA-F0-9]+?\n|

\<\!\-\-[\s\S]+\-\-\>|

(?<!\\\)".*?(?<!\\\)"|

(?<!\\\)\'(.*?)(?<!\\\)\'

)/isx' , array('SyntaxHighlight', 'replaceId'),$s);

$s = preg_replace(array_keys($regexp), array_values($regexp), $s);

// Paste the comments and strings back in again

$s = str_replace(array_keys(SyntaxHighlight::$tokens), array_values(SyntaxHighlight::$tokens), $s);

// Delete the "Escaped Backslash Workaround Token" (TM)

// and replace tabs with four spaces.

$s = str_replace(array('<e>', "\t"), array('', ' '), $s);

return '<pre>'.$s.'</pre>' ;

}

// Regexp-Callback to replace every comment or string with a uniqid and save

// the matched text in an array

// This way, strings and comments will be stripped out and wont be processed

// by the other expressions searching for keywords etc.

static function replaceId($match) {

$id = "##r" . uniqid() . "##";

// String or Comment?

if(substr($match[1], 0, 2) == '//' || substr($match[1], 0, 2) == '/*' || substr($match[1], 0, 2) == '##' || substr($match[1], 0, 7) == '<!--') {

SyntaxHighlight::$tokens[$id] = '' . $match[1] . '';

} else {

SyntaxHighlight::$tokens[$id] = '' . $match[1] . '';

}

return $id;

}

THE CSS

pre { 
	font-family: 'Courier New', 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono', 'monospace'; 
	font-size: 9pt;
	border-top: 1px solid #333;
	border-bottom: 1px solid #333;
	padding: 0.4em;
	color: #fff;
}
pre span.N{ color:#f2c47f; } /* Numbers */
pre span.S{ color:#42ff00; } /* Strings */
pre span.C{ color:#838383; } /* Comments */
pre span.K{ color:#ff0078; } /* Keywords */
pre span.V{ color:#70d6ff; } /* Vars */
pre span.D{ color:#ff9a5d; } /* Defines */

pre {

font-family: 'Courier New', 'Bitstream Vera Sans Mono', 'monospace';

font-size: 9pt;

border-top: 1px solid #333;

border-bottom: 1px solid #333;

padding: 0.4em;

color: #fff;

}

pre span.N{ color:#f2c47f; } /* Numbers */

pre span.S{ color:#42ff00; } /* Strings */

pre span.C{ color:#838383; } /* Comments */

pre span.K{ color:#ff0078; } /* Keywords */

pre span.V{ color:#70d6ff; } /* Vars */

pre span.D{ color:#ff9a5d; } /* Defines */

USAGE

echo SyntaxHighlight::process( $your_code );

1	echo SyntaxHighlight::process( $your_code );

@GitHub portalzine/UtilityBelt/SyntaxHighlight

Enjoy coding …

29. February 2016

AMP-WP Tweaks & Tips

The AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages Project) plugin for WordPress is still pretty young and under heavy development.

There are little things that can help to fix current validation problems. I have a couple of fresh AMP pages, that are already indexed by Google.

0. RESOURCES

1. MISSING IMAGE (schema.org-NewsArticle)

The currently registered Microformats template (schema.org-NewsArticle) requires an image.
The AMP-WP documentation explains how to add a featured image to your pages (documentation).

I extended that a bit, to link a default attachment image, I uploaded before. This needs to be added to your themes functions.php.

function xyz_amp_add_custom_actions() {
    add_filter( 'the_content', 'xyz_amp_add_featured_image' );
}

function xyz_amp_add_featured_image( $content ) {

 $your_attachment_id = 2016;

 if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {
  $image = sprintf( '<p class="xyz-featured-image">%s</p>', get_the_post_thumbnail() );
        
 }else{
 $image = sprintf( '<p class="xyz-featured-image">%s</p>', wp_get_attachment_image( $your_attachment_id, 1280) );
        $content = $image . $content ;
 }
 $content = $image . $content ;
 return preg_replace('/(<br>\s*){2,}/', '<br/>',$content);
}

function xyz_amp_add_custom_actions() {

add_filter( 'the_content', 'xyz_amp_add_featured_image' );

}

function xyz_amp_add_featured_image( $content ) {

$your_attachment_id = 2016;

if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) {

$image = sprintf( '%s', get_the_post_thumbnail() );

}else{

$image = sprintf( '%s', wp_get_attachment_image( $your_attachment_id, 1280) );

$content = $image . $content ;

}

$content = $image . $content ;

return preg_replace('/( \s*){2,}/', ' ',$content);

}

Next we adjust the Microformats definition. This needs to be added to your themes functions.php.

add_filter( 'amp_post_template_metadata', 'xyz_amp_modify_json_metadata', 10, 2 );

function xyz_amp_modify_json_metadata( $metadata, $post ) {
  if(empty($metadata['image'])){
    $your_attachment_id = 2016;
    $imgMeta = wp_get_attachment_metadata($your_attachment_id );
    $metadata['image'] = array(
        '@type' => 'ImageObject',
        'url' => wp_get_attachment_url( $your_attachment_id ),
        'height' => $imgMeta['height'],
        'width' =>  $imgMeta['width'],
    );
  }
    return $metadata;
}

add_filter( 'amp_post_template_metadata', 'xyz_amp_modify_json_metadata', 10, 2 );

function xyz_amp_modify_json_metadata( $metadata, $post ) {

if(empty($metadata['image'])){

$your_attachment_id = 2016;

$imgMeta = wp_get_attachment_metadata($your_attachment_id );

$metadata['image'] = array(

'@type' => 'ImageObject',

'url' => wp_get_attachment_url( $your_attachment_id ),

'height' => $imgMeta['height'],

'width' => $imgMeta['width'],

);

}

return $metadata;

}

2. ADD YOUR OWN AMP TEMPLATE

Read the AMP-WP documentation first :) This forces AMP-WP to override the core template with your own. Use the default template as a reference.

add_filter( 'amp_post_template_file', 'xyz_amp_set_custom_template', 10, 3 );

function xyz_amp_set_custom_template( $file, $type, $post ) {
    if ( 'single' === $type ) {
        $file = dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/amp/amp_template.php';
    }
    return $file;
}

add_filter( 'amp_post_template_file', 'xyz_amp_set_custom_template', 10, 3 );

function xyz_amp_set_custom_template( $file, $type, $post ) {

if ( 'single' === $type ) {

$file = dirname( __FILE__ ) . '/amp/amp_template.php';

}

return $file;

}

3. REMOVE NONE VALIDATING CONTENT

Normally the core sanitizer should take care of that. I am sure a filter will be added in the future. For now, this is a quick workaround. You can use a RegExp or DOMDocument to alter the amp-content in your custom template and filter things that break validation.

$attributes = $element->attributes;
while ($attributes->length) {
    $element->removeAttribute($attributes->item(0)->name);
}

$attributes = $element->attributes;

while ($attributes->length) {

$element->removeAttribute($attributes->item(0)->name);

}

I am using phpQuery for now, as it allows me to add quick fixes. DOMNode or QueryPath works nicely as well :) Will be looking at the core sanitizer and options later this week. All of this is currently added to the custom template.

 require('your-libs/phpQuery/phpQuery.php');
 $doc = phpQuery::newDocumentHTML($this->get( 'post_amp_content' ));

1 2	require('your-libs/phpQuery/phpQuery.php'); $doc = phpQuery::newDocumentHTML($this->get( 'post_amp_content' ));

Remove REL attributes that are not allowed. Only registered Microformat rel attributes are allowed.

$doc['.prettyphoto']->removeAttr("rel");

1

$doc['.prettyphoto']->removeAttr("rel");
Remove attribute ALIGN

$doc['*']->removeAttr("align");

1

$doc['*']->removeAttr("align");
Fix TARGET Attribute

$doc['a[target="new"]']->attr("target","_blank");

1

$doc['a[target="new"]']->attr("target","_blank");

Finally output the fixed content as HTML.

 echo  $doc->html(); // amphtml content; no kses

1	echo $doc->html(); // amphtml content; no kses

The above examples need to be tweaked to your specific content requirements.

The custom template “post_amp_content” before:

 echo $this->get( 'post_amp_content'); // amphtml content; no kses

1	echo $this->get( 'post_amp_content'); // amphtml content; no kses

The custom template “post_amp_content” after:

 require('your-libs/phpQuery/phpQuery.php');
 $doc = phpQuery::newDocumentHTML($this->get( 'post_amp_content' )); 
 $doc['.prettyphoto']->removeAttr("rel")->removeAttr("href");
 $doc['*']->removeAttr("align");
 $doc['a[target="new"]']->attr("target","_blank");
 echo  $doc->html(); // amphtml content; no kses

require('your-libs/phpQuery/phpQuery.php');

$doc = phpQuery::newDocumentHTML($this->get( 'post_amp_content' ));

$doc['.prettyphoto']->removeAttr("rel")->removeAttr("href");

$doc['*']->removeAttr("align");

$doc['a[target="new"]']->attr("target","_blank");

echo $doc->html(); // amphtml content; no kses

4. ADD PREVIOUS & NEXT POST NAVIGATION

From the AMP specification :”Note, that AMP document may also be linked to directly…”

This is being added to the custom template as well.

Next:

global $query_string; 
$posts = query_posts($query_string); if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); 

$next_post = get_next_post();
if (!empty( $next_post )): 
 echo '<a class="next" href="'.amp_get_permalink( $next_post->ID ).'"> &#8604; '.$next_post->post_title.'</a>';
endif;

global $query_string;

$posts = query_posts($query_string); if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();

$next_post = get_next_post();

if (!empty( $next_post )):

echo '<a class="next" href="'.amp_get_permalink( $next_post->ID ).'"> ↜ '.$next_post->post_title.'</a>';

endif;

Previous:

$prev_post = get_previous_post();

if (!empty( $prev_post )): 
 echo '<a class="prev" href="'.amp_get_permalink( $prev_post->ID ).'"> &#8604; '.$prev_post->post_title.'</a>';
endif;

$prev_post = get_previous_post();

if (!empty( $prev_post )):

echo '<a class="prev" href="'.amp_get_permalink( $prev_post->ID ).'"> ↜ '.$prev_post->post_title.'</a>';

endif;

5. SYNTAX HIGHLIGHTING

You can find a simple pure PHP highlighter here. Not perfect, but a start. Don not forget to include the CSS :)

require_once("your-lib/SyntaxHighlight/SyntaxHighlight.php");
foreach(pq('pre') as $code)
{
 pq($code)->html(SyntaxHighlight::process(pq($code)->text()));
}

require_once("your-lib/SyntaxHighlight/SyntaxHighlight.php");

foreach(pq('pre') as $code)

{

pq($code)->html(SyntaxHighlight::process(pq($code)->text()));

}

I will extend on this as new validation errors or tweaks come up. The core sanitizer of AMP-WP still needs some work and should allow us to do some of the above directly, when the content is parsed / converted for AMP.

6. OTHER AMP ARTICLES

Make Syntax Highlighting work in AMP-WP using GeSHi

Time to get AMP ready

Enjoy coding …

26. February 2016

Structure – IoT platform that connects devices and data

Structure opened its doors a couple of days ago.

Structure offers a simple and powerful IoT cloud platform for developing the next generation of connected experiences. They offer device management with robust data visualization that reacts in real-time.

They have a nice drag & drop workflow interface that allows you to forward data coming in, combine data or just store it.

I will be testing a builder kit with the platform, that includes the Adafruit Feather Huzzah, which offers native Wifi connectivity. My Raspberry Pi’s will also find their way into the system. The platform allows to consume REST Apis as well, that will make it even more fun to build something unique.

If you are interested in IoT, you should really check it out. Its free :)

Structure / Adafruit Feather Huzzah

Enjoy coding …

26. February 2016

Time to get AMP ready

Google’s AMP is here to save us from slow mobile content delivery, by enforcing strict standards and limiting what is allowed within AMP pages. The pages only allow a subset of tags and introduce their own tags for fast prefetching of content (images, videos … AMP Specs)

THIS IS AMP

“The Accelerated Mobile Pages (“AMP”) Project is an open source initiative that came out of discussions between publishers and technology companies about the need to improve the entire mobile content ecosystem for everyone – publishers, consumer platforms, creators, and users.

Today, the expectation is that content should load super fast and be easy to explore. The reality is that content can take several seconds to load, or, because the user abandons the slow page, never fully loads at all. Accelerated Mobile Pages are web pages designed to load instantaneously – they are a step towards a better mobile web for all.”

AMP CACHE & VALIDATION

AMP pages are cached within the AMP Cache, providing even faster delivery of your content. The core libs validate your implementation and highlight any problems by pushing errors to the console.

INTEGRATION

The documentation lists all components currently supported within a page and experimental components in development as well.

I have already added AMP support to our blog posts:

Google’s Webmaster Tools also integrates a new section for AMP, to see how they perform.

WHAT AMP IS NOT

AMP is not supposed to replace your webpage, but offer a faster access point to presented content. It will not solve all use cases, but offer better performance for your simple reading pleasure for now. Its a start and lets see how it evolves ;)

Enjoy coding …

13. February 2016

Markdown editors

As I mentioned the usage of Markdown for the Slate documentation builder, here some Markdown editors:

ULYSSES FOR MAC/ IPAD

Highly customizable editor.

http://www.ulyssesapp.com/

STACKEDIT INBROWSER SOLUTION

Use it anywhere and sync to dropbox if you like.

https://stackedit.io/

MARKDOWN PAD FOR WINDOWS

Nice split-screen setup, that shows you how the html conversion looks like.

http://markdownpad.com/

MARKMYWORDS FOR LINUX

A nice minimal editor that was developed for Elementary OS.

https://github.com/voldyman/MarkMyWords

Enjoy coding …

13. February 2016

Use markdown for beautiful and responsive API documentation – Slate

Slate helps you create beautiful, intelligent, responsive API documentation. All documentation is written in Markdown and than converted into a responsive layout.

Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can be converted to HTML and many other formats.

Slate @ Github

Have used it on multiple projects and I love it.

Enjoy coding …

12. February 2016

High performance browser dialogs with alertify.js

Alertify.js is a small library which provides light-weight, high performance browser dialogs.

// confirm dialog
alertify.confirm("Message", function () {
    // user clicked "ok"
}, function() {
    // user clicked "cancel"
});

// confirm dialog

alertify.confirm("Message", function () {

// user clicked "ok"

}, function() {

// user clicked "cancel"

});

Alertify @Github