Dust's Blog

[Dust]

After a long break, I finally started writing on my blog again. (Although I don't like that word... "Blog"...). Anyway, check it out: http://the-color-black.net/blog/

I write about stuff I've programmed in the past, or program now, or find otherwise interesting. I try to keep it educative as well :)

[Fangfury]

Reading a fraction of what was in there made me feel like I had taken one too many hits to the head. Its all greek to me.

[Noolah]

Its all greek to me.

I think you mean "It's all geek to me".

[MindyMcfly]

I gave up when you were trying to explain "Art Pad" ages ago... bring back Z80

[Dust]

I've posted quite a few new articles last few days. Probably all not very understandable for non-programmers though :)

What I would appreciate feedback on is the section on SVG Images. I had to rewrite parts of the publishing system, so it delivers application/xhtml+xml instead of text/html as mime type so the embedded svg works. Unfortunately Firefox can't handle them otherwise.
I tested the page on OS X in Firefox, Safari and Chrome, and it works. What I could use is a tester in IE. Although I have my doubts it will work.

(And yes, that was the reason I almost came late to the raid on Wednesday)

[Xureon]

I am afraid the feedback may be even worse than you expect: I can not load the blog in IE at all. I tried both IE6 and IE7. On my working laptop I actually have more testing browsers, since that's my business; all on Windows though (IE6, 7, 8, Firefox 3, Safari, Opera, Google Chrome).

Anyway it seems to work fine in Firefox, but on IE I get "Internet Explorer can not download blog/ from the-color-black.net". I imagine it is sending some unusual mime time or other headers that IE does not understand.

About SVG, I noticed this format the first time on Wikipedia. Most non-photo pictures there are svg, but in the articles they are 'pre-rendered' as png files and shown as that -- at least when I browse to them. So svg is only used as 'input' there, using png to 'output'. Perhaps the browser is detected though, and they might show the actual SVG files to browsers that support it.

Example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Europ ... ion%29.svg (content page with an image of Europe on the world map; as a png file)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ion%29.svg (the actual real svg file from that page; does work in Firefox, not in IE)

[Dust]

Yeah, as expected. :(

I had to send an xml mime type to be able to embed SVG. The reason I want to use SVG, apart from academic curiosity is that they are scale independent. My blog can be resized seamlessly and it looks sharp at any size.

[Xureon]

My blog can be resized seamlessly and it looks sharp at any size.

That is pretty awesome, of course
Also while I like svg - but I don't use it because it's not supported ...
I did have the problem they're pretty huge files since they're just xml data; not sure whether zipped svgs are supported or something. If not, I guess it's just interesting as 'input' but less so as 'output' (at least for a web page).

Perhaps you could just add browser detection then?.. (it's a bit unfortunate that the posts that don't include any svg graphics don't work either, because of that mime type thing)

[Dust]

Yeah, I'll fix that some time. :)

[Cyberia]

What I could use is a tester in IE. Although I have my doubts it will work.

IE doesn't support SVG natively it requires the use of a 3rd party plugin. (Googles or Adobes for example).

[Dust]

Well, it should now use application/xhtml+xml when svg is used, otherwise text/html. I hope :) (I fear that caching could cause problems, but not sure...)

[Xureon]

The http://the-color-black.net/blog/article/LuaStringWriter article works in IE6 and IE7 at least (although of course I can't navigate there in the normal way, since the main website has svg stuff)
I did notice that IE6 displays the content -below- instead of next to the menu ... but IE7 does it right so I suppose you don't need to care.

[Gyon]

weirdos

[Dust]

Thanks for the testing :)

Yes, the sidebar and the contents will not be besides each other for Browsers that don't support CSS.