Tag Archives: Technology

BeyondCompare

The best one-on-one file comparison editor hands down. Nothing comes close! Integrating a one-to-one line matching algorithm makes this is the simplest file comparison tool for use on a day-to-day basis.

UltraEdit

My anything editor. Be it markup for a HTML template or opening some never before seen file ending in an alien extension, UltraEdit’s my choice. Intelligent syntax suggestion and an assortment of provided and freely available syntax highlighting formats makes my job easier.

TinyMCE

Is there any other tool that provides semantic markup of content that comes even close to the quality generated by TinyMCE? Officially, no. There are some competition very close behind.

TinyMCE has a familiar interface so you can concentrate on content generation and not which buttons create three-tier unordered lists! I admit I’ve made a few two level lists now with TinyMCE…

As interest and wider support of WYMeditor – currently in beta – springs forth I expect to install WYMeditor as the default Administrator level text editor but provide TinyMCE as the default for client-accessible content.

Let’s step back and start at the basics, in order to understand these element properties it’s best to remove any background confusion. Internet browsers (eg. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Camino, …) typically apply their own default values to page elements, this is done to create a standard experience across non-styled pages. We need to disable these default values as they differ across browsers, then I can teach you how these properties influence how elements are rendered.

To remove the default browser styles from the red and blue boxes below you would type in CSS:

.red {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}
.blue {
margin:0;
padding:0;
}


Margin
The larger the margin the further apart an element will be positioned in that given direction.

Example: In the below illustration a margin-bottom style of 2 blocks has been applied to the top (red) element, this creates a space of 2 blocks below the bottom (blue) element.

To apply a bottom margin to the red element you would type in CSS:

.red {
margin-bottom:20px;
}

Padding
The larger the padding the greater expansion of that element in that given direction.

Example: In the below illustration a padding-bottom style of 2 blocks has been applied to the top (red) element, this expands the red element vertically 2 blocks in turn pushing the the bottom (blue) element down 2 blocks.

To apply a bottom padding to the red element you would type in CSS:

.red {
padding-bottom:20px;
}

Zero (0) shortcut
0px can be shortened to 0; however all ‘real’ numbers must be followed by a metric, for example:

• px
• em
• %

Squish properties together
margin-top: 50px;
margin-right: 4em;
margin-bottom: 10%;
margin-left: 0;

can be shortened to…

margin: 50px 4em 10% 0;

Getting lazy? Maybe productive
padding:1.2em 5px;

is interpreted as…

padding:1.2em 5px 1.2em 5px;

You: “Pesky spammers filling up my comment moderation queue… this’ll teach them!”
WordPress: “You don’t have permission to do that.”

So it’s more widespread that I first thought, this permissions issue applies when attempting to delete a category, remove a comment as well as adding a category.

Deleting a post or page

From the Mange > Posts or Manage > Page page within the Admistrative back-end:

1. Press the Edit button beside the post you wish to remove
2. Press the Delete this post button below the post editor and extra features (Optional excerpts, Trackbacks, Custom Fields)

Removing a comment

From the Comments page within the Admistrative back-end:

1. Press the Edit button beside the comment you wish to remove
2. Press the Delete this comment button within the Advanced region; below the comment editor