Page 19 of 21 of the Unsolicited Advice Archives

1. An Introduction to HTML5 Web Messaging

   'HTML5 web messaging provides a way for documents to share data without exposing the DOM to malicious cross-origin scripting. This article provides an introductory guide to using this new functionality, and some simple examples to get you started.'

2. input type="url", validation and user interfaces

   Recently a friend messaged me about the url input type, and how to prevent Opera from automatically prepending http:// to the value of a URL input field if it is missing. I think I've found a workaround, but first, I want to discuss the url input type, and how different

3. DOM Access Control Using Cross-Origin Resource Sharing

   'This article provides an introductory guide to cross origin resource sharing, or CORS, a technology allowing you to control communication and access between resources residing at different origins in a secure manner, getting around problems associated with the traditional same-origin security policy.'

4. Late night lizard

   Just returned from a wonderful two-week trip to Indonesia that would have been way more wonderful if it wasn't for the geckos in our hotel villas (we stayed at two places: The Purist in Ubud, Bali; and Ahimsa Beach on Jimbaran Bay). They made this noise all. night. long. Download

5. HTML5 for AS3 Developers: FormData versus URLVariables

   This is the third post in an occasional series designed to bridge the gap between ActionScript 3.0 and emerging front-end technologies. Both ActionScript and the front-end stack have mechanisms for sending data from a page or movie to a server without requiring a page refresh. In most browsers, we

6. What is HTML5?

   My super-short post that attempts to answer this question as completely and accurately as possible in three presentation-friendly bullet points. HTML5 … re-imagines HTML as an API ~~with objects, events, interfaces, and methods~~ or a collection of interfaces. defines an algorithm for generating a consistent, cross-browser friendly DOM tree, regardless of

7. Dispatching Custom DOM Events

   Apparently while I wasn't paying attention, the big four browser vendors (more or less) implemented DOM Level 3 events. And what, exactly, is the big deal about DOM Level 3? Custom DOM events. Custom events are especially important in game development. Let's say we were developing Pong using JavaScript. We

8. HTML5 for AS3 Developers: cross-domain.xml and Cross-Origin Resource Sharing

   This is the second post in an occasional series designed to bridge the gap between ActionScript 3.0 and emerging front-end technologies. Flash, like JavaScript, more-or-less adheres to a same-origin policy by default. Under a same-origin policy, requests for data must come from the same scheme, hostname, and port. If

9. Toggle 'blind' effect with CSS3 transitions

   Transitioning between an 'open' state and a 'closed' state when the height of your content is variable (making a transition of the height property inadequate). What makes the magic? Using height: auto, and transitioning the min-height and max-height properties instead. View the demo, or study / steal the code. This example