2009 January :: Gilluminate

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Archive for January, 2009

Adobe CS4 Installation Fail

January 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Developer Blog | Tags: Adobe, Windows

I’ve spent the past 3 days trying to install Adobe CS4 Web Premium on my home Windows XP computer (as the second install of my license at work). I kept getting an error before anything would install telling me something like “the following programs failed to install” (I forget the exact wording).

Upon checking the Windows System Logs (Event Viewer -> Application), all it would tell me was “Product: Adobe Anchor Service CS4 — Installation operation failed.” With no other explanation.

After spending a bunch of time trying to find the answer with Google and on Adobe’s website, I finally came across the solution. Part of the problem, as I see it, is that CS4 is so new there isn’t much help out there for it yet. In the end, the solution is for CS3 but works beautifully for CS4 as well.

Basically you need to complete 2 simple steps.

1) Download and install the Windows Installer CleanUp Utility here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

2) Download, unzip, and run the Adobe Windows CS3 Cleanup Script (which relies on the Windows program mentioned above to run) here:

http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html

I only had to run level 1 of the cleanup script to make it work.

As I said before, even though the Cleanup Script says it’s for CS3, it did work for me in installing CS4 as well.

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Scriptaculous Autocomplete Page Jump Using Arrow Keys

January 20th, 2009 | Posted in Developer Blog | Tags: CSS, JavaScript, Scriptaculous

When you use overflow:auto in your css in conjunction with Scriptaculous’ Autocomplete, there is a bug that makes the entire page jump around when you use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate up and down through the suggestion list. This bug normally appears only when the page itself is long enough to require a scroll bar.

I managed to come up with a very clean working solution by hacking the controls.js file that comes with scriptaculous. The solutions requires replacing the markPrevious and markNext functions and adding a small line of code to the updateChoices function.

Currently, markPrevious and markNext are telling the page to jump around like that, and I’m not sure why! As far as I can tell (please let me know otherwise) this solution could be included in the scriptaculous without breaking a thing (hint, hint to the scriptaculous team).

To implement the solution, replace:

markPrevious: function() {
 if(this.index > 0) this.index--;
  else this.index = this.entryCount-1;
   this.getEntry(this.index).scrollIntoView(true);
},
 
markNext: function() {
 if(this.index < this.entryCount-1) this.index++;
  else this.index = 0;
  this.getEntry(this.index).scrollIntoView(false);
},

With:

markPrevious: function() {
 if(this.index > 0) {this.index--;}
 else {
  this.index = this.entryCount-1;
  this.update.scrollTop = this.update.scrollHeight;
 }
 selection = this.getEntry(this.index);
 selection_top = selection.offsetTop;
 if(selection_top < this.update.scrollTop){
  this.update.scrollTop = this.update.scrollTop-selection.offsetHeight;
 }
},
 
markNext: function() {
 if(this.index < this.entryCount-1) {this.index++;}
 else {
  this.index = 0;
  this.update.scrollTop = 0;
 }
 selection = this.getEntry(this.index);
 selection_bottom = selection.offsetTop+selection.offsetHeight;
 if(selection_bottom > this.update.scrollTop+this.update.offsetHeight){
  this.update.scrollTop = this.update.scrollTop+selection.offsetHeight;
 }
},

Now find the updateChoices function and just after the code this.stopIndicator(); add this.update.scrollTop = 0; so that it looks like this:

this.stopIndicator();
this.update.scrollTop = 0;
this.index = 0;

I’ve tested in FF 2.0.0.4, FF 3.0.5, Chrome 1.0.154.43, Safari 3.2.1, Opera 9.5.1, IE 7.0.5730.13 and IE 6.0.2600 without problems.

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IE6 Empty Div spacing issue

January 9th, 2009 | Posted in Developer Blog | Tags: CSS, Internet Explorer

It has become fairly common practice to use CSS to fill the contents of an empty DIV tag. For example, I’m working on a project now that uses the following DIV:

<div id="main_nav_top_shadow"></div>

And with CSS I’m giving that div a fixed height and a repeating background image that creates the appearance of a shadow being cast upward on top of my main nav.

#main_nav_top_shadow {
height: 6px;
background-image: url(../images/main_nav_top_shadow_x.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
}

The problem is that IE6 thinks that the empty space consists of text. Empty text, but text nonetheless. So what happens is that whatever the default font size for that particular DIV becomes the height of the DIV, rather than my specified height: 6px; in the CSS. There are 2 fixes for this problem, one of which I’ve been using forever and another I just stumbled upon and which prompted me posting both solutions. Both are fairly easy.

Solution #1
This solution is the one I’ve been using forever. Basically, you just choose a font size that’s smaller than the height you are setting.

#main_nav_top_shadow {
height: 6px;
font-size: 1px;
background-image: url(../images/main_nav_top_shadow_x.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
}

That usually does the trick. But this has always seemed wrong. I can’t say why, it just feels weird. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m setting a font size for no text at all.

Solution #2
This solution I found this week and actually makes more sense to me. It involves using simple HTML comments. And not the [if IE] stuff either. Just a plain simple comment:

<div id="main_nav_top_shadow"><!--Leave this empty--></div>

It does not matter what text you put in there. It’s not any command to the browser or anything. But it works, by darn! I guess IE6 feels more comfortable not having anything in that div, as long as you put a comment there.

Not only does that work, but it is the right thing to do. After all, the next guy to come along and read your code might see an empty DIV and be tempted to remove it because it contains no content. This way you can leave some nice little message pleading the proverbial programmer to leave well enough alone!

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