{"rowid": 157, "title": "Capturing Caps Lock", "contents": "One of the more annoying aspects of having to remember passwords (along with having to remember loads of them) is that if you\u2019ve got Caps Lock turned on accidentally when you type one in, it won\u2019t work, and you won\u2019t know why. Most desktop computers alert you in some way if you\u2019re trying to enter your password to log on and you\u2019ve enabled Caps Lock; there\u2019s no reason why the web can\u2019t do the same. What we want is a warning \u2013 maybe the user wants Caps Lock on, because maybe their password is in capitals \u2013 rather than something that interrupts what they\u2019re doing. Something subtle.\n\nBut that doesn\u2019t answer the question of how to do it. Sadly, there\u2019s no way of actually detecting whether Caps Lock is on directly. However, there\u2019s a simple work-around; if the user presses a key, and it\u2019s a capital letter, and they don\u2019t have the Shift key depressed, why then they must have Caps Lock on! Simple. \n\nDOM scripting allows your code to be notified when a key is pressed in an element; when the key is pressed, you get the ASCII code for that key. Capital letters, A to Z, have ASCII codes 65 to 90. So, the code would look something like:\n\non a key press\n\tif the ASCII code for the key is between 65 and 90 *and* if shift is pressed\n\t\twarn the user that they have Caps Lock on, but let them carry on\n\tend if\nend keypress\n\nThe actual JavaScript for this is more complicated, because both event handling and keypress information differ across browsers. Your event handling functions are passed an event object, except in Internet Explorer where you use the global event object; the event object has a which parameter containing the ASCII code for the key pressed, except in Internet Explorer where the event object has a keyCode parameter; some browsers store whether the shift key is pressed in a shiftKey parameter and some in a modifiers parameter. All this boils down to code that looks something like this:\n\nkeypress: function(e) {\n\tvar ev = e ? e : window.event;\n\tif (!ev) {\n\t\treturn;\n\t}\n\tvar targ = ev.target ? ev.target : ev.srcElement;\n\t// get key pressed\n\tvar which = -1;\n\tif (ev.which) {\n\t\twhich = ev.which;\n\t} else if (ev.keyCode) {\n\t\twhich = ev.keyCode;\n\t}\n\t// get shift status\n\tvar shift_status = false;\n\tif (ev.shiftKey) {\n\t\tshift_status = ev.shiftKey;\n\t} else if (ev.modifiers) {\n\t\tshift_status = !!(ev.modifiers & 4);\n\t}\n\n\t// At this point, you have the ASCII code in \u201cwhich\u201d, \n\t// and shift_status is true if the shift key is pressed\n}\n\nThen it\u2019s just a check to see if the ASCII code is between 65 and 90 and the shift key is pressed. (You also need to do the same work if the ASCII code is between 97 (a) and 122 (z) and the shift key is not pressed, because shifted letters are lower-case if Caps Lock is on.)\n\nif (((which >= 65 && which <= 90) && !shift_status) || \n\t((which >= 97 && which <= 122) && shift_status)) {\n\t// uppercase, no shift key\n\t/* SHOW THE WARNING HERE */\n} else {\n\t/* HIDE THE WARNING HERE */\n}\n\nThe warning can be implemented in many different ways: highlight the password field that the user is typing into, show a tooltip, display text next to the field. For simplicity, this code shows the warning as a previously created image, with appropriate alt text. Showing the warning means creating a new tag with DOM scripting, dropping it into the page, and positioning it so that it\u2019s next to the appropriate field. The image looks like this:\n\n\n\nYou know the position of the field the user is typing into (from its offsetTop and offsetLeft properties) and how wide it is (from its offsetWidth properties), so use createElement to make the new img element, and then absolutely position it with style properties so that it appears in the appropriate place (near to the text field). \n\nThe image is a transparent PNG with an alpha channel, so that the drop shadow appears nicely over whatever else is on the page. Because Internet Explorer version 6 and below doesn\u2019t handle transparent PNGs correctly, you need to use the AlphaImageLoader technique to make the image appear correctly.\n\nnewimage = document.createElement('img');\nnewimage.src = \"http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2145/2067574980_3ddd405905_o_d.png\";\nnewimage.style.position = \"absolute\";\nnewimage.style.top = (targ.offsetTop - 73) + \"px\";\nnewimage.style.left = (targ.offsetLeft + targ.offsetWidth - 5) + \"px\";\nnewimage.style.zIndex = \"999\";\nnewimage.setAttribute(\"alt\", \"Warning: Caps Lock is on\");\nif (newimage.runtimeStyle) {\n\t// PNG transparency for IE\n\tnewimage.runtimeStyle.filter += \"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2145/2067574980_3ddd405905_o_d.png',sizingMethod='scale')\";\n}\ndocument.body.appendChild(newimage);\n\nNote that the alt text on the image is also correctly set. Next, all these parts need to be pulled together. On page load, identify all the password fields on the page, and attach a keypress handler to each. (This only needs to be done for password fields because the user can see if Caps Lock is on in ordinary text fields.)\n\nvar inps = document.getElementsByTagName(\"input\");\nfor (var i=0, l=inps.length; i\n\nThe \u201ccreate an image\u201d code from above should only be run if the image is not already showing, so instead of creating a newimage object, create the image and attach it to the password field so that it can be checked for later (and not shown if it\u2019s already showing). For safety, all the code should be wrapped up in its own object, so that its functions don\u2019t collide with anyone else\u2019s functions. So, create a single object called capslock and make all the functions be named methods of the object:\n\nvar capslock = {\n\t... \n\tkeypress: function(e) {\n\t}\n\t...\n}\n\nAlso, the \u201ccreate an image\u201d code is saved into its own named function, show_warning(), and the converse \u201cremove the image\u201d code into hide_warning(). This has the advantage that developers can include the JavaScript library that has been written here, but override what actually happens with their own code, using something like:\n\n\n\n\nAnd that\u2019s all. Simply include the JavaScript library in your pages, override what happens on a warning if that\u2019s more appropriate for what you\u2019re doing, and that\u2019s all you need.\n\n See the script in action.", "year": "2007", "author": "Stuart Langridge", "author_slug": "stuartlangridge", "published": "2007-12-04T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2007/capturing-caps-lock/", "topic": "code"}
{"rowid": 147, "title": "Christmas Is In The AIR", "contents": "That\u2019s right, Christmas is coming up fast and there\u2019s plenty of things to do. Get the tree and lights up, get the turkey, buy presents and who know what else. And what about Santa? He\u2019s got a list. I\u2019m pretty sure he\u2019s checking it twice.\n\nSure, we could use an existing list making web site or even a desktop widget. But we\u2019re geeks! What\u2019s the fun in that? Let\u2019s build our own to-do list application and do it with Adobe AIR!\n\nWhat\u2019s Adobe AIR?\n\nAdobe AIR, formerly codenamed Apollo, is a runtime environment that runs on both Windows and OSX (with Linux support to follow). This runtime environment lets you build desktop applications using Adobe technologies like Flash and Flex. Oh, and HTML. That\u2019s right, you web standards lovin\u2019 maniac. You can build desktop applications that can run cross-platform using the trio of technologies, HTML, CSS and JavaScript.\n\nIf you\u2019ve tried developing with AIR before, you\u2019ll need to get re-familiarized with the latest beta release as many things have changed since the last one (such as the API and restrictions within the sandbox.)\n\nTo get started\n\nTo get started in building an AIR application, you\u2019ll need two basic things:\n\n\n\tThe AIR runtime. The runtime is needed to run any AIR-based application.\n\tThe SDK. The software development kit gives you all the pieces to test your application. Unzip the SDK into any folder you wish.\n\n\nYou\u2019ll also want to get your hands on the JavaScript API documentation which you\u2019ll no doubt find yourself getting into before too long. (You can download it, too.)\n\nAlso of interest, some development environments have support for AIR built right in. Aptana doesn\u2019t have support for beta 3 yet but I suspect it\u2019ll be available shortly.\n\nWithin the SDK, there are two main tools that we\u2019ll use: one to test the application (ADL) and another to build a distributable package of our application (ADT). I\u2019ll get into this some more when we get to that stage of development.\n\nBuilding our To-do list application\n\nThe first step to building an application within AIR is to create an XML file that defines our default application settings. I call mine application.xml, mostly because Aptana does that by default when creating a new AIR project. It makes sense though and I\u2019ve stuck with it. Included in the templates folder of the SDK is an example XML file that you can use.\n\nThe first key part to this after specifying things like the application ID, version, and filename, is to specify what the default content should be within the content tags. Enter in the name of the HTML file you wish to load. Within this HTML file will be our application.\n\n
12b Meeting House Lane
\n\t\tBrighton, UK
\n\t\tBN1 1HB
\n\tTelephone: +44 (0)1273 323 008
\n\tE-mail: info@riddleandfinns.co.uk
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\n\t\tBN1 4EN
\n\tTelephone: +44 (0)1273 687 068
\n\tLat/Lon: \n\t\t50.827917, \n\t\t-0.137764\n\t
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