Advanced Uses of Google Forms: Customizing and Pre-population
As mentioned in last week's post, Google provides very few options for customizing their forms. However, with a little extra work, the form can look anyway we want. All the extra space between questions can be removed. Labels can appear on the same line as the corresponding form field. Let's look at customizing Google forms and other advanced usage of the service. [Continue reading]
Rapidly Developing Forms with Google Docs
If you develop surveys or data collection forms online, have you given Google Docs a spin? This free service is more than just creating spreadsheets and documents. It also provides a form builder which simplifies the development of online forms. The form responses are stored in a Google spreadsheet which can easily be exported to Microsoft Excel, CSV, etc. Plus, the forms can be embedded in your own website. [Continue reading]
Removing Excess Information from URLs Prior to Publishing
Before posting links online or in printed materials, do you clean them up? They may contain things that can be removed while still having functional links. They will be shorter. Plus, removing some parts may help future-proof the URL. Now I'm not talking about removing the "http://" and "www" portion. There are other things to consider. [Continue reading]
Are Skinny Scroll Bars Worth the Hit to Website Usability?
When it comes to interface design, what's with websites (and applications) switching to the skinny scroll bar. Okay, it saves space. But are the usability drawbacks worth the few extra pixels? Since downloading and trying out Rockmelt a few weeks back, I've been asking myself this question. [Continue reading]
Naming Your HTML Form Fields with an Associative Array
When using database entries to dynamically build HTML forms, how do you go about naming the form fields? Do you name them "Field1", "Field2′, etc.? Or do you have a more efficient way to access the fields when processing the form submissions? If you haven't tried using an array as the name, you may be missing out. [Continue reading]
Industry News: CSS Media Queries and Call to Remove Share Buttons
What do you think about the recent call to remove share buttons from websites? Also, does your website utilize CSS Media Queries? If not, they may not be as difficult to incorporate as you might think. [Continue reading]
Watching for Broken Links in Published Materials
Does your organization distribute materials created by those who are less familiar with how URLs work? If so, you may want to be more involved with the review process for this content. That way the organizational newsletter, for example, isn't sent out with broken links. Here are the more common issues I've run into over the years. [Continue reading]
Going Beyond the Typical Sort: Sorting by Specific Values with MySQL’s Order By Clause
When performing MySQL database queries, have there been times where the "Order By" clause doesn't seem to cut it? Well it turns out that we can do more than sort by one or more columns in ascending and descending order. MySQL's FIELD() function provides a way to target a specific value from within a column. Let's take a closer look at the function. [Continue reading]
Browsers Hiding Aspects of the URL: Benefit or Hindrance?
What's with browsers hiding parts of the URL in the address bar. It's one thing to fade aspects of the URL to bring focus to the domain name. But why do browsers like Firefox hide the protocol and Opera hide GET variables? The URLs look cleaner, but in the end it may lead to miscommunication. [Continue reading]
Duplicating the Current Browser Tab with Ctrl+N
When browsing the Web, have you needed to duplicate the page you're currently looking at? It doesn't take too much work to copy the website's URL and paste it into a new browser window. If you're using Internet Explorer however, there is a faster way. [Continue reading]
