ITmeze

It is not the first campaign when someone is trying to kick out IE6 from our life.  I guess it all started with some Scandinavian portals encouraging  bloggers to put “IE6 warning” on their web sites.

I was rather sceptical about whole idea.  Especially at the very beginning. Most of IE6 users are either forced to use “mature” solutions (i am talking about large corporations) or does not understand meaning of words like standards or security (so called “mature” users). Like my mom or dad! Until today they double-click “IE” icon saying “i am turning internet on”. Brilliant …

So, what is the point of joining such a campaign? IE6 will die anyway. According to recent browser statistics IE6 drops by 0.5-0.6% every month. Having 14.5% nowadays it will take roughly 2 years for it to drop below 2-3% (I assume it will take far more to completely get rid of it). Such a level, I guess can be neglected.

Let us ask each other: Are we going to change much? Well, I believe that questions is inappropriate. It is a little bit like with democracy and elections. We know that our vote is just a tiny fraction of all votes.  But still we believe in it, we go and vote (or at least most of us). We know that each decision consist of such small steps. If You believe that IE6 should be abandoned you should treat it as your obligation. Obligation to vote, to demonstrate your objection.

Every day i lose my precious time to fix problems with IE6. Fixing css, javascript… Time that I could have spend with my family or simply relaxing. I just cannot afford not to join this campaign! Even if it is going to save extra couple of days of work during next couple of years I would say that it was worth it.

Just imagine people like me and you… How much time could have been saved… spent doing something meaningful… adding new features instead of fixing browser compatibility issues…

From now on every visitor that uses IE6 browser will notice panel at the top of this blog encouraging to install some of the alternatives to old IE6, like IE8, Firefox or Chrome.

P.S. I can bet we will see “IE7 no more campaign” during next 2 years

Because I currently work with a couple of projects where I extensively use jQuery framework, together with it’s plugins I decided to write a post in which I can gather all of my ideas, tips that i have arrived during my work with this library.  I am a kind of guy that has a huge mess not only on his computer’s desktop but even within project files. It happens that when I arrive a problem, and I am sure I have figured it out in some other project but it usually takes me ages to dig through all of them to find even simplest solution. That is why I decided that I really need a place for all my tips and tricks, so I can find them easily.

This post focuses on jQuery Validation plugin, as i think this is the second thing i add to my project – after jQuery core file . I will add more and more tips from time to time as soon as I find something worth to write down.

Ever worked with one of most popular jQuery validation plugins? This is extremely powerful and yet flexible plug-in that  makes form validation in javascript really easy.

Beside that fact that it already contains most popular validation rules, like checking field length, validating email or url format, it enables you to write your own “rule”.

1. Adding new method

Plugin supports method called ‘equalTo’. It is widely used – especially we request password confirmation. What is not supported is ‘notEqualTo’ method. Not that popular but can be useful from time to time. Let us say we have a field that needs to be different from other field, like new password has to be different than old password – maybe not the best choice but draws the picture.. OK, I guess recommended way to do that would be to add new method to jQuery validation plugin:

  jQuery.validator.addMethod("notEqualTo",
                             function(value, element, param) {
                                  return this.optional(element) || value != $(param).val();
                             }, "This has to be different...");
  $("#change-password-form").validate({
                rules: { ... newPassword: { notEqualTo:'#currentPassword' } },
                messages: { newPassword: { notEqualTo: "New password has to be different than old one" } }
  });

2. Preventing double form submission

Another common issue every web developer arrives sooner or later is so called ‘double form submit’. Or going further on ‘multiple form submit’. It happens when user accidentally presses submit button couple of times, causing form to be send multiple times. If we have validation plugin for our form we can make use of submitHandler method to disable button after form is submitted.

  $("#sample-form").validate({
                submitHandler: function(form){
                    if(!this.wasSent){
                        this.wasSent = true;
                        $(':submit', form).val('Please wait...')
                                          .attr('disabled', 'disabled')
                                          .addClass('disabled');
                        form.submit();
                    } else {
                        return false;
                    }
                }
            });

3. Turning on/off validation under certain conditions

It happens quite often that we require input in certain field only when some other element is selected. I just finished making web page that allows users to subscribe to newsletters on their request.  If user selects certain check-box – it means he want to subscribe and we require from him to put valid email in other field.
Otherwise, we want to keep validation turned off. To do this, we use :

<label for="cbxSubscribe"> Would you like to subscribe?</label>
<input id="cbxSubscribe" type="checkbox" />
<input id="txtSubscriptionEmail" name="subemail" />

$("#sample-form").validate({
  rules: {
    txtSubscriptionEmail: {
      required: "#cbxSubscribe:checked"
    }
  }
});

As simple as that. Element ‘txtSubscriptionEmail’ is required depending on evaluation of ‘#cbxSubscribe:checked’ expression.

4. Use CDN from Microsoft AJAX

Surprise, Surprise! ASP.NET MVC 2 (since preview 2 i guess ) includes jQuery validation plugin to provide client side validation. Definitely good news!

Moreover, Microsoft now provides CDN for plugin:

• http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery.validate/1.5.5/jquery.validate.js
• http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery.validate/1.5.5/jquery.validate.min.js

As well as documentation for visual studio – this would allow IntelliSense to work under visual studio (2008 and up):

• http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery.validate/1.5.5/jquery.validate-vsdoc.js

You should make use of CDN wherever possible. It saves you bandwidth, most probably Microsoft serves content faster and there is always a chance your visitors will have it cached already. Note that Google offers CDN for jQuery and some other libraries: Google AJAX libraries API.

Stay tuned for more updates….

I will keep on adding more tips in future.