Tutorial : Overlay a AJAX Spinner in the center of Web Page using Prototype

This tutorial is specially for beginners who are wondering how to place an AJAX Spinner. Its very simple guys. Just read below to find out.

To those people who have wondered how to show the spinner image + loading message when any ajax request is made and to hide the spinner image + loading message when the request is successfully completed, this tutorial will help you out in achieving it and also teaches you how to show this loading box in the center of the browser screen and grey out the background contents with cool fade effects.

Index :

• Page 1 : Introduction
• Page 2 : Required HTML/Javascript Code/CSS
• Page 3 : Complete Code of Demo

Pre-Requisites :

A little bit of CSS,HTML knowledge and know-how of Prototype, Scriptaculous.

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A cool jQuery plugin : PHP / jQuery Image Replacement

How many times have you wanted to use a very cool looking font for your website, but have withdrawn the idea because you thought that font won`t display properly in everyones’s system.

Well fear not, I had previously posted a tutorial on how you can use PHP to display those lines of texts which use some odd font, by automatically converting it to an image (Tutorial : Convert Text into transparent PNG Image using PHP), this way, you can easily display text with odd fonts.

Recently I found a very neat plugin which automatically converts any text (with font of your choice) into an image i.e from now on you don`t have to worry about text with different or odd fonts. They`ll be automatically converted into a compatible image via this plugin, And don`t worry about the image tag and all, this plugin manages everything

Plugin name : PHP / jQuery Image Replacement
Plugin Home Page/Demo : http://www.xanthir.com/pir/

Usage

The usage was pretty simple.

1. After unzipping the archive, Open pir.php and First set the fonts folder in the php page.
2. In your website, include jQuery and then include the jquery.pir.min.js (for production).

3. $(function() {
   $.pir.options.php="pir.php"; //compulsary to include the php which converts text to image.
   $("h1").pir({font: "yourfont.ttf", wrap: true}); //will enable automatic text warping.
   

   });

Pretty Simple huh ! Enjoy

Welcome to a whole new VisionMasterDesigns.com

Hello Readers, bloggers and all my fellow mates,

Firstly Compliments of the Season to everyone.

Its been a long time since I have posted any article on my website. I know this place looks deserted… well …not anymore.

Welcome Everyone to whole new VisionMasterDesigns.com.

When I had begun this site 7months ago, I barely had any clue on how to manage a site or what to write on it. I decided to start a site on what I love to do most, “Learn new things about new Technologies”. I managed to learn a lot of the stuff I have written in this website by simply doing a lot of research over the internet and Hey ! to be frank, the Internet is a HUGE place and anyone can get lost (even while having the most powerful search tool i.e Google). Either ways the point is, I wanted to give a chance to newbies like me where they can get to know new programming languages or tips/tricks, techniques on existing ones and information about latest technologies @ one place.

What I wish to do in the future ? My Short term Goals.

• Expand my Wordpress Plugin MyADManager to be compatible with the latest version and provide more features.
• I am currently working on my B.E (final year) project called OptimaPrime - The Enterprise Project Management System and aim to complete it within the next 1month and win a prize
• Currently engaged with 2 web projects, wish to complete it and get paid
• Learn Ruby on Rails in and out.
• Get 500 Feed Readers & 50,000 Visitors/month for Vision Master Designs within the next 4 months.
• Write a lot of new tutorials and solve my readers queries

For now, I hope you like the new design. I have tried to make it more User Friendly. You might have noticed a Featured Section. This layout is more like a Magazine layout. No Clutters, simple Navigation. Comments always welcome

Regards.

Tutorial : Installing Apache 2.2.11, PHP 5.2.8, MySQL 5.1.31 & PhpMyAdmin 3.1.2 in Windows Vista/XP

Revised Version. v3

This tutorial will help you set up Apache 2.2.11, PHP 5.2.8, Mysql 5.1.31 and PhpMyAdmin 3. It is tried and tested successfully on a Windows Vista powered System.

Known Issues :

• Sometimes Windows won`t let you edit httpd.conf file. For that you have to disable UAC (User Account Control) from Control Panel -> Users and stop Apache from running in the task bar.

Not everyone would spend money online to buy webspace just so that they can test out how their latest application works, Well… Welcome to Vision Master Designs Blog. This tutorial will teach you to set up a developer environment for PHP/MySQL in your computer in no time.

Index :

• Page 1 : Introduction
• Page 2 : Create Directories & Install Apache
• Page 3 : Install PHP5 & Configure php.ini
• Page 4 : Configure Apache 2.2
• Page 5 : Installing & Configuring MySQL5
• Page 6 : Installing & Configuring PhpMyAdmin

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Tutorial : Convert Text into transparent PNG Image using PHP

This tutorial will help you write text on a background and output as an image using the power of PHP. This is useful during those scenarios when you want to display text using a particular font (which isn`t web friendly i.e the text won`t be displayed with the same font in other’s computer). I have used this technique to display the number of RSS subscribers (top-right). So its pretty simple and very basic.

Click Here for a Demo.

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Tutorial : Display no.of RSS Readers using Feedburner API and PHP (curl)

Most of you who have blogs/website might be aware of FeedBurner. Its a service which provides custom RSS Management tools like Analysing Web-Traffic, the number of readers subscribed to you blog etc. I too use Feedburner to help me keep track of my feeds and its readers. Although I love their service, I always found the FeedBurner Chicklet (It displays the number of readers subscribed to your RSS) to be a constraint, it isn`t that flexible i.e We can modify the color of the chicklet but not the chicklet it self. So I decided to create my own Chicklet to help me display the number of readers subscribed to my blog. (Although the number isn`t that big :P)

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Tutorial : Collapsible Menus using jQuery

jQuery has surely made my life easier. I have been trying out both Prototype & jQuery for a couple of days now and for some reason, I find jQuery a lil easier compared to Prototype Javascript Library. Although Prototype is a much powerful library (according to me), jQuery is just too simple ;). Anyways I will show you a simple effect which you already must have seen in many places.

Demo : The Category section in the sidebar in this site.

EDIT : Added Collapse All, Expand All Code as well

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MyADManager 0.9.3 Released !

For all those users having trouble setting up MyADManager to display ADS, things just got easier.

Please Update MyADManager directly via Wordpress Automatic Plugin updater. Since, the new version carries out some database tweaks.
If you haven`t updated via the Wordpress Automatic Plugin Updater, then

1. Deactivate the plugin
2. Upload the latest version to the server. Overwrite if necessary.
3. Re-activate Plugin

The latest fixed version is 0.9.3

1. Widgetized : Those of you who always found adding code here and there is tough and boring, things got easier to display ADs on your website without you directly adding any code. MyADManager is widgetized, you can directly go and add the MyADManager Widget to your sidebar.
2. Margins : Instead of editing CSS files, now you can directly edit the margins for each AD via the MyADManager Admin Panel->Options Page.

More Information regarding the same can be found Here.

Download Here

Regards