I’ve submitted my question to the TinyMCE support forum. Can you figure it out before they can?
Category: Technology
All things geeky.
Today’s Technical Challenge
As a web application developer, I am often asked to put a WYSIWYG editor into the application so that the end-user can use the application without having to learn HTML and CSS. There are plenty of free and commercial wysiwyg editors available. (Note to developers: bookmark that link!)
These editors are designed to be customized for your application. You can typically control what buttons appear, what the interface looks like, and so forth. My challenge is to not only change the appearance of the editor, but when the end-user begins typing I need to have that type appear in a default font family (Arial), font size (12pt), and justified to the left. That means if they cut and paste content the defaults need to be applied.
The editor I chose for this project was TinyMCE. I find it far easier to implement than the ever popular FCKeditor (and no..those are the developer’s initials). My editor of choice is typically Xinha.
I have found numerous references to setting content_css : "defaultcontent.css" in the tinyMCE.init and this does change the text as the end-user is typing but the font family select and the font size select menus remain at their default values. When you save, the font family and font size are not saved. Very frustrating.
Interesting!
May 3, 2007 – Adobe, to embed FCKeditor in ColdFusion 8
Adobe has chosen FCKeditor as one of the great new features of its next major release of ColdFusion, code-named Scorpio. Some reviews of it can be found on the web.
For ColdFusion programmers, it will be as easy as defining a
tag to see FCKeditor displaying all its power on their pages, right out of the box.
[Source]
MySQL and CFMX7
I’m jumping the hoops again on another server.
Update: After beating my head into the wall, bleeding on my keyboard, restarting a server and having it almost not come back to life, I realized that "commysql.jdbc.Driver" and "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" are not the same thing. Oh the angst that can be caused by missing a period!
Old People are so Schtooopid
Apparently my children really do not understand what I do. As I looked over my son’s recent changes to his blog, he took it upon himself to explain, "The 3s are backwards Es, the @ is an A and the 5s are Ss." I wonder if I should tell him about blue boxing and phreaking.
Drupal – Not bad
I just finished a Drupal theming project. I rode a steep learning curve but I can dig Drupal now. Styling with css. Custom PHP. Custom nodes and blocks. Pretty cool! I do not think Drupal will steal me away from WordPress for blogging but it may steer me toward using it as a CMS platform for business website applications for businesses that want to have regular updates (ala blogging) and more interaction with their customers (ala forums).
I’m playing an RPG!
Since I work alone, I find peers online. IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is my greatest resource. I hang out in a channel on the EFNET servers called #coldfusion. Sometimes I visit the DALNET servers for #coldfusion and FreeNode for corporate support of various software products. I was introduced to IRC in the fall of 1988 shortly after its creation. I thought it wonderful that you could jump into a group of people, ask a question, and quickly have answer or variety of opinions. I still share that thought.
IRC has culture to it. N3wbs (newbies) make the same mistakes and get ridiculed harshly. It is like stepping into a well established ritzy social club and interrupting everyone’s conversations by yelling through the room, "Hey I’m new here! Anyone want to chat?" Good way to be ostracized. Discussion topics are typically organized by channels. #coldfusion is generally used to discussion Adobe’s ColdFusion web application language. A new IRC user typically steps into a channel and immediately says, "Can I ask a question?" which grates on everyone’s nerves because a question is expected. Asking to ask is redundant, unnecessary, and down right annoying. Idling is when a person is in a channel and doing nothing. I idle in #coldfusion almost 24/7. That way I can follow discussions and, like IM, someone can leave me a message and I can get back to them at a later time.
I was invited to join a channel on efnet called #idlerpg. I found this terribly amusing. It is a game! A game you play and win by doing nothing. The goal is to idle in the channel. You are penalized by doing things. If you change your nickname, you lose points (time in this case). It is an RPG so you gain inventory, engage in fights, go on quests, and move up levels. You simply do not do anything to make this happen! A very amusing concept. You can check on my status online. I am currently a level 4 Mad Coder.
How to slow your machine down
For the record, having 7 Firefox windows open with a combined 77 (34+7+10+12+3+6+5) tabs and these plugins:
- DOM Inspector
- Gmail Manager
- Html Validator
- Link Checker
- MeasureIt
- PicLens
- Picnik
- Screen grab!
- SessionSaver .2
- Speak It
- Talkback
- User Agent Switcher
- Web Developer
is NOT the optimal way to browser the Internet!
Boycott the iPhone!
I hate AT&T but I love Cingular therefore I am an AT&T customer. And if I had the money and the time to stand in line we would probably have 4 or 5 iPhones in the house tonight.
Working Assets is a really top-notch organization, and they’ve nailed one of the reasons I’ve been skeptical of the iPhone since the start. Handset locking sucks, and AT&T sucks more: These people are criminal traitors who helped wiretap the nation, neutricidal maniacs bent on wrecking the Internet, and convicted monopolists besides. [Source]
See also (
Steve Jobs addresses new AT&T/iPhone controversy). More iPhone links.
ColdFusion 8 to be much faster
Ben has the numbers.
Immigration Laws Keep Me Unemployed
Over the past year I made several attempts to get out of consulting and back into the corporate world. By being a consultant for a decade, I have evolved a fascinating set of skills which should make me invaluable to most tech companies. However, all interviews ended without an offer.
But immigration laws pertaining to the hiring of foreign workers in the States are tight. And firms have to prove that they can’t find anyone in their back yard to do the jobs they need to fill, before casting their gaze abroad.
This is why U.S. firms hire consultants to publish classified job ads in local U.S. papers, with goal of not finding any applicants.
[Source]
See more comments on the video.
Albeit interesting, that video and information actually has nothing to do with me failing to nail a corporate job. The jobs I missed had more to do with concerns that I could not switch from consulting back to cubeville and a couple required me to do some free work which did not fit into my schedule. Frankly, I failed to market myself well. I believe anyone with a decent skill set can find a good paying job particularly in the tech world.
Sorry Dean
I’m smarter than you.
Is the iPhone out of your budget?
Don’t worry. Apple will release a new iPhone within your budget soon. Imagine, the iPhone Shuffle! Randomly call people.
The Button That Beeps
From now on, everything I make is going to have one of these.
Twitter is Evil
I have been succumb by Twitter! (you can also see my Twitter updates in the sidebar)
Today’s Technote – Motorola v3xx hidden feature
The Motorola v3xx has a "hidden feature," an easter egg if you will…ok, it’s a bug! At least it seems like a software defect. If the combined number of messages in the inbox and outbox exceed something like 300 messages, then the Motorola v3xx will quit sending SMS text messages and will default to sending MMS messages. This creates a problem for people trying to send to services like Twitter or to people with phones which cannot receive multimedia messages. The solution is simply to clear out your inbox and outbox.
The combined time spent rummaging through menus and comparing settings between the working phone and the bizarre phone, calls to tech support, and surfing the web for an answer well exceeded 3 hours over the course of many days. I’d like that time back please.
