21. December 2018

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas,
enjoy your off-time with friends and family, as well as the transition into the new year. Looking forward to our work together in 2019.

Even during this small holiday break, I will be keeping an eye on things :)
Kind regards
Alex

ps. During the christmas holidays, baked apples are a must-have for me. Quick recipe below:

Core the apples generously with an apple cutter
Fill the apples as desired, eg. with raisins , almonds or marzipan.
Bake in preheated oven at 200 ° C for about 30 minutes.
Remove baked apples from the oven and enjoy while still warm. Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. The brave among you, may also use some vanilla sauce ;)

7. June 2018

Youtube iFrame API and Cookieless Domain solution (GDPR / DSGVO)

GDPR / DSGVO REQUIREMENTS

The GDPR makes us jump through a lot of hoops to cleanup our websites and make all our code compliant. Many aspects of the GDPR are far from completely defined yet and there is a great uncertainty what is required, what can stay and what needs to be adjusted right now.

EMBED YOUTUBE VIDEOS

Embeding Youtube videos is one area, that many are afraid of. You need to mention the use of youtube in your data privacy policy.

Something like that :”Our website uses plugins from YouTube, which is operated by Google. The operator of the pages is YouTube LLC, 901 Cherry Ave., San Bruno, CA 94066, USA.

If you visit one of our pages featuring a YouTube plugin, a connection to the YouTube servers is established. Here the YouTube server is informed about which of our pages you have visited.

If you’re logged in to your YouTube account, YouTube allows you to associate your browsing behavior directly with your personal profile. You can prevent this by logging out of your YouTube account.

YouTube is used to help make our website appealing. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO.

Further information about handling user data, can be found in the data protection declaration of YouTube under https://www.google.de/intl/de/policies/privacy.”

IS THAT ENOUGH

The question remains, if that is actually enough?
Youtube allows you to switch to a cookieless embed on their website, that limits the data flowing to Google servers.

THE IFRAME API

But how do you use that programmatically, with the Youtube iFrame API?

The iFrame API documentation has not been updated since 2014 and does not mention any option to switch to the cookieless youtube host.

But there is an easy option, just add the host option “https://www.youtube-nocookie.com” to your calls :

var player;
var tag = document.createElement('script');
tag.src = "https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api";
      	var firstScriptTag = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];
      	firstScriptTag.parentNode.insertBefore(tag, firstScriptTag);

player = new YT.Player('player1', {
         
	    wmode: 'transparent',
            host: 'https://www.youtube-nocookie.com',
	    playerVars:{
		   wmode: 'transparent',
		   showinfo:0,
		   autohide:1,
            },
	  videoId: YOUR_VID_ID,
	  events: {
		  'onReady': onPlayerReady
		}
        });

var player;

var tag = document.createElement('script');

tag.src = "https://www.youtube.com/iframe_api";

var firstScriptTag = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0];

firstScriptTag.parentNode.insertBefore(tag, firstScriptTag);

player = new YT.Player('player1', {

wmode: 'transparent',

host: 'https://www.youtube-nocookie.com',

playerVars:{

wmode: 'transparent',

showinfo:0,

autohide:1,

videoId: YOUR_VID_ID,

events: {

'onReady': onPlayerReady

}

});

There we go, so simple and painless :)

The GDPR is a good thing, as it helps to secure our privacy. Those that are complaining now, are those that waited until the GDPR went live and did not take the time to really prepare soon enough.

BTW the email spam sent by so many services, was so not required, but helped me to clean up / delete those dormant accounts ;)

Enjoy coding!

21. April 2018

Pimp my Log – Log viewer for your web server

Pimp my Log is a web app written in PHP. It displays server logs friendly.

By default, Pimp My Log supports :

Apache web server
NGINX web server
IIS web server
PHP log files

Key features:

Display any text and multi-line logs in your web browser
Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE9+, Opera are supported
Be notified on your desktop as soon as a new log line is available
Be notified when log file is rotated
Apply a search filter (plain text or regular expression) on the log file
Refresh logs : Pull to refresh, push key stroke R, click on the refresh button or set an auto-refresh timer
Show/hide columns during runtime to improve readability
Mark lines during runtime to improve readability
Sort lines and view new logs lines directly in list
Export logs in various formats ( JSON, XML, CSV, RSS, ATOM, …) and expose them as webservices

Pimp my Log

9. March 2018

Pretty checkboxes and radio buttons in pure CSS

Easily add beautiful checkboxes and radio buttons in pure CSS. Highly customizable via SCSS.

Basic
- Shapes – Square, Curve, Round
- Variants – Default, Fill, Thick
- Colors – Primary, Success, Info, Warning, Danger
- Color types – Solid, Outline
- Animations – Smooth, Tada, Jelly, Pulse, Rotate
Switch – iOS style – Outline, Fill, Slim
Responsive
No JavaScript
Custom Font Icons
SVG Icons
Image support
Toggle between icons / SVG’s / images
Lock
State – Focus, Hover, Indeterminate
Supports frameworks – Bootstrap, Foundation, Sematic UI, Bulma, …
SCSS customization
Supports all modern browsers, including mobile devices
Print friendly

  <!-- add class p-default -->
    <div class="pretty p-default">
        <input type="checkbox" />
        <div class="state">
            <label>Default</label>
        </div>
    </div>

    <!-- add class p-fill -->
    <div class="pretty p-default p-fill">
        <input type="checkbox" />
        <div class="state">
            <label>Fill</label>
        </div>
    </div>

    <!-- add class p-thick -->
    <div class="pretty p-default p-thick">
        <input type="checkbox" />
        <div class="state">
            <label>Thick</label>
        </div>
    </div>

<label>Default</label>

</div>

</div>

<label>Thick</label>

</div>

GitHub

6. March 2018

WooCommerce Appointments Enhanced with an Availability Calendar

WordPress WooCommerce Appointments

WooCommerce Appointments is a commercial booking plugin that allows you to setup appointments with WooCommerce. It has full integration into Google calendar to track appointments of your staff.

Staff availability can be set globally or via each staff members profile. While this is nice, I was looking for an option to actually handle availability via another Google Calendar as well. That was a must have feature for a current project.

What do you do, if that feature is not available yet ? You poke the code!

The magic entry point for the staff availability is the user meta “_wc_appointment_availability“, which is made available through includes/class-wc-product-appointment-staff.php.

A couple of weeks ago I asked support for a simple filter hook to alter the availability on demand from the outside.

The development team added the feature in one of the latest releases, making wc_appointments_staff_availability the entry point for my custom availability changes.

The filter hook

add_filter( 'wc_appointments_staff_availability', 'availability_callback', 10, 3 );

function availability_callback($availability, $staff){
// Your changes here
return $availability;
}

add_filter( 'wc_appointments_staff_availability', 'availability_callback', 10, 3 );

function availability_callback($availability, $staff){

// Your changes here

return $availability;

}

Getting the data

You can either pull Google Calendar Events directly through the Google Calendar API or use the available iCal export option. In this quick example I will use the private calendar iCal export file.

The availability calendar

Lets setup a quick clean calendar, called “Availability”. So simple and catchy :)

Create a new calendar
Create some test events. WooCommerce Appointments supports multiple availability rules, but I am focusing on the time:range option and recurring events for this example. I might be extending on this a bit more in the future ! So for this example: Friday, timeframe 10:00 – 16:00 and repeating four times.
Go into settings and get the link to the privat ical export file

Parse iCal data

For this example I am using the PHP ICS Parser, but any other parser will do. Install it via composer: composer require johngrogg/ics-parser.

Lets create a quick little plugin to get us going and save it to /wp-content/plugins/CustomAvailability/smile.php

<?php
use ICal\ICal;

/*
Plugin Name: WooCommerce Appointments - Custom Availability
Plugin URI: https://portalzine.de
Description: Attach additional Google Calendar for staff availability
Version: 1.0
Author: portalZINE NMN
Author URI: https://portalzine.de
*/


require_once(PATH_TO_VENDOR_DIR."vendor/autoload.php");

class StaffCustomAvailability{
 
function __construct() {
  add_filter( 'wc_appointments_staff_availability', array($this, 'staffAvailability'), 10, 3 );
 }
 
function staffAvailability($availability, $staff){
// Your changes here
return $availability;
}

}

$StaffCustomAvailability = new StaffCustomAvailability();

<?php

use ICal\ICal;

Plugin Name: WooCommerce Appointments - Custom Availability

Plugin URI: https://portalzine.de

Description: Attach additional Google Calendar for staff availability

Version: 1.0

Author: portalZINE NMN

Author URI: https://portalzine.de

require_once(PATH_TO_VENDOR_DIR."vendor/autoload.php");

class StaffCustomAvailability{

function __construct() {

add_filter( 'wc_appointments_staff_availability', array($this, 'staffAvailability'), 10, 3 );

}

function staffAvailability($availability, $staff){

// Your changes here

return $availability;

}

$StaffCustomAvailability = new StaffCustomAvailability();

Set the availability

Its time to get the data into the system. I am only pulling and altering the availability for one single user in this example, the user with the USERID “3”. This should provide you with a good starting point.

function staffAvailability($availability, $staff){

// $staff holds the complete user data
// $availability is the current set of rules

// Only altering availability for  USERID 3

if($staff->data->ID == 3){
     $newSet = array();  
  try {
    // add the private ics file here
    $ical = new ICal('URL TO PRIVATE ICS FILE', array(
        'defaultSpan'                 => 2,     // Default value
        'defaultTimeZone'             => 'Europe/Berlin',
        'defaultWeekStart'            => 'MO',  // Default value
        'disableCharacterReplacement' => false, // Default value
        'skipRecurrence'              => false, // Default value
        'useTimeZoneWithRRules'       => false, // Default value
    ));

     } catch (\Exception $e) {
    die($e);
}

   $forceTimeZone = true;
        
   $events = $ical->sortEventsWithOrder($ical->events());
    // looping through all events
   foreach ($events as $event) {
        // Get Start and end date / time information
        $dtstart = $ical->iCalDateToDateTime($event->dtstart_array[3], $forceTimeZone);
        $dtend = $ical->iCalDateToDateTime($event->dtend_array[3], $forceTimeZone);
        
        // Define new time:range rule
        // Adding one rule per day 
       // Added Friday to the calendar + event recurring  4 times, which results in 4 new rules for staff member 3
        $newSet[] =  array(             
            'type' => "time:range",// rule type used for this example
            'appointable' => "yes",
            '[priority' => 10,
            'from' => $dtstart->format('H:i'), // start time 10:00
            'to' => $dtend->format('H:i'), // end time 16:00
            'from_date' => $dtstart->format('Y-m-d'), // start date -  Friday
            'to_date' => $dtend->format('Y-m-d') // end date - Friday
                       );
            $availability = $newSet;
          }
      
      
    }
return $availability;
}

function staffAvailability($availability, $staff){

// $staff holds the complete user data

// $availability is the current set of rules

// Only altering availability for USERID 3

if($staff->data->ID == 3){

$newSet = array();

try {

// add the private ics file here

$ical = new ICal('URL TO PRIVATE ICS FILE', array(

'defaultSpan' => 2, // Default value

'defaultTimeZone' => 'Europe/Berlin',

'defaultWeekStart' => 'MO', // Default value

'disableCharacterReplacement' => false, // Default value

'skipRecurrence' => false, // Default value

'useTimeZoneWithRRules' => false, // Default value

));

} catch (\Exception $e) {

die($e);

}

$forceTimeZone = true;

$events = $ical->sortEventsWithOrder($ical->events());

// looping through all events

foreach ($events as $event) {

// Get Start and end date / time information

$dtstart = $ical->iCalDateToDateTime($event->dtstart_array[3], $forceTimeZone);

$dtend = $ical->iCalDateToDateTime($event->dtend_array[3], $forceTimeZone);

// Define new time:range rule

// Adding one rule per day

// Added Friday to the calendar + event recurring 4 times, which results in 4 new rules for staff member 3

$newSet[] = array(

'type' => "time:range",// rule type used for this example

'appointable' => "yes",

'[priority' => 10,

'from' => $dtstart->format('H:i'), // start time 10:00

'to' => $dtend->format('H:i'), // end time 16:00

'from_date' => $dtstart->format('Y-m-d'), // start date - Friday

'to_date' => $dtend->format('Y-m-d') // end date - Friday

);

$availability = $newSet;

}

return $availability;

}

The example pulls and parses the ics file on every load, use a transient or REDIS to store data and only refresh in certain intervals.

Hope this gets you started! I build a simple interface around it, with a lot of more rule options. This makes the setup for each staff member a brise. Now each of them can setup a calendar easily and provide me with the ics link :) WooCommerce Appointments rocks …

Enjoy coding ….

10. February 2018

IMAP Wrapper client for PHP & Default IMAP Search Criteria

There are many variations of these out there, SSilence/php-imap-client is a lib with a nice set of methods, clean integration and pretty good documentation.
Adding it to my goto essentials !

$mailbox = 'my.imapserver.com';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'secret';
$encryption = Imap::ENCRYPT_SSL;

// Open connection
try{
    $imap = new Imap($mailbox, $username, $password, $encryption);
    // You can also check out example-connect.php for more connection options

}catch (ImapClientException $error){
    echo $error->getMessage().PHP_EOL;
    die(); // Oh no :( we failed
}

// Get all folders as array of strings
$folders = $imap->getFolders();
foreach($folders as $folder) {
    echo $folder;
}

// Select the folder Inbox
$imap->selectFolder('INBOX');

// Count the messages in current folder
$overallMessages = $imap->countMessages();
$unreadMessages = $imap->countUnreadMessages();

$mailbox = 'my.imapserver.com';

$username = 'username';

$password = 'secret';

$encryption = Imap::ENCRYPT_SSL;

// Open connection

try{

$imap = new Imap($mailbox, $username, $password, $encryption);

// You can also check out example-connect.php for more connection options

}catch (ImapClientException $error){

echo $error->getMessage().PHP_EOL;

die(); // Oh no :( we failed

}

// Get all folders as array of strings

$folders = $imap->getFolders();

foreach($folders as $folder) {

echo $folder;

}

// Select the folder Inbox

$imap->selectFolder('INBOX');

// Count the messages in current folder

$overallMessages = $imap->countMessages();

$unreadMessages = $imap->countUnreadMessages();

GitHub

Enjoy coding …

Default IMAP Search Criteria

ALL
      All messages in the mailbox; the default initial key for
	ANDing.

ANSWERED
	Messages with the \Answered flag set.

BCC 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope
	structure's BCC field.

BEFORE 
	Messages whose internal date (disregarding time and timezone)
	is earlier than the specified date.

BODY 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the body of the
	message.

CC 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope
	structure's CC field.

DELETED
	Messages with the \Deleted flag set.

DRAFT
	Messages with the \Draft flag set.

FLAGGED
	Messages with the \Flagged flag set.

FROM 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope
	structure's FROM field.

HEADER  
	Messages that have a header with the specified field-name (as
	defined in [RFC-2822]) and that contains the specified string
	in the text of the header (what comes after the colon).  If the
	string to search is zero-length, this matches all messages that
	have a header line with the specified field-name regardless of
	the contents.

KEYWORD 
	Messages with the specified keyword flag set.

LARGER 
	Messages with an [RFC-2822] size larger than the specified
	number of octets.

NEW
	Messages that have the \Recent flag set but not the \Seen flag.
	This is functionally equivalent to "(RECENT UNSEEN)".

NOT 
	Messages that do not match the specified search key.

OLD
	Messages that do not have the \Recent flag set.  This is
	functionally equivalent to "NOT RECENT" (as opposed to "NOT
	NEW").

ON 
	Messages whose internal date (disregarding time and timezone)
	is within the specified date.

OR  
	Messages that match either search key.

RECENT
	Messages that have the \Recent flag set.

SEEN
	Messages that have the \Seen flag set.

SENTBEFORE 
	Messages whose [RFC-2822] Date: header (disregarding time and
	timezone) is earlier than the specified date.

SENTON 
	Messages whose [RFC-2822] Date: header (disregarding time and
	timezone) is within the specified date.

SENTSINCE 
	Messages whose [RFC-2822] Date: header (disregarding time and
	timezone) is within or later than the specified date.

SINCE 
	Messages whose internal date (disregarding time and timezone)
	is within or later than the specified date.

SMALLER 
	Messages with an [RFC-2822] size smaller than the specified
	number of octets.

SUBJECT 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope
	structure's SUBJECT field.

TEXT 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the header or
	body of the message.

TO 
	Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope
	structure's TO field.

UID 
	Messages with unique identifiers corresponding to the specified
	unique identifier set.  Sequence set ranges are permitted.

UNANSWERED
	Messages that do not have the \Answered flag set.

UNDELETED
	Messages that do not have the \Deleted flag set.

UNDRAFT
	Messages that do not have the \Draft flag set.

UNFLAGGED
	Messages that do not have the \Flagged flag set.

UNKEYWORD 
	Messages that do not have the specified keyword flag set.

UNSEEN
	Messages that do not have the \Seen flag set.

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

108

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

ALL

All messages in the mailbox; the default initial key for

ANDing.

ANSWERED

Messages with the \Answered flag set.

BCC

Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope

structure's BCC field.

BEFORE

Messages whose internal date (disregarding time and timezone)

is earlier than the specified date.

BODY

Messages that contain the specified string in the body of the

message.

Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope

structure's CC field.

DELETED

Messages with the \Deleted flag set.

DRAFT

Messages with the \Draft flag set.

FLAGGED

Messages with the \Flagged flag set.

FROM

Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope

structure's FROM field.

HEADER

Messages that have a header with the specified field-name (as

defined in [RFC-2822]) and that contains the specified string

in the text of the header (what comes after the colon). If the

string to search is zero-length, this matches all messages that

have a header line with the specified field-name regardless of

the contents.

KEYWORD

Messages with the specified keyword flag set.

LARGER

Messages with an [RFC-2822] size larger than the specified

number of octets.

NEW

Messages that have the \Recent flag set but not the \Seen flag.

This is functionally equivalent to "(RECENT UNSEEN)".

NOT

Messages that do not match the specified search key.

OLD

Messages that do not have the \Recent flag set. This is

functionally equivalent to "NOT RECENT" (as opposed to "NOT

NEW").

Messages whose internal date (disregarding time and timezone)

is within the specified date.

Messages that match either search key.

RECENT

Messages that have the \Recent flag set.

SEEN

Messages that have the \Seen flag set.

SENTBEFORE

Messages whose [RFC-2822] Date: header (disregarding time and

timezone) is earlier than the specified date.

SENTON

Messages whose [RFC-2822] Date: header (disregarding time and

timezone) is within the specified date.

SENTSINCE

Messages whose [RFC-2822] Date: header (disregarding time and

timezone) is within or later than the specified date.

SINCE

Messages whose internal date (disregarding time and timezone)

is within or later than the specified date.

SMALLER

Messages with an [RFC-2822] size smaller than the specified

number of octets.

SUBJECT

Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope

structure's SUBJECT field.

TEXT

Messages that contain the specified string in the header or

body of the message.

Messages that contain the specified string in the envelope

structure's TO field.

UID

Messages with unique identifiers corresponding to the specified

unique identifier set. Sequence set ranges are permitted.

UNANSWERED

Messages that do not have the \Answered flag set.

UNDELETED

Messages that do not have the \Deleted flag set.

UNDRAFT

Messages that do not have the \Draft flag set.

UNFLAGGED

Messages that do not have the \Flagged flag set.

UNKEYWORD

Messages that do not have the specified keyword flag set.

UNSEEN

Messages that do not have the \Seen flag set.

10. February 2018

Screen Scraping with Goutte

We all have been in situations were we need content or information from a connected website, but have no access to a REST Api or any other backend feed.

In these cases screen scraping is the only option to get needed information to finalize an integration. You can do that directly in CURL, but that can be tedious. Far easier to use a nicely packaged solution that combines a component that simulates web browser behavior and a component that eases DOM navigation for HTML and XML documents. Meet Goutte!

STEP 0

Install via composer.

composer require fabpot/goutte

1	composer require fabpot/goutte

STEP 1

$client = new Client();
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.page/login.php');

// select the form and fill in some values
$form = $crawler->selectButton('Login')->form();
$form['f_loginname'] = 'HelloMe';
$form['f_loginpass'] = 'securepass';

// submit that form
$crawler = $client->submit($form);

// go to next page    
$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.page.de/overview.php');

$client = new Client();

$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.page/login.php');

// select the form and fill in some values

$form = $crawler->selectButton('Login')->form();

$form['f_loginname'] = 'HelloMe';

$form['f_loginpass'] = 'securepass';

// submit that form

$crawler = $client->submit($form);

// go to next page

$crawler = $client->request('GET', 'https://www.page.de/overview.php');

STEP 2

Get the data you need.

// loop over html and filter out what you need

$crawler->filter('table.clients tr')->each(function ($node) {

  $node->filter('td')->each(function ($sub_node) {
    echo $sub_node->html();
  }
}

// loop over html and filter out what you need

$crawler->filter('table.clients tr')->each(function ($node) {

$node->filter('td')->each(function ($sub_node) {

echo $sub_node->html();

}

Goutte @ Github
BrowserKit Documentation
DOM Crawler Documentation

Enjoy coding …

4. February 2018

jQuery QueryBuilder

QueryBuilder is an UI component to create queries and filters.

It can be used on advanced search engine pages, administration backends, etc.
It is highly customizable and is pluggable to many jQuery widgets like autocompleters, sliders and datepickers.
It outputs a structured JSON of rules which can be easily parsed to create SQL/NoSQL/whatever queries.
And it also comes with a set of great plugins and has a full events system for even more features.

Really neatly programmed solution, with many possible ways to hook into it with your own plugins.

GitHub

1. February 2018

Map Icons to customize your Google Map Icons

An icon font to use with the Google Maps API and Google Places API, using SVG markers and icon labels.

Map Icons makes Google Maps Markers dynamic with control over shape, color, size, and icon easily changed using options in the marker object as well as simple SVG Notation and CSS.

GitHub / Preview

27. January 2018

Audiomanager for text-to-speech cloud services

I have been working on a project , that relies on text-to-speech cloud services for a lot of things.

Audiomanager abstracts access to popular text-to-speech cloud services like Google, Ivona, Amazon Polly… Really a timesaver, when evaluating different services.

Polly Example

$adapter = new \AudioManager\Adapter\Polly();
$adapter->getOptions()->initialize()
    ->setVersion('latest')
    ->setRegion('us-west-2')
    ->setCredentials()
        ->setKey('...')
        ->setSecret('...');

$adapter->getOptions()->setOutputFormat('...'); //Default 'mp3'
$adapter->getOptions()->setLexiconNames('...');
$adapter->getOptions()->setSampleRate('...'); //Default '16000'
$adapter->getOptions()->setTextType('...'); //Default 'text'
$adapter->getOptions()->setVoiceId('...'); //Default 'Salli'

$adapter = new \AudioManager\Adapter\Polly();

$adapter->getOptions()->initialize()

->setVersion('latest')

->setRegion('us-west-2')

->setCredentials()

->setKey('...')

->setSecret('...');

$adapter->getOptions()->setOutputFormat('...'); //Default 'mp3'

$adapter->getOptions()->setLexiconNames('...');

$adapter->getOptions()->setSampleRate('...'); //Default '16000'

$adapter->getOptions()->setTextType('...'); //Default 'text'

$adapter->getOptions()->setVoiceId('...'); //Default 'Salli'

GitHub