Hacker News Reader

kaylaroseon Show HN: my boilerplate CSS code for new designs, written in Less.

I really like the .transition, and the attention to browser support in .gradientH and .gradientV. Very nice touch!

Tiny nitpick: IMO the call to action styles doesn't belong (seems a bit to specific for a generic boilerplate). Other than that, nice job.

Edit: I also like that this is more lightweight than Bootstrap - which I hadn't seen before.

kaylaroseon Web development is just broken

I would skip the jQuery-ahm, especially since you are already committed to jQuery as a dependency.

//Overly simplified example $.get('tooltips.php?id=tooltip-id',function(data){$('#tt').text(data);});

kaylaroseon Web development is just broken

Take bricestacey's advice, use RVM. I was in the same boat as you when getting started with Ruby - it seemed like I was always fighting with gems and other dependencies - "there has to be a better way!", I thought. And there was...

I read this article[1] and it changed my life.

[1]http://sirupsen.com/get-started-right-with-rvm/

kaylaroseon Mac OS X hidden features and nice tips & tricks

IMO Spotlight is the best example of minimalist software design.

In a single universal field you have instant: app launcher, calculator, dictionary, file search, email search, contact search.

My single best tip for Mac power-users: learn what you can do with Spotlight.

Edit: grammar

kaylaroseon Fuel - A simple and flexible PHP Web Framework

Kohana 3 changed everything around, lacked documentation, and made things much more verbose for relatively little benefit.

This is the major thing that turned me off about Kohana. I loved the original concept - "PHP5 fork of CodeIgniter" - and we actually have it backing our two largest web apps. But I would never recommend Kohana again for a commercial project that is under active development.

Between minor versions there was major API breakage, that wasn't really documented - and was going on in parallel with 3.0 development (think Rails 2 -> 3 with no documentation). For a long time the "Unofficial Kohana 3 Wiki" was actually the only source of documentation for KO3 (even after release).

It seems like the PHP community keeps fragmenting into new PHP frameworks to replace old stodgy (cough PHP4) frameworks (good), with modern design practices (good), but then totally ignoring the community aspect of OS software, documentation, and maintenance.

kaylaroseon IKEA's delayed gratification results in 60% impulse buying

My first time in IKEA I definitely got very lost. I think I went down one of the "shortcut paths" and ended up going back and forth between the beds and the office area trying to find the direction I was supposed to be going - and I was with a friend, so it wasn't just my crappy sense of direction.

So yes - IKEA newbs do not take the shortcut paths!

kaylaroseon JRumble: A jQuery Plugin That Rumbles Elements

Thank you for making Glowform even more EXTREME!!!!

kaylaroseon Github for designers

GitHub's new image compare mode[1][2] would work really well for designers*

[1] Blog Post: https://github.com/blog/817-behold-image-view-modes

[2] Demo: https://github.com/cameronmcefee/Image-Diff-View-Modes/commi...

Coupled with Kaleidascope on the desktop: http://www.kaleidoscopeapp.com/

I think the problem is introducing the IDEA of version control to designers. Once they grok the idea, they usually like it. But with the exception of web designers, most designers aren't introduced to the concept.

*I was a designer before I was a developer

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

It's a tech demo. The point is to explore the capabilities of CSS - not to be a shining example of usability.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

Edit: Sorry, other people beat me to it. See other replies re:text colors.

However I agree about the contrast, I checked on my external dev monitor (vs. my super bright MBP screen) and the contrast could definitely use some work.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

The Webkit implementation uses 2 layers of: looped keyframes, color transitions, multi-colorstop gradient backgrounds (which are then animated via background-position animation). And all that sits under two larger inset rgba box-shadows. [+ the gradients and shadows on the inner form itself]

That said, I've actually been pretty pleased performance-wise, I expected worse.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

https://github.com/kaylarose/Glowform/commit/f52937

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

Yeah, on some monitors the contrast is pretty low. I'll probably bump it up.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

It's not meant to be a working form. Just a tech demo.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

Good to hear, I didn't get a chance to test on the iPhone.

Also, I am not a man. But thanks!

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

I'm still working out the kinks in the alternate Firefox implementation which was actually my first attempt at this effect.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

The button uses a combination of a border radius and and inset box shadow to achieve the top highlight, and for some reason Chrome doesn't seem to contain the box shadow within the border boundaries.

kaylaroseon Show HN: CSS3 Animated Glowing Forms

I remember being impressed by Dragon Lab's Dragonfish Login Form Demo[1] when it first came out. They implement the effect by using a rather large background image and a mask image and move the background image around via Javascript.

I wanted to see how close I could get using CSS3 without any images.

I recommend using a Webkit browser [you can also see an alternate implementation using Firefox 4]

[1]http://labs.dragoninteractive.com/panel/demo/

kaylaroseon Apple’s boring hardware updates

Unfortunately I agree. I hope we are both wrong though, and it really is an iPhone5.

kaylaroseon Skype 5 for Mac

I would venture a guess that one part of FaceTime is actually the streaming protocol it uses - HTTP Live Streaming - which is indeed by Apple and already Open Source, and used by Google, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming

Edit: Spelling

kaylaroseon Inline PHP-FPM Server Running on Node.js

I think something more like this [1]* built in server proposal would be nicer, with less dependencies.

Yes, people always bitch about how easy it is to just set up Apache, but they fail to realize the departmentalization of apps is great for development. Currently in my dev environment I have a virtual host for every app/site/lib. It is rare that most PHP devs even do that. Far too often they just do FTP straight to the production server. This would curtail that.

  $ cd your/app
  $ php -s

That said, I think the recent trend of lightweight servers for PHP is awesome. I think any additions to PHP that introduce real professional practices to the PHP community is a great thing. In the past few years we have seen the wider adoption of Unit tests, better frameworks, and somewhat better packaging.

PHP devs always complain about how people rag on PHP, but it's because the professional programmers that actually know what they are doing don't spread their knowledge to amateur programmers - which leads to more crappy PHP code. Just like any other language embracing and evangelizing good standards will better the community as a whole.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2281724 (source link is down at the moment)

kaylaroseon Revisiting the Home Theater PC

1. Not that I know of, but it's just two clicks to the right on the home screen - I usually just leave it running all the time, so it isn't much of a problem.

2. No idea. If I had to guess it wouldn't be harder than the original jailbreak, and potentially much easier.

3. You can use your iPhone/iPod touch's Remote app to control the ATV (the remote it comes with is a pain for text input) [No jailbreak required]

kaylaroseon Ask HN: Anyone have a really smart way to organize css?

I usually use extra classes instead of IDs to differentiate specific chunks in cases where the may or may not be multiples in the future (e.g. you want nav at the top AND bottom of a page).

      <ul class="main-nav inline-list">    
         <li><a href="">...</a></li>
      </ul>

To style/highlight my example the above: //This will not have to be modified if we want to add more nav instances .main-nav.inline-list li{float:left;}

    $('.main-nav.inline-list a.selected').highlight();

To style/highlight your example the above (at top and bottom of page):

     //Each time you add another instance, you have to add its new id/selector (not very DRY)
     #navigation.inline-list li,
     #navigation_b.inline-list li{float:left;}

     $('#navigation.inline-list a.selected, #navigation_b.inline-list a.selected').highlight();

Again, it's personal style, but I've never found myself saying "boy I wish I used an ID instead of an adding another class" where many times you regret the use of ID because when you ultimately need to duplicate that element, you are effecting the dryness of your CSS and Javascript. Plus, with modern selector engines the performance of ID vs class based selectors is not really going to have that big of an impact.

The times I use ID in my markup is more for sub-navigation through the page rather that styling-specific reasons.

    <h2 id="chapter_two">Two</h2>
    <a href="#chapter_two">Got to Ch. 2</a>

kaylaroseon Ask HN: Anyone have a really smart way to organize css?

1. Separate presentation from layout. For example, all common layout (margin, padding, display, positioning, floats) go in structure.css and color, border styles, background, etc. go in presentation.css. It is far more likely that you will be making presentation changes going forward rather than to your core layout.

2. Only use the minimal selectors you need: div#features ul.feature_list li.feature a{color:red;} could be DRYed up to be .feature_list .feature a{color:red;} which will be far easier to override later.

3. Avoid !important at all costs (sometimes you can't, but try).

4. This is personal taste, but I also usually avoid IDs for styling.

5. Grid frameworks (Blueprint, etc.) are usually overkill, but syntax frameworks (LESS CSS, Compass) are fantastic.

It really boils down to experience, and knowing what you DON'T need - most people add in a ton of extra cruft and end up with hard to extend and debug spaghetti.

kaylaroseon Ask HN: Anyone have a really smart way to organize css?

I can't speak for the OP, but as I use a similar system I can venture a guess that some of the following might be worthy of chunk status...

For a website: callouts, user quote styles, tables styles [zebra stripes, etc.], feature lists, intro paragraph styles, Flash/message styles, common control styles, etc.

kaylaroseon Revisiting the Home Theater PC

I jailbroke my 2nd Gen AppleTV and can confirm XBMC works nicely - and you can add different apps to it too. I did the new untethered jailbreak using Seas0nPass, it wasn't to difficult (~30 minutes).

Edit: Oh, and XBMC just gets added as another menu item, so you can still use the regular AppleTV ui too.

kaylaroseon "Aristo" for jQuery UI

I agree completely! I am working on a much better variation fo this theme, but with much better layouts and without all the goofy default UI margins and padding.

kaylaroseon "Aristo" for jQuery UI

See my earlier comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2342006

It's actually pretty easy to make better jQuery themes.

kaylaroseon "Aristo" for jQuery UI

This actually inspired me to see how nice of a theme you could do with ThemeRoller alone:

http://gemdash.tumblr.com/post/3941893390/cupertino-a-jquery...

It's not great but I think it came out pretty good.

kaylaroseon The worst program I ever worked on

Yes. APIDelegatorInvocationHandler and APIAbstractFactoryFactoryProvider. (actual Java class names)