Update (May 10): Thank you all for your support. Currently I am improving the dateslider, check the newer (warning, not fully tested and stable) version here . I've fixed the problem of startdate > enddate and working on some other functionalities. Thanks again, you guys keep me going (:

Update (May 17): I am planning to move this project to Google Code. I received some nice improvements, so it would be good to form a team and develop this project further to fix all the bugs that are still out there. Contact me at willem [:at:] ajaxorized

You came for the demo right? It's here.

Due to the development of Qash.nl, a Dutch personal finance website full of cool javascript features, it's somewhat quiet around here. But to keep you satisfied, we present the sliding date-picker. This element enables you to pick dates with a simple slider bar. By dragging the bar over the time-line, the dates change instantly. Besides this, when the user decides to manually change the dates, the bar is automatically adjusted to the corresponding dates. As you are used to from us, the script is based on Prototype/Scriptaculous, but now combined with the very sexy DateJs library.

Implemeting is easy. First, include de javascript libraries:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/prototype.js" ></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/scriptaculous.js?load=effects,builder,dragdrop" ></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/date-en-US.js" ></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/dateslider.js" ></script>

Then, include the stylesheet:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/dateslider.css" type = "text/css" />

Then copypaste this to your HTML:

<div id = "slider-container">
	<div id = "sliderbar"></div>
</div><br />
<form>
<label for = "datestart">Start:</label>  <input type = "text" id = "datestart">
<label for = "dateend">End:</label>  <input typde = "text" id = "dateend">
</form>

Finally, create the dateslider object. The parameters are [dragbar_id],[date_bar_start],[date_bar_end],[year_start],[year_end]

p_oDateSlider = new DateSlider('sliderbar', '2007-10-01', '2008-10-01', 2001, 2009);
p_oDateSlider.attachFields($('datestart'), $('dateend'));

Thats it! I've tested it in Firefox 2.x, and IE6/7, please notify me when your browser isn't supported. You can download the full package, including prototype 1.6 and scriptaculous 1.8, here, it's under the GPL license.

Enjoy!

The following code (using prototype) prevents bots stealing the emailaddresses used on your website. Instead of including the emailaddress directly, use a div with a classname where the email-address needs to be placed:

Hi Bot! My email address is  <div class = "email_here"></div>!! Catch me if you can!

Then, use javascript to replace the email address after the page is loaded:

$$('.email_here').each( function(e) {
  e.update('willem'+'@'+'ajaxorized.com').observe('click', function() { window.location = 'mailto:willem'+'@'+'ajaxorized.com'; }).setStyle({cursor:'pointer'});
	});

Mind the concatenation that is used to prevent stealing from your javascript file. Include this piece of code in your body onload event and no bots will ever steal your email addresses again!

When adding this tiny javascript to the onkeyup event of your inputbox, the border will turn green when the email address. It uses scriptaculous' morph function to perform this transformation. See a demo
(more...)

While playing around with the prototype framework, I wrote 2 code snipplets I want to share with you:

 
var _ = function(sEName, id, classname, attributes) {
	var e = document.createElement(sEName);
	if(id) { e.id = id; }
	if(classname) { e.className = classname; }
	if(attributes) { for(var p in attributes) { e.setAttribute(p, attributes[p]); }	}
	return $(e);
}
 
Element.addMethods({
	_a: function(element, e) {
		element.appendChild(e);
		return $(e);
	},
	_r: function(element, e) {
		element.removeChild(e);
		return$(e);
	}
});

Using the functions above, you will be able to create HTML structures on the fast DOM-lane:

 
var oHTML = _('div', 'head', 'headClass');
oHTML._a(_('div', 'second', 'secondClass'))._a(_('img', 'myimage', 'images', {src:'pica.jpg'}));
document.body.appendChild(oHTML);

Which results in:

 
<div id="head" class="headClass">
<div id="second" class="secondClass">
     <img src="pica.jpg" id="myimage" class="images" />
  </div>
</div>
 

Enjoy.

Once, long before the Ajax and Web 2.0 era , there was a time we used HTML <center> for text-alignment and javascripts stunning alert() function for debugging our websites and applications. But times are changing. To develop high performance Web 2.0 'killer apps', we need more tools and better applications to create web applications based upon Javascript frameworks (such as prototype, jQuery, scriptaculous, moo tools etc.) feeded by PHP as a backend. Below I will sum up some free Firefox-extensions to build web applications quick, efficient and flawless. Ok, almost flawless then. (more...)