Rough Cut: Should I create a song perhaps?
Oh OK perhaps not, since I have absolutely nothing to complain about really. But I would add that perhaps it would be very nice if someone in Apple could try using this interface to traverse massive playlists? With all that spare space around the panel surely it would be trivial to make the selection window bigger?
Just a thought?
Rough Cut: Recently I’ve been in the situation where I need to SSH to a server which I can only reach from a particular location. And of course I’m not always in that location when I need to get into the server.
No problem installing the excellent Dante SSH Socks proxy server allows me to configure my client (the excellent penguinet) to pass all ssh connections to the proxy server.
By following the installation and configuration guide at http://wiki.kartbuilding.net/index.php/Dante_Socks_Server I had the issue resolved inside of 5mins.
How would you answer this question?
I’ve been using rails for development of applications for what feels like a long time. I wasn’t in the pre 1.0 crowd but I did spend many days hacking around in cgi scripts to make the website run in apache so I do feel like I’ve been here a while.
As brackground I came up through C++ operating systems development (loved it), delphi (blah blah), then on to Java (which I never liked) and into web technologies and scripted languages.
My day job doesn’t allow more than 10-20% of development anymore (by choice). So although I’m still keen the time is not usually available. Interesting this has quite an impact on way you program.
For one thing change is an issue, changing technology requires great investment just to achieve the simplest of tasks. Something I can not afford.
Rails has always been for me about using a good language to enjoy my craft. For a variety of reasons enjoyment does enable better results. Further the rails stack goes all the way through the systems I need to utilise – database, ORM, MVC, and client side (javascript + tempaltes). By understanding one language and leveraging the well written information on Rails I avoid needing to care about most other areas.
However the trade off is that sometimes it just can’t do what you need so some custom javascript or SQL query is required. I’ve never been particularly strong at either. So that usually gets less of my attention. I break the rules at this point and do what needs to be done to get the job done. Many in the community would disagree with this approach. And I applaude them, they are correct but realities/needs/timescales differ. As yet I’ve never had a hard time sleeping at night!
In many cases the Agile method of working is excellent. I was slow to value the testing framework built into the system. For a while I played with Selenium (amazing solution) but I have a regularly changing interface and could never get beyond the issue that tests broke because they were out of date (not the application was broken). Shoulda on the other hand has been very helpful as has rcov.
Of course the testing approach when time constrained is brief in some aspects. And not by design. Its just their is no documentation on how to achieve certain things – e.g. validate a upload dialog can import, parse and process an zip file + manifest. Of course this is domain specific but validation of file uploads is not, and as yet I’ve not found anything on this.
Google is a strong friend when there is trouble. I’ve found many articles and blogs to guide me. Although sometimes in the wrong direction – engines. There coming back and I’m scared I found them confused and difficult the first time around so I wonder (without a name change) who will be listening?
Would I do it all again: yes. In fact I’d do more. Its a fantastic stable platform which has I believe shaken up the entire ‘intelligent’ web development community along with its cousins DJango I’m looking at you. I’m sure that even in these difficult times we’ll continue to see this is a fertile ground with many innovations and improvements yet to come.
Looking to the future I’m very aware of the tiny amount of knowledge I have. I’ve spoken to many in the community who are streets ahead. I wonder if I’ll ever get to where they are? Do I need to perhaps not, if anything I can say that even with a small amount of knowledge and clear understanding of the principles (which you can pick up very quickly) creating the next application is available to almost any developer.
If only rails could create cross platform desktop applications?
For a designer or software developer the appeal of flash content is compelling. It provides a strong interactive capability to deliver engaging media over the internet consistently across all browsers which have the flash player plugin installed. The speed and visual nature of the authoring tools make is quick and easy to work with. However the same problems crops up time and time again: that of your client wishing to provide accessibility, for me this usually entails complying with the W3C AA guidelines.
If we consider the accessibility specifications and tools available it is quickly apparent that flash is lacking in this regard. Understood the paper work is in order from both Adobe, the browser manufacturers and main assistive software providers. But have you actually tried it?
In this 2 part series I will comment on first hand experience developing solutions to provide accessible flash and contrast this against the information available from webAim who have taken great care to survey validated users on their use of flash websites.
Finally I will provide some bold recommendations on how to navigate this difficult field to improve the user experience for all concerned. Please don’t take my approach as correct it stems from years putting large amounts of content together and trying to meet clients opposing requirements.
Screen Design & Presentation
Lets start by considering the quick, obvious and beneficial to all wins: Organise your screen design so that the layout is easy on the eye, visual ques and information is well positioned, logical and correctly marked up.
Flash: Strong Support
How: By organising the materials on screen in a clear, consistent and meaningful way is easy in even the oldest of flash players. Careful selection of colour palettes is essential and avoiding the use of text on graduated backgrounds is good practice. Other requirements including ensuring that any content presented to users is not time bound, this ensures that those who need longer to read are not disadvantage.
Oh and please please no blinking, moving, animated text.
Scaling
With more recent version of flash comes the introduction of scalable vectors graphics support. This allows content to be scaled to any size without loss of any quality. For those requiring accessibility options taking advantage of this feature is desirable. Unlike providing text only resizing controls the entire flash content is resized. This approach ensures that the use of scroll bars, text overruns, pagination are avoided.
The Timeline
Flash operates very differently to traditional web development. HTML is largely static and has no support without complex programming to support a timeline. A timeline allows content, actions and experiences to be triggered in response to a time event occurring.
As a result this can provide engaging content however it can also severely limit the accessibility capability.
So what to do…
Consider the impact your timeline events will have on users who may need longer to take in the content. Perhaps the use of a pause, rewind/replay controls will provide all that is required to ensure that the widest range of users can access the content.
In the next session I’ll continue the discussion and look at keyboard accessibility, closing down of the ‘open web’, navigation and interactions. Also included will be the use of video and audio and how to handle screen readers and where there may be the case for alternative formats such as separate accessible formats such as a essay document.
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