QuickerSite is available on GitHub as from 2020.
You may want to star, fork, follow, download and/or contribute to the project over there. Thank you!
This is what you get when searching for "Chrome" in Bing:
Next, MS tries very hard to prevent you from downloading Chrome in Edge by blocking downloads from Google.com. Microsoft should be ashamed of itself :)
My JavaScript crash courses over the past few weeks are paying off already. Tonight, I was asked to include a JSON calendar for a website I host for quite a while now.
I took the challenge and I was succesful with the script below:
<script>
var x;
var xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
xmlhttp.[onreadystatechange] = function() {
if (this.readyState == 4 && this.status == 200) {
var myObj = JSON.parse(this.responseText);
for(var i = 0; i < myObj.data.length; i++) {
var obj = myObj.data[i];
x=x+ "<tr>";
x=x+ "<td>" + obj.date.dayName + " " + obj.date.day + "/" + obj.date.month + "/" + obj.date.year + "</td>";
x=x+ "<td colspan=3><strong>" + obj.eventName + "</strong>";
if (obj.tickets != null ) {
x=x+ " - <strong><a target='_blank' style='color:#F49021' href='" + obj.tickets.url + "'>tickets</a></strong>"
};
x=x+ "</td></tr>"
x=x+ "<tr><td style='font-size:0.8em'>("+ obj.performanceTime + ")</td>";
x=x+ "<td>" + obj.venue.name + " - " + obj.venue.street + " - " + obj.venue.city + " (" + obj.venue.countryCode + ")</td></tr>";
x=x+ "<tr><td style='height:20px'> </td></tr>";
}
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = "<table cellpadding=5 border=0>" + x.replace("undefined","") + "</table>";
}
};
xmlhttp.open("GET", "/storeJSON.asp", true);
xmlhttp.send();
</script>
<div id="demo"> </div>
The most important line is xmlhttp.open("GET", "/storeJSON.asp", true);
The actual JSON is NOT located on that particular website. It rarely is. JSON is made to transfer data from site to site, server to server. But my storeJSON.asp looks like this:
<%
dim aj_XmlHttp,inputsource
Set aj_XmlHttp = CreateObject("Msxml2.ServerXMLHTTP")
aj_XmlHttp.open "GET", "https://XXXXXXXXXXXXX", False
aj_XmlHttp.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "text/json"
aj_XmlHttp.setRequestHeader "CharSet", "UTF-8"
aj_XmlHttp.Send
inputsource = aj_XmlHttp.responseText
set aj_XmlHttp = Nothing
response.write inputsource
%>
where XXXXXXXXXXXXX is the actual URL with JSON data to be parsed. UC? Handy. And even though the big load is on the client here, the actual JSON-URL is not exposed in the browser. Oh btw, it's all about this page.
I was told Google ranks non-SSL sites lower and it's gonna mark them as unsafe pretty soon (May 2018). This year will be the point of no return. Every website needs an SSL certificate, Google says.
This is going to be a game changer. Take Godaddy. They offer dirt cheap hosting, somewhere between 3 and 4 $/month. But they charge 6$/month for a certificate alone. One.com is smarter. They include SSL in their cheapest solutions. It's not even an option there.
I'm not sure about this. I'm in this business for some decades now. Never ever a QS backsite password got burned due to unsafe networks. QS uses encrypted cookies by itself.
Also, validating an SSL often needs a lot of website-tweaking and fixing. I spent all night just to tweak this (rather small) website alone. Everywhere I used images and iframes pointing to "unsafe" http://-sources, my page was marked "unsafe" as well. I had to replace dozens of lines of html code. But I host 100's of websites. Go figure...
As much as I like Google - and who am I in the end - I think we're going a bit too fast here. There is not a single reason to secure 5 page business-card-kind-a-websites with little or no interaction with the visitor, other than clicking around a little. Not a single reason. There is no sensitive data whatsoever going back and forth. My 2 cents.
Anyway, www.quickersite.com is on SSL as from today. Please report any issue. Many thanks.
You know, I'm a Google fan. I really like many of their products, like gmail, calendar, drive, docs, etc.
A little hour ago, I setup a Google Cloud Server (https://cloud.google.com) and I'm already hosting a QS demo site on a Windows 2016 Data Center Edition. There was not 1 issue, and I have the feeling the entire process is automated with no human interventions whatsoever. And I have a FULL YEAR to test this thing, for FREE. And even if I would signup for the paid version, I would pay not even 25% of what I pay now.
I like that.
Btw, not only you can deploy all sorts of servers, you can also deploy 100's of applications (CMS, e-Commerce) via the Cloud Launcher, each time calculating their price. I wonder what it would take to get QS on their list !
I recently discovered an HTML5 element I had never heared of: the HTML Canvas. I dived into this because I'm a teacher in web programming nowadays and I needed a fun way to learn coding. The HTML Canvas element is perfect for the job. I'm working on a new website about the topic. Make sure to check it out. Hope you get as excited as I am about this.
Below one of my scripts. There is no video, jpg or gif involved here. It's 100% pure JavaScript and HTML. Check out the html/javascript source!
Forget EVERYTHING you've ever learned about SEO. It's over.
Create a Google Business. It's all you need to show up first in the Google results.
After my pessimistic post about Microsoft's dumping Webmatrix few days ago, I needed some positive vibes. And what happens? Mobirise releases v3!
I admit. I am a fan of this thing from day 1. If you want to impress customers with a stunning - mobile first - web design, use Mobirise. Get a grip on it. It's not even that complicated. As a matter of fact, it's ridiculously simple.
Slides, galleries, background videos, sticky header, mobile menus, numerous predefined text blocks and image/video positions, social media integration... You name it, you got it. And it's all free.
It's still possible to use QuickerSite in combination with Mobirise. But in all honesty, the added value of QS is being reduced with every new version they release. The things I would typically keep on using QS for is the intranet (multi-user), the forms, the web based approach (rather than using a PC tool). But ... to be very honest, I am no longer convinced that web based content management is the only way to go. Many of the QuickerSites I host can easily be managed with a tool like Mobirise. Many of my customers do not change their site very often anyway. Why not use Mobirise for these sites? On top of that, Mobirise exports html files only. They do not require any resources on the server.
I shoot myself in the foot again. I know. But that is because if I don't, somebody will shoot me in the back anyway. As sad as I was because of Microsoft dumping Webmatrix, as excited I am now about Mobirise. Give this tool a try. It's groundbreaking.
Webmatrix is dead. Development of Webmatrix, the all-in-one web development IDE has stopped. That is after the Visual Studio Express editions got buried as well. MS now suggests to use "VS Code" instead. I downloaded it. Gave it a try. I don't get it. Notepad++ is a much better code editor. And it is Open Source as well. Microsoft has lost the war on web development many years ago. Nobody cares about what MS is developing or suggesting anymore. That is painfully clear, except to the Microsoft developers themselves.
6 years ago I was very excited about Webmatrix though. It was available for a wide variety of Windows versions, including all Vista and 7 edtions (I think it was even available for all XP editions, up to Webmatrix v2).
Webmatrix is a very elegant solution to make non-coders and non-techies familiar with the basics of web-technology (cut-down local web server serving a wide variety of popular extensions). I never used it that way, but in theory it could be used as a standalone local app-server for all sorts of things like CRM, Invoicing systems, document management tools, etc, QuickerSite always ran perfectly well on Webmatrix. It has helped me to locally test-drive and develop things without the need for the heavier IIS Management Console (not available in many Windows versions anyway).
Microsoft has - in the past 15 years - changed strategy a little to often in my opinion. Look at PHP. PHP has not really changed over the past 15 years. There has been a lot of new libraries for PHP, yes, but the core PHP code syntax did not change much. Because of that, PHP gained in popularity year after year. PHP never lost users, only won new ones.
MS should have done the exact same with classic ASP (their answer to PHP in the mid 90's), rather than develop their ASP.NET 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 monsters. Similar to PHP, ASP could have gradually been upgraded with new functions, like dealing with zip-, pdf- and image-files.
Just my 2 cents.
Yesterday I released QuickerSite v43. QuickerSite v42 was the longest living version of QuickerSite ever. And actually, QuickerSite v43 is mainly a service release - fixing some small issues (most of them were never reported). There is no reason to upgrade a site to v43.... except...
...if you are into Bootstrap!
QuickerSite v43 ships with a new menu-variable: [QS_BOOTSTRAPMENU_3] This variable flushes out the QuickerSite menu in a Bootstrap 3 compatible syntax. You can see it in action over here: http://pingendo.quickersite.com. I used Pingendo - http://pingendo.com/ for this QuickerSite. Pingendo is an excellent app used for rapid Bootstrap prototyping.
At this very moment however, I am upgrading some websites with the help of Mobirise. Check out some examples:
I also put up a video explaining the basics on how to convert a Mobirise website to a QuickerSite template. Check it out! This is not gonna be as easy as uploading an Artisteer template. Despite the fact that Bootstrap templates look like they keep it "small and simple", .... they're not. The possibilities are endless and at this point, I still have to learn a lot before making up my mind how to further automate things in QuickerSite. And also... Bootstrap 4 is around the corner, so there as well I expect some important changes.
That's it for now!
I do not often share personal and family things, but for the image below I am happy to make an exception. Few weeks ago, my wife took this picture of our 5 year old daughter. She looks like she really is: a real PITA! But one that you cannot refuse anything to :)
For the first time in my entire career, I am asked to build a mobile website for a long time customer. And I am already stuck, before I got even started.
The question that keeps me busy for the moment is: shall we create a new responsive design for the existing website, or shall we setup a separate mobile site, under a new (sub) domain (e.g. http://m.mysite.com)?
My customer is a car-dealer. Their guidelines for dealer-websites push towards creating a separate website for mobile devices. As a webdesigner, I think this is an outdated approach. I would rather use a responsive design. But who am I?
I did some research. Most car-sites I visit are not responsive. Same for many other sites, like news-sites, newspapers, etc. The vast majority of (bigger) sites are simply not responsive. They have seperate websites for mobile devices.
Artisteer choose to add responsive behaviour to their webdesigner tool as from v4.x. So does www.jstemplates.com. But was that the best approach? We could have created a seperate tool to create mobile websites instead. Given the actual situation, this might have made more sense. I believe it has kept Artisteer from growing as a designer software. At some point, it got stuck in the mud with this responsive thing.
A final thought: How can you design a web template that shows "more or less" the same content, images (and other media) on both 800px and 2560px screens? Simple: you can't. The "more or less" is important though. If your website has a lot of content, you will most likely be better off using a seperate design for mobile devices. If your website is relatively small, and it does not contain too much media, you can try a responsive design. Well, that's how I see it - for now...
Any suggestion?
I added a Facebook "like box" to this website. It took me a while to figure out the bits and bytes. See video below for some tips & tricks.
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