Nobu's Journal page thing!

If you've seen Nobu, it's probably too late. XD

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Journal Entry

Internet Explorer... A whole nother can of worms.

I recently got a chance to test my site on IE8 (I was running Windows 7 Beta in a VM; an interesting experience). I half expected it to display correctly; it is a recent browser, after all... Well, I should have known better. It seems IE8 (and I should think it's predecessors also) don't handle relative links as one would expect (and as many other browsers do). Rather than reading a given link (say '../images/background.jpg') as relative from the css file it is called in, it reads it as relative from the document that's being displayed. After discovering this, I quickly made all my urls absolute--from the server root (eg '/main/images/background.jpg')--including the links to my css files (just in case).

Ok, one problem solved; IE can now definitely see my css files and the images they link to... But there's still a problem; All my pages are black and white (save for the background, which now has an image). Ah, well this one was simple... Internet Explorer can't yet handle hsl() or hsla() as color values. It sucks, but I had to add fallback simpler colors for browsers which can't handle hsl(); that, or remove any keyword colors and replace them with hsl() and leave any browser which doesn't support it with a plain page. Why can't I leave the keywords if I don't put the fallbacks? Because then some text will be colored while other text isn't, and some backgrounds will be colored and others won't, which will cause problems with text readibility (For instance, black text on a black background).

Basically what I did was add 'background:navy;' before any 'background:[hsl color resembling navy];'. IE will be able to read the first one, navy, and when it gets to the second one it will just ignore it. Any browsers which support hsl() will read override the navy with the hsl value and display that instead. Thus, my website is once again compatible with the weird and already dated IE8 browser, and any other browsers which don't yet implement the css I use. ^.^

btw, if you're ever tired of my style, or if it takes too long for the page to load, or for whatever other reason you may have, you can view my page with (basically) no style by clicking on 'View' and going into 'Page Style' and clicking 'No Style' (on Firefox, anyway). It actually looks ok. I'll be adding alternate styles in the future too--dark styles, bright styles, red styles, no background styles, etc.. Not that you would be interested, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway. When I do, I'll probably post here. In the mean-time, enjoy the page in all it's IE glory... or not! ;)

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Journal Entry

php <head> source/More neko fun! ^.^

I've added a link to the php source of the <head> section used on all the pages of my site. I also added the Web Neko script to my page, so you can entertain yourself for hours having the cute little kitty follow your cursor around the screen. Unfortunately, it only works if the page is served as text/html in most browsers, so I've added a link to the homepage which forces it to be served as text/html, that way you can enjoy it even if my server would normally serve the page as application/xhtml+xml. The link adds &content=html to the end of the url; you can use this on any page you would like to be served as html(if there's any breakage due to site maintainance or user abuse, or for whatever reason you may have).

I added a notes/FAQs page to my site too, which currently only has two entries in it. If you have any questions you would like to add to it, just let me know.

Also, I realized that the audio file I linked to in my previous journal had the wrong permissions, so the server wasn't allowing anyone to listen to it(nice, but annoying feature of apache on ext filesystems). I've since fixed the permissions, so you can listen to it if you like. Sorry about that.

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Journal Entry

Some music for you Zelda freaks:

Link.oga (Must have Ogg/Vorbis codec to listen) ;)

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Journal Entry

I've fixed some issues that were found with the site; thanks goes to Sim9 for pointing one out(however indirectly)!

The Message Board now displays the most recent messages at the top and goes back in time from there down. It also scrolls, so when it becomes full it doesn't strech the page. I've added a spot (appropriately entitled "Allowed Tags") which displays the tags that are allowed in message board comments. As before, if you have any trouble using a certain tag in a comment or creating a comment, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

For those interested, the CSS used to create the tooltip was obtained from pscake, which I found via a search. The page containing the code was here. I modified it slightly to fit my purposes, of course, but that's basically what I used. After using it, I realized I could have obtained similar results by using '<a nohref="nohref" title="[tags]" class="note">Allowed Tags</a>' and styled the text to look like it does, but I couldn't have styled the tooltip, and I thought I'd keep it for awesomeness' sake. ;p

On another note...my biology teacher's name is Benjamin; same as mine. And I think there's another Ben in the class too... Why!? Why must I be tortured so? I've lost count of how many people I know who have the same name as me... At least 6, but I would guess around 8 or 10. Do you have any idea what it's like to hear your name called from in front, behind, the sides, every which way, only to realize they were talking to the person 5 feet away who has the same name? It's enough to make someone go insane... or at least be very parinoid.

Edit: I just realized, I never linked to the backend code used to post to the Message Board. XD
That code is more likely to make your mind blow than any of the code I've shown so far(Seriously, i did it pretty insanely), but if you would like to see it, just let me know. ;)

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Journal Entry

I apologise to those of you who may have tried to visit my site recently. It had been down because I was messing around with various OSs and hadn't gotten around to reinstalling the server software. It should be back up now, and available for browsing (I'll add a link to the journal page itself later on so you don't have to dig back in time to find the link ; ). I've also modified the site some; Now the Music Player page remembers the Radio type you selected after you press submit, the Message Board no longer accepts anything resembling a PHP start-tag ('<?') and presents an error if one is present (So it's not possible to submit PHP on the board, wheither it was present after submission or not, because it removes anything in between the tags, or after the tag if there is no closing tag). I've also fixed the 'nr' problem, which was due to a stripslashes() that was not necessary.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy your stay! ^.^

Edit: I've added a link to the source to the Music page, so you can look at it if you like.
Warning: If you decide to look at the source, be very cautious. It contains insane usage of PHP, and my cause your mind to blow. This is because of the external function howMyBrainWorks(), which is extremely complicated and hard to explain. You have been warned!

btw, I'm using PHP5, so if you have a version of PHP other than that, I cannot guarantee it will function correctly. However, if you need any help getting it working, I'll be glad to help. ^.^

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Journal Entry

I've added links on my site in the sidebar on the right to sources for various pieces of the site.

I have it setup so that it will update the links whenever I add a file to the 'src' subdirectory (see 'mainNav.phps'),

Please read the code carefully if you decide to use it, though. For whatever reason it's not displaying the code quite like it is (The only obvious example I've found so far is the contents of the header() function, which should have '\n\r' rather than 'nr' at the end). I have a feeling it has something to do with some component in Apache... I'll do some searching later on to see if I can find the source of the problem. ^.^

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Journal Entry

Well, it's not done... but if you want to see my website, you can take a look: http://68.226.165.69:60005/~nobu/. ^.^

Take a look around. There's a music page, where you can listen to various Last.fm stations, a message board, where you can post messages(with some HTML), and even a cute kitty cat(for those who like such things). There are also some links to other sites, but I don't know if you guys would be interested in any of them.

Anyway, take a look, and enjoy. ^.^

P.S.: Though I'm connected to the internet through cable, I don't have a static IP or domain. So if the link stops working in the future, that's the reason. I'll try to update the link whenever I realize there's a change or something's wrong. ;)

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Journal Entry

Phew! That took a bit of time. ^^;

I've created a (plain) text editor which allows you to choose a file(existing or not) and create and edit any text file(PHP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) and save it. The following is the code I used(it may be a little messy; bear with me):

<?php header("Content-type: application/xhtml+xml"); ?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN"
 "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd">

<?php
 $uri = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];
 if (isset($_GET["doc"])) {
  $doc = $_GET["doc"];
 }
 else {
  $doc = 'index.php';
 }

 $docLocation = "../$doc";
 $referrer = $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];

 if (file_exists($docLocation)) {
  $docHandler = fopen($docLocation, "rt");
  $docContent = fread($docHandler, filesize($docLocation));
  fclose($docHandler);
 }
 else {
  $docContent = "Could not read file contents";
 }

?>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>

<title>Benjamin's Website - Site Customizer</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/main.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="../css/editor.css" />

</head>

<body>

<div id="content">
 <h1>Site Customizer</h1>
 <p>Currently Editing "<?php echo "$doc"; ?>".</p>
 <form>
  <h2>Input Name of File to Edit:</h2>
  <input type="text" name="doc" <?php echo "value=\"$doc\""; ?> /> <input type="submit" value="Open File" />
 </form>
 <form action="write.php" method="post">
  <h2>Make Changes Here:</h2>
  <textarea name="newDoc" class="htmlbox"><?php echo htmlspecialchars($docContent); ?></textarea><br />
  <input type="hidden" name="referrer" value="<?php echo $referrer; ?>" />
  <input type="hidden" name="doc" <?php echo "value=\"../$doc\""; ?> />
  <input type="submit" /> <input type="reset" />
  <p>Note: It's a good idea to work in an external editor and paste your changes here when you are done.
 That way there is less likely to be an accident. Remember to backup your files also, just in case. ;)</p>
 </form>
</div>

</body>

</html>

<?php
 if (isset($_POST["doc"]) && isset($_POST["newDoc"])) {
  $doc = $_POST["doc"];
  $newDoc = $_POST["newDoc"];

  $docHandler = fopen($doc, "wd");
   # Write new data to document
  fwrite($docHandler, stripslashes($newDoc));
   # And close document again
  fclose($docHandler);

   # Return to previous document
  header("Location: ${_POST['referrer']}");
 }
 else {
  die('An error occured. Press browser\'s back button, or return to site homepage');
 }
?>

I'm assuming you guys know the dangers of allowing write access from external users and will take the proper precautions regarding such threats. As such, you may want to modify my code if you don't want people to be able to create new files or if you don't want people to access files in certain directories, as I have not added any safeguards against such actions because of the environment I'm running my server in(currently, there is almost no external access to my server, and the files are in an underprivileged part of my computer separate from the main server root, with write access unavailable to the parent directories).

That said, feel free to use this where ever you feel comfortable.

Edit: Quick clairification; this page was made to reside within a sub-directory of your main content(I called it "PHP", but it can be named anything), which is why there are certain parts(or a part; I'd have to look again) which have ".." in them. Just thought I'd point that out. ^.^

Edit2: Made the code a bit more portable and cleaned it up a bit.

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Journal Entry

I guess I should submit an entry, seeing as the journal wouldn't be serving much use if I didn't use it.

I think I got it pretty much how I want it(my journal page, that is) for now. This is how my website looks too, but I can't really show you that since it's hosted on my computer and I don't have a static IP or a domain to attach it to. Feel free to use this style on your page too, if you want, or any part of it. Just put a comment in the code somewhere saying where you got it(if you don't mind).

I'm looking forward to SimWorld V5, which may work on Linux OSs(I'm hoping. ;) ). Since I don't have any Windows OS to play with, and I've had little luck with Wine, waiting is the best option I have for now. Maybe when I get better at coding and stuff like that I can contribute myself(I'm currently majoring in Computer Science, but I haven't gotten very far yet; I just finished my first semester last week). Until then, my thanks goes to all those who are working on the project, as well as everyone else here at The Archive. ^.^

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