It occurred to me that I should probably post here when I update stuff, even if it just means the site doesn’t look dead from the front page. With that in mind, Picbox was updated to versions 1.2 and 2.2 the other day, which is the first non-bugfix release since the release of the jQuery version. The changes aren’t as large as that update, with the main cosmetic change being the caption appearing when navigating using just the keyboard.

As usual go to the Picbox page to download it.

I’ve also released the ultra-small (496 bytes using the closure compiler) dragging code used in the jQuery version separately, so anyone so inclined can check it out and break/use it.

Get tinyDrag here. I might even put up a demo or two at some point.

I finally got round to porting Picbox to jQuery, so now those inclined more to that framework will have an easier time using it. Hopefully I can use this to gain it a bit more exposure too as jQuery is far more widely used, as well as having it’s own official plugin repository.

It’s a shame Mootools doesn’t seem to have gained the same sort of traction, as I prefer it (with my limited experience of both) slightly as a framework. While some cry foul of it’s extending things in the global namespace I find it makes for much more native and cleaner feeling code, and makes it feel more powerful (although there’s very, little if anything, you could achieve with one and not the other). In the end it’s down to personal preference and many people prefer jQuery’s “less javascripty” style and smaller learning curve, especially those with little coding experience. I could go on for a while about the differences between the two, but this is a much better comparison than I could ever come up with. It’s definitely worth reading if you’re stuck with which framework to use, or are just curious about the differences between the two.

Anyway go download Picbox if you haven’t already, and yell at me if it breaks. Meanwhile, I’ll try and think of something else to make.

Well I’m back from france, and slightly nervously anticipating my A-level results tomorrow. It would probably keep me up the whole night anxiously refreshing UCAS track but having travelled the best part of 1000 miles by car in the last couple of days, and had not much sleep on the way I’ll probably drop off soon……

I did find something rather cool while importing all my photos from the trip in picasa though. Using the collage feature and selecting the multiple exposure some nice abstract almost marble-like textures can be made. It might take a bit of playing around with what pictures to use, and it needs a fair few images but you can quickly end up with the sort of thing that web designers probably spend a while producing. Here’s a nice image I ended up with after a couple of minutes of playing:

Things are slowly starting to pick up round here, and a few of you have downloaded picbox Please do let me know if you have any comments/suggestions, and it would be nice to know if it’s actually being used anywhere. I’m still tweaking the theme of this site too (you can probably tell I’ve never been much of an artist..) and will probably continue to do so for some time (read ‘forever’).

I do have an idea an a quick mockup for a new project though, it’s not a big one but I’m coming across a few tricky problems with different browser’s preferences of <object> and <embed> (which I might talk about in a future blog post). I’m also trying to decide whether or not to use mootools for it; as it will hopefully end up being a relatively small file either way, I’m not sure the extra size overhead of the framework is worth it.

In other news I’m currently enjoying a blisteringly fast broadband connection of 128kbps after going over our monthly usage limit barely halfway through the month! Thankfully I’m going away in 3 days, thus hopefully saving the world from my agonisingly-slow-internet induced murderous rampage… oh and did I mention ftp is blocked too?

See you in just over 2 weeks! (just in time for exam results results day…(woo?) :S )

Well things are starting to come together around here, but there’s still lots of styling and content-producing I need to do… (yes I know the links burn your eyes till you click them). Exams are all finished but I’m off to glastonbury for a week  so nothing’ll change round here till I get back…

Buuuut Picbox v1 is released! It’s yet another javascript image viewer (in the same vein as Lightbox et al) that I developed because I got annoyed with how they all handled large images. If you want to try it out there’s a download page and it’s also got a nice demo on it. Any feedback will have to wait until I get back and can finish sorting everything out though.. But give it a try!

Right.. Starting again…