Orange, the first application released under Simple, has a little feature that will backup the list you have made into an easy to read .txt file that you can save for later use. The .txt file will sit on the server for 24-hours so that it will give you time and download it and keep it for later use.

These .txt files are in no way available to the public unless they know the file name, which is randomly generated based on a few calculated numbers. The random folders they sit in is also protected from outside use, and the files are also not linked anywhere other than the current session.

Why am I talking about this? I just wanted to point out that privacy is a big issue surrounding personal data, such as task lists, notes and other information. Sure Orange doesn’t sit on a secure connection, but no information is sent to the server unless the export feature is being used.

Backups of all the list files do happen, this way if you remember the file number and need the list, it can be recovered. I haven’t created a tool for this so if you need a list, just contact me.

I also attended Google I/O this week and all I can say is that Google is definitely a company that’s doing things right. Their passion for the community is just awesome and really helps developers get their ideas into the real world.

I was fortunate to sit in on a few great sessions, the favorite being “The State of AJAX” hosted by Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, talking about how AJAX is being used and how JS libraries are becoming a great part of the JS community. (go jQuery). If you were unable to attend Google I/O, the opening Keynote, hosted by Vic Gundotra, is available on YouTube.

Have a good weekend.

Mootools.net homepage features a very cool main sections navigation where the content slides to reveal more information. I wanted to accomplish something similar but do it in a way that doesn’t require me to use the mootools library (no offense, I just use jQuery more.) The information below is in no way optimized to be used but is currently a rough draft.

The setup
I created three div tags that will slide open to reveal more information, but at the same time shrink the inactive div tags. So below is the code I used for the HTML:

<div id="accordian">
<div id="blue"></div>
<div id="green"></div>
<div id="purple"></div>
</div>

‘accordian’ has a set width to hold all three Div elements. Each div inside of ‘accordian’ contains both onmouseover and onmouseout actions, onmouseout being just the same function whereas (currently) each onmouseover activates individual functions for each div.

Here’s an extract from the JavaScript used to manipulate each Div, in this example we are manipulating the div with an id of ‘blue’:

function selectBlue(){
stopAll();
$("#blue").animate({width: "194px"});
$("#green").animate({width: "132px"});
$("#purple").animate({width: "133px"});
}

As you can see, I’m using the standard .animate function in jQuery to change the width of all three div tags. Blue, being the one we hovered over, gets extended to 194 pixels in width and the other two to 132 and 133 respectively. You would want to calculate the sizes to match up with the outer div (in this case, accordian.) ’setopAll’ refers to a function that stops all animations on all three div tags that may be present.

You can view a live demo, or download the source. I will be trying to create a better formed script that will be a little easier to use.

So I am working on incorporating a tagging system into Orange. The first of the few basic tags would be Home, Play and Work. Not sure if I want to add more of have users add their own. It’s definitely work a look. Below is a quick walkthrough of the preliminary tagging system.

Let’s have a look at the selection screen:








It uses a simple drop down selection menu where you can choose pre-made tags. When you add the task, the JavaScript will do the rest in adding the tag to the task in the list below it. Not much room in here for creating your own tag, but will see how to implement it.

Tags in the list:

The screenshot above, shows a left-aligned tag system. Which links each task to its own tag in a more straight forward way. The other layout, below:

In this screenshot, the tags are right-aligned. This layout creates a more cleaner look for each individual task, but the problem occurs with a person easily connected a task to its tag.

The long awaited WordPress 2.5 has finally been released and is available for download over at wordpress.org. So get it while it’s hot. With the release comes a new design for the site as well (wordpress.org that is) and I must say, it gives them a more “future web” look.

I’m not sure whether or not I’ll update this blog to 2.5 but I’ll definitely check it out (I’m busy uploading it as we speak!) and give a quick review of it. I’m mostly interested in seeing how the new admin panel works.

I’ve uploaded some screenshots of the Admin Panel to my Flickr Page.

Google’s Android App Test from Jarques on Vimeo.

More info on Google’s Android project.