FFF CSS Menus Over Flex, Flash and Flash Forms

Recently I came across the issue where I needed to change from an old menu design to a CSS drop-down menu. (Similar to the way File, Edit .... Help works).
The main application was Flash based content - which presented me with a problem. The issue is that the CSS content drops behind the flash content.

Fortunately, the solution is easier than I thought.

Add This to your Object tag:

<param name="wmode" value="transparent" />

If you use version detection, make sure you add it in there. It will look something like this:

AC_FL_RunContent(
...
"wmode","transparent",
...

If you still have Flash Forms for ColdFusion laying around, just add the following to your CFFORM tag:
wmode="transparent" (note that this goes in the tag, along with your format="flash" attribute.)

If others know of pitfalls or have a sexier solution, by all means - share. :)

Prism: Bridging the gap ...

I've recently become aware of a desktop application called Prism. This application (6.66MB) in size installs as a desktop app, when you run it, it prompts you for the following information:

After you add the URL of the website, and give it a name you are good to go. From there, you have a shortcut icon that starts that site up every time - just like its a desktop application.

Why is this useful? Let's backup a bit ...
I have long been a fan of Meebo - as well as other sites like google documents. In fact, they are among the FIRST that I startup on any given day. Firfox Browser (with certain "startup" sites), Internet Exploer, Safari, Thunderbird, SQL Enterprise Manager, Query Analyzer, Eclipse ... but this also leads to an eventual problem. Firefox (my browser of choice) gets bloated and needs a restart every two or three days. While I love the fact that FF has so many developer tools, from the ability to add / edit cookies, to being able to inspect and modify the source code of a page using firebug - and even intercepting and tampering with page requests ... (we'll come back to this in a sec)

When I found meebo, I fell in love with it for a couple reasons:
1) I never have to update Trillian (or whatever software) again!
2) It supported everything I used.
3) I could use it at the library or on a friend's computer without hosing up his configuration.
Okay, for those that care, that was three and there are more reasons to like it, but I don't really think you care right now - let's tie this back into Prism.

What I didn't like about Meebo was the fact that when I closed my browser, it knocked me off the grid! It also hindered my development efforts when I was tampering data. (Read more about that when I finish writing the entry) Meebo continuously sends requests back and forth with the server - hence the concept of "instant" messaging. Google Mail or reader is just as bad, even if you don't have chat enabled on it. This is because of the way AJAX works - but this hindered the ability to get meaningful tampering / inspection done.

Moving these "web applications" off as Prism apps is the solution I've been looking for! I can close / reboot my browser (or even let it crash) without being annoyed that its dropping me from the grid, or interrupting that email to my Aunt. I can focus on developing applications without someone "pinging me" and interrupting me by having the tab flash their message (drawing valuable seconds away from my code). Speaking of rebooting the browser, at some point in the future ... I'm planning on featuring FFox and some tools I have found to be useful as a developer.

A few random thoughts about this:
- I don't like that there is only one icon for Prism, and it doesn't use the website icon (if there was one to begin with).
- I don't like the fact that ads pop up in a new prism window, but then again, if I wanted a site to pop up in a new window, this is helpful.
- There is a menu in the bottom-right corner to "Install to Desktop" - this puts the current page as an icon on your desktop, so if you were looking to "control" your kids browsing with this tool - forget it. They will just litter the desktop with thousands (or dozens) of shortcuts.
- This doesn't replace Adobe AIR, which allows for more feature-rich use of apps - like the ability to use the application offline. Prism is an on-the-grid-only application.
- If you setup the site as "https://" - it gives you the padlock in the bottom-right menu, but it doesn't allow you to inspect the security certificate. That's a bummer, but most people won't ever look at one, even though they should.
- If you setup an icon for Gmail on one account and setup an icon for Gmail for another account, they will NOT share the same session.
- Interestingly, if you setup an icon for Gmail and one for Google, they DO share the same session. If anyone knows how to make sure they do not share the same session on the same profile, fire away!

Barcodes in ColdFusion

One of the brilliant minds that I have the pleasure to work with at CF WebTools, Ryan, has just released information on generating and reading 2D barcodes in ColdFusion. I won't steal his thunder by writing about it in too much detail here, read about it at Stillnet Studios.
I believe this example needs ColdFusion 8, but please post back if anyone has accomplished this with earlier versions, we'd love to see the CFC extended!

Thank you Ryan for sharing this with us!

Unintended Consequences

I have found in my meager and short development career that even the easy things may not be so easy or obvious. Simple "user experience enhancements" that Microsoft has added are not really enhancements when you believe your site is saying "Please dick here", that is clearly an unintended consequence.

It all started when I turned on my machine and was alerted to the fact that Real Player has a security flaw. Okay, things happen and my hat tips to any company who fixes and alerts / nags the end-user to update.

The unfortunate thing here (as I saw it) were the following two things:

1) The patch tried to launch Real Player and initiate the update, but Real Player Froze. I personally was able to "patch" this flaw by uninstalling Real Player. HA! (Off-topic here, so I won't go any further with that).

2) The text "PLEASE CLICK HERE" immediately grabbed my attention and I thought I must have hit a phishing site or some other malware site. (more on phishing and malware another day). It appeared that the site was saying "Please dick here ..."!!

Here is what I saw in Internet Explorer:



I was dumbfounded when seeing this and out of curiosity, I looked in Firefox to see if there was difference on the font, there was:



It is subtle, but you can certainly see a space between the "c" and the "l" on "click" in Firefox. After looking into this, I determined this is because of Microsoft's anti-aliasing attempts to make text more readable. To tweak this you should and get the best "user experience" visit the Windows ClearType Tuner page.

Good luck and safe browsing.