If..Else Log

Marko posts a nice summary of CSS hacks for IE. I generally stay away from hacks for my personal sites but they have their uses and, of course, knowledge is always useful.

Styling FF's middle button click icon

Here's something I stumbled onto accidentally. As many people may be aware, clicking the middle button activates the autoscroll functionality. This allows you to scroll the page by positioning your mouse pointer away from the auto scroll icon.

Now, the way the autoscroll icon is implemented is that FF creates an img element linking to the autoscroll image. This is created as a descendent of the html element which is where I accidentally encountered it.

Therefore, with this knowledge at hand, you might try to style this element via css as follows:

1. html>img{
2. background:#fff url(/your_custom_icon);
3. border: 10px solid green;
4. width:14px;
5. height:22px;
6. }

But this doesn't work!

Hmmm, you'll probably find that there are a few problems.Firstly, the image is covered by the general FF icon and is being tiled. In addition, the border is not being displayed. Fortunately, the second issue provides a clue to addressing the first.

Due to the display order rules, the border is not showing up. To force the border to show up, what we can do is take advantage of the CSS2 !important rule and force this to take precedance.

1. html>img{
2. background:#fff url(/your_custom_icon);
3. border: 10px solid green !important;
4. width:14px;
5. height:22px;
6. }

Aha, we're now getting somewhere. Now, you've probably realised that I snuck the border in there to illustrate a point and that we didn't really want it there. What we do want, however, is for the width and height to be taken into account and for FF to only display our custom icon.

To do this we'll need to apply the !important rule along with a little hack but first, let's have at the custom icon that we're going to use. I've stuck the dimensions on there as well.

What we'll do is set the width of the image to 0. This will "hide" the FF icon. We'll then set the height to match our custom icon and then add a padding to exactly match our custom icon.

What we should then be left with is something like the following:

1. html>img{
2. background:#fff url(/your_custom_icon);
3. padding-right:14px !important;
4. width:0 !important;
5. height:22px !important;
6. }

And there you have it; our own custom autoscroll icons for FF.

Not safe for general consumption

Now a few words of warning:

1. This is obviously a hack and should be treated with all the usual warnings accompanying such techniques
2. It's not particularly useful nor usable. It should be treated in the same manner as colouring scroll bars. The fact that I'm not employing this technique myself should be revealing. I've written this post to illustrate what can be done rather than suggesting that you should.
3. It's perhaps even less useful than coloured scroll bars as the mechanics of it's usage will mean that it'll be seen less often. That said, it's less annoying than coloured scroll bars.

So after all that, what we have is a useless hack. Ahem. Let's move on now, shall we?

And so the weather turns

Moving swiftly on, it's good to see that english weather is back to it's usual best. For those that went to Glastonbury (and two of my friends did), I hope you packed appropriately.

This change of weather puts me in two minds. I like many of the things that happen as a result of warm summer days: being able to play football till late, drinking cold beverages in the shade, summer attire. What I hate is the sticky weather, being stuck in traffic and on public transport, insects and last but not least, pollen. So should I be pleased or annoyed?

I guess what I am is a typical brit. Can't stop talking about the weather and forever complaining about it.

Hmmm, it seems that NYT are promoting BugMeNot. So, even some of their own writers are getting pissed off with the site registration process.

If newspaper marketers think they are receiving reliable user information via those annoying site registrations, they should run their Web addresses through bugmenot.com, which offers quick user names and passwords to people who click on a link only to be confronted by a mandatory registration page.

The Hubble Telescope captures an image of the Eye of Sauron.

Via Alexis: TypeNow is another font repository available on the WWW.

As an aside, I think that font sites such as this are lacking when it comes to meaningful categorisation. IMO, alphabetical order is not the most practical sorting criteria.

[Found via Gordon McLean] Tilt chair: I definitely need one of these. These are much cooler than any Aeron. Out of curiosity, didn't this idea feature on a Simpsons episode (the one with Thomas Edison) or was that a seperate device?

The Adaptability of Iraqi Insurgents: Attacks and countermeasures are being increasingly sophisticated as a result of the experience gained by both parties.

The CIA is worried that Iraq is becoming a far more effective breeding ground for terrorists than Afghanistan ever was, because they get real-world experience with urban terrorist-style combat.

The comment on Iraq being an effective breeding ground is quite insightful as what is happening can be viewed as a military form of natural selection. Techniques that are found to be successful are propogated and used until a successful defence can be developed. When an avenue of attack is blocked, new techniques are in turn developed. The net result of this arms race is that both the attacks and countermeasures are being increasingly sophisticated.

Counterinsurgency experts are alarmed by how fast the other side's tactics can evolve. A particularly worrisome case is the ongoing arms race over improvised explosive devices.

The first IEDs were triggered by wires and batteries; insurgents waited on the roadside and detonated the primitive devices when Americans drove past. After a while, U.S. troops got good at spotting and killing the triggermen when bombs went off. That led the insurgents to replace their wires with radio signals. The Pentagon, at frantic speed and high cost, equipped its forces with jammers to block those signals, accomplishing the task this spring.

The insurgents adapted swiftly by sending a continuous radio signal to the IED; when the signal stops or is jammed, the bomb explodes. The solution? Track the signal and make sure it continues.

Problem: the signal is encrypted. Now the Americans are grappling with the task of cracking the encryption on the fly and mimicking it—so far, without success. Still, IED casualties have dropped, since U.S. troops can break the signal and trigger the device before a convoy passes. That's the good news. The bad news is what the new triggering system says about the insurgents' technical abilities.

Aibo does daftpunk: Mildly amusing.

Jeffery Zeldman writes on his observations of this years May 1st Reboot as well as giving his nominations.

There is more talent than originality out there: There are always more copiers than innovators, of course, even in a creative field like design. But freshness seemed in especially short supply this year.
…
There was little content and even less user science: Many sites submitted had no concern for the user on the most basic levels. Rarely could you identify an idea or purpose behind the site, or name a possible user goal the site was intended to facilitate. There was no flow, no legibility, no usability.

Andy Budd asks the design pack: "If you could buy only 6 fonts, what would they be?". Part 1, 2