jj's Journal

TPF News website redesign

jj — 2010-08-16T19:57:22+00:00

I've just uploaded a new design for http://news.perlfoundation.org. Based on the perldoc.perl.org style, it implements Phil Smith's idea for the "Explore Perl" toolbar. I'll blog in more detail about this later, but essentially we've now got a single list of links that appear on multiple sites but are maintained in a single place.

Many thanks to Ask, Squeaky, Phil Smith, and Karen for their help and ideas.

P.S. As with any redesign there may be the odd browser issue or bug, so if anything looks amiss please email me at jj@jonallen.info and I'll look into it.

Building Web Mashups with Catalyst

jj — 2009-09-24T14:02:40+00:00

Last night I gave my talk Web Mashups with Catalyst at the Birmingham Perl Mongers technical meeting.

We also had two guest speakers - Stuart Langridge talked about the future of Python web development, and Nick Harewood demonstrated Microsoft Silverlight and Expression Blend.

It was very interesting to hear about these different approaches to web development. Of particular interest was SketchFlow - seems like a great way to prototype and get feedback on the functional parts of a design without getting tied up over the visuals.

Easy thumbnail images from Catalyst

jj — 2009-09-09T11:54:36+00:00

A couple of days ago I released Catalyst::View::Thumbnail, which provides an easy way to serve thumbnail images. It should work with any model that can put raw image data onto the stash (you don't need the MIME type, it's automatically detected), so a controller to produce thumbnails 100px high would look like this:

sub thumbnail :Local :Args(1) { my ($self, $c, $filename) = @_; $c->stash->{image} = $c->model('Images')->slurp($filename); $c->stash->{y} = 100; $c->forward('View::Thumbnail'); }

Have a read of the tutorial, Creating thumbnails with Catalyst, and please let me know of any fearure requests or bug reports.

The source code is on GitHub at http://github.com/jonallen/Catalyst-View-Thumbnail/tree/master, and on CPAN at http://search.cpan.org/dist/Catalyst-View-Thumbnail.

Cheers,

local::lib installation walkthrough

jj — 2009-08-26T13:59:14+00:00

I've put together a short guide to installing Perl modules without root access using local::lib.

If anyone has any corrections or suggestions for improvement, please let me know!

Cheers,

Update: Yasuhiro Matsumoto has kindly posted a Japanese translation of the guide. Thanks!

perldoc.perl.org updated for Perl 5 version 10.1

jj — 2009-08-24T10:27:50+00:00

Hot on the heels of the Perl 5 version 10.1 release, I've updated http://perldoc.perl.org with the new documentation. Thanks to Dave Mitchell and everyone else involved in getting the 10.1 release out, well done!

The old Perl 5 version 10.0 documentation has been moved to http://perldoc.perl.org/5.10.0.

Cheers,

perldoc.perl.org source code on GitHub

jj — 2009-08-14T17:24:33+00:00

Today I uploaded the perldoc.perl.org source code to GitHub, the repository is at http://github.com/jonallen/perldoc.perl.org/tree/master. Issues, feature requests, and patches are all very welcome!

I've also made a few additions to the perldoc FAQs on the project page.

Cheers,

YAPC::Europe 2009

jj — 2009-08-08T13:15:38+00:00

Just wanted to say a big thanks to Cog, Alberto, Joana, and everyone else involved in putting on such a fantastic conference!

I saw many excellent talks, caught up with lots of friends in the hallway track, enjoyed many bottles of Super Bock, and generally had a grand time. Thank you!

Oh, and my YAPC::Europe photos are now online.

Cheers,

Fixing Firefox Flicker

jj — 2009-07-28T16:36:34+00:00

A few people have pointed out to me that scrolling down pages on perldoc.perl.org was causing their screens to flicker.

Unfortunately I've not been able to reproduce the problem, even when using exactly the same web browser and OS versions. From the reports I've had, it only appears to affect Firefox, only affects a very small number of people, and has nothing to do with CPU power.

However, after some more investigation and help from those affected I think I've found a fix.

The perldoc CSS uses visibility: hidden; to hide the draggable page index window - this gets changed to visibility: visible; when the "Show page index" link is clicked. Today I updated the site to use display: none; and display: block; in addition to setting the visibility property, and according to reports this seems to have solved the problem.

Apologies to those affected, and thank you to Martin von Wittich, Offer Kaye, and Michael Ivanchenko for their help in testing.

Today's update also adds a preferences page which allows you to change the positioning of the navigation bar from Fixed (the default - the nav bar is anchored to the top of the screen) to Standard (nav bar scrolls with the page content).

Cheers,

JJ - http://perl.jonallen.info

Improving perldoc.perl.org load times

jj — 2009-07-22T10:39:36+00:00

Following the perldoc design update, I've now started work on various fixes and optimisations.

The first of these is page load time.

After profiling in Safari, it became apparent that a large proportion of the load time was due to latency, and that the JavaScript files were blocking the loading of images, delaying the final page render.

These issues are now fixed, and the stats for the perldoc homepage are as follows:

Images
Reduced from 10 to 3
JavaScript files
Reduced from 4 to 1
HTTP requests
Reduced from 19 to 9 (3 of which are for Google Analytics)
Total download size
Reduced from 222Kb to 165Kb

With a few extra tweaks to the object load order and placement of JavaScript files, the overall page load time should now be significantly reduced.

Major update to perldoc.perl.org

jj — 2009-07-17T13:53:15+00:00

I'm pleased to announce a significant update to perldoc.perl.org, the Perl documentation website.

The main change is a complete new visual design, bringing a fresh, modern look to the site. Additionally there are a number of new features to aid navigation and usability - a floating page index window, recently read pages list, improved Pod rendering, and many more.

Over the next few weeks I'm planning a few more updates, including extending the site to hold documentation for all Perl 5.8.x releases.

I've tested the new design using a variety of browsers, but if anything looks amiss please email me at jj@jonallen.info with your OS and browser versions, and if possible a screenshot.

Cheers,

JJ - http://perl.jonallen.info

perldoc.perl.org source code released

jj — 2008-12-24T13:48:30+00:00

For anyone interested in how perldoc.perl.org is built, I've today released the source code at http://perl.jonallen.info/projects/perldoc.

At the moment it's a bit 'rough and ready' - there's no documentation, no installer, etc - but at least it's now open source!

Happy Christmas!

E-commerce with Catalyst

jj — 2008-11-14T14:45:01+00:00

Earlier this year my girlfriend and I decided to start our own business, Penny's Arcade, an online retail website to sell gifts, home accessories, and artwork.

I've spent the last couple of months developing the site, www.pennysarcade.co.uk, using Catalyst, Handel, and OpenThought, and this week we went live!

This is the first serious project I've attempted with Catalyst, and I must say it's been quite a revelation. Compared to other tools I've used the speed of development was phenominal, and combined with a very simple method of deployment and configuration I can really appreciate now why it's so popular.

Aside from OpenThought which I've talked about before, the other key module used was Handel. Handel provides facilities to manage shopping carts and orders, and was very easy to extend to allow for our own custom fields and delivery calculations.

I'll be talking in more depth about the technical details at this year's London Perl Workshop, but the short version is that the site came in under budget and ahead of schedule, with Catalyst, Handel, and OpenThought taking much of the credit. Thanks to all the module authors who made it possible!

YAPC::Europe 2008 photos

jj — 2008-08-17T18:30:00+00:00

Just finished getting my photos online, they're at http://perl.jonallen.info/yapc/2008

Enjoy!

Artistic License upheld in court

jj — 2008-08-15T13:34:05+00:00

Just spotted this on the front page of the BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7561943.stm

perldoc.perl.org updated for Perl 5.10

jj — 2007-12-21T16:06:44+00:00

Following the Perl 5.10 release, I've now updated http://perldoc.perl.org with the Perl 5.10.0 documentation.

The Perl 5.8.8 documentation is still available though, at http://perldoc.perl.org/5.8.8.

I'm in yr Wired, plugging yr PM group!

jj — 2007-12-20T16:38:29+00:00

Nice to see that Larry has great taste in T-shirts! (*)

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/12/dayintech_1218

And, as Barbie pointed out, it's very kind of Wired to even name check the software that ran the conference website and currently runs the Birmingham.pm website too ... Labyrinth :)

(*) If you don't recognise it, it's the Birmingham Perl Mongers T-shirt we gave out to attendees at YAPC::Europe 2006 :-)

pod2pdf 0.41 released

jj — 2007-09-11T15:57:17+00:00

I've finally got pod2pdf (used to create the PDF files on perldoc.perl.org) updated for compatibility with the latest version of PDF::API2, and packaged up into a proper CPAN release.

It is available from http://perl.jonallen.info/projects/pod2pdf or http://search.cpan.org/dist/pod2pdf.

YAPC::Europe 2007 photos

jj — 2007-09-02T11:29:06+00:00

Just finished uploading my photos from YAPC::Europe 2007 in Vienna, they're online now at http://perl.jonallen.info/yapc.

Ajax Perl syntax highlighting

jj — 2007-04-17T20:22:20+00:00

I've put together a set of scripts to dynamically apply Perl syntax highlighting to code examples on web pages.

It uses Perl::Tidy to perform the highlighting, and the OpenThought Ajax library to run the requests asynchronously so that initial page load times will not be affected by the extra processing.

Files and examples are available from http://perl.jonallen.info/projects/syntaxhighlighting.

XLSperl v0.3 released

jj — 2007-04-09T19:00:23+00:00

As part of the Birmingham Perl Mongers World Tour, I recently gave my "Excel on the Command Line" talk to the Gloucester Linux User Group.

A few days later I received an email from one of the attendees who'd tried out the accompanying software, XLSperl (which lets you use Perl one-liners to process Microsoft Excel files), with a few suggestions.

So, after a few train journeys spent hacking code I've released a new version which has the following improvements:

The %F and @F variables (in autosplit mode) are tied, so modifying $F{A} also changes $F[0]
You can now create Excel files from XLSperl, using the new "XLSprint" command
XLSperl can now process plain text as well as Excel files (for easy conversion of text data into XLS format)

Source code and binaries for Linux x86, Windows, and Mac OS X (Intel) can be downloaded from http://perl.jonallen.info/projects/xlstools.

Perl beer

jj — 2007-02-08T10:08:58+00:00

For our social meeting last night, we visited a different pub.

And coincidentally they sold Perl beer!

Which was not bad at all ;-)

YAPC::Europe review in Linux User magazine

jj — 2006-11-05T13:04:34+00:00

Issue 67 (November 2006, out now) of UK magazine Linux User and Developer is featuring a 4-page review of the YAPC::Europe 2006 conference - "Code, Curry, and Community".

There's plenty of photos as well, including Larry Wall, Brian McCauley (nobull), Simon Cozens, Jonathan Stowe (gellyfish), Steve Pitchford (lilstevey), Karen & Marty Pauley, and many others at the Conference Dinner - so if you attended, you may well see yourself in the magazine!

Cheers,

JJ
http://perl.jonallen.info

YAPC::Europe photos

jj — 2006-09-04T09:54:13+00:00

All my photos are on-line now at http://perl.jonallen.info/yapc.

Many thanks to everyone who attended!

YAPC::Europe photos

jj — 2006-08-31T10:58:55+00:00

Hi,

If you're at YAPC::Europe this year you'll have probably noticed me taking lots of photos...

I've started to put them on-line now at http://perl.jonallen.info/yapc.

Cheers,

YAPC::Europe day 0 photos

jj — 2005-08-31T08:21:28+00:00

YAPC::Europe 2005 day 0 photos on-line at http://perl.jonallen.info/yapc

JJ
http://perl.jonallen.info :: http://perldoc.perl.org

Update to Perldoc search

jj — 2005-07-12T23:15:02+00:00

I've made a change to the search engine on perldoc.perl.org.

If you enter a Perl function, manpage, or core module name intp the search box the site will now bypass the results list and go directly to the relevant page, a much quicker form of direct navigation than using the menus.

As an example, a search for pod will initially bring up the perlpod manpage with a link to access the full list of results.

JJ
http://perl.jonallen.info :: http://perldoc.perl.org

Search engine on perldoc.perl.org

jj — 2005-04-17T19:50:00+00:00

I've added a search engine to perldoc.perl.org. Rather than being a full text search, the algorithm is optimised for looking up module names, functions, and FAQs (as an example, try a search for 'regex' or 'open').

The code is still under development, so any feedback on instances where it did not find the page you were searching for would be very helpful.

Cheers,

JJ
http://perl.jonallen.info :: http://perldoc.perl.org

Update to perldoc.perldrunks.org

jj — 2005-03-02T22:09:28+00:00

Following user feedback I've made a few updates to the http://perldoc.perldrunks.org documentation site, the main changes are:

Improved interlinking of 'perl' manpage (thanks Aristotle [1])
Updated syntax highlighting rules to create links for Perl function names and core modules
Moved 'perlop' page to new top-level section 'Operators' (thanks Bart [2])
Moved 'perlrun' page to 'Overview' section
Moved 'perltodo' page to 'History/Changes' section
Fixed numerous broken links in functions pages (thanks Aristotle [1])
Added some missing functions ('getpwnam' etc)

Please post any bug reports / comments here or email jj@jonallen.info

[1] http://perlmonks.org/?node_id=424389
[2] http://use.perl.org/comments.pl?sid=24572&cid=37738

[ANN] Update to http://perldoc.perldrunks.org

jj — 2005-01-18T20:10:57+00:00

Hi,

I've just released an update to http://perldoc.perldrunks.org/, which improves the look of the HTML pages, including syntax highlighting of all Perl code examples.

A complete archive of the site can be downloaded for off-line use at http://perldoc.perldrunks.org/perldoc.tar.gz (~14M file). If you've not seen http://perldoc.perldrunks.org/ before, it contains the complete Perl 5.8.6 documentation set in both HTML and PDF formats. Please read the project page at http://perl.jonallen.info/projects/perldoc for a full list of features.

Please send any comments or bug reports to jj@jonallen.info.

Cheers,