Another major update has come to BalfBlog in the form of being able to export your database from the dashboard. This is a very powerful feature and one that I personally really wanted for some time. I'm also configuring a backup system that will create an archive each and every time you post something to your blog. This is a very useful feature for ensuring you always have a backup of the database if you did something wrong or your server stopped working (since you could have a download of it first).
I would like to add that the new plugin system for the tools is now in place and it's easy enough to use. I will be opening up a new sample database on my own website soon as well.
I'm also working on a new information architecture to make BalfBlog more expandable. One of these possible expansions is built in polling, in other words, at the end of a post a poll would appear which readers can then answer.
As part of the on going updates to BalfBlog my own site has to adapt very slightly to the new changes. Since my website is reliant on BalfBlog for the reviews, articles and indeed all the blogs and journals on my website, it is absolutely essential I carry out maintenance to keep up with it. The changes make no actual different to appearance of the website, but they do require that you refresh the page to see the website properly.
The new update to BalfBlog makes several changes to the way in which the CSS is represented. This update follows along side the new update that focuses on adding more white space in the form of padding to my website on desktop.
The main focus on the latest bunch of updates was adding more modularity to the whole of BalfBlog. As a result the tools section is a plug in based system. This is achieved through tools which are comprised of a single directory which contains a simple XML file called info.xml and PHP files called front.php and do.php. The front.php file is used to instruct what the front of the tool does and the do.php is the process page. The tools page will now generate a list based on these tools. This allows me to be more modular and produce more tools for later versions without releasing a whole new version.
Subscribers and users can now be fully managed from within the Dashboard. The new setup for BalfBlog is also able to be accessed very easily since it will run when there is no data.php file in the appropriate location. I've still to think of an easy way to develop the multi blog single Dashboard system I have been talking of in recent posts but it will be done at some point.
Finally, on the subject of subscribers, there is one less requirement for you since BalfBlog now includes a new 'open' section of it's Dashboard and in it is the new subscribe page. What this means is that users can easily subscribe using the BalfBlog Dashboard.
All of this is still scheduled for version 2.2's official release at the end of the year.
October 27th 2016 was set as the date that the new Macs were to be announced. The date was obviously the date set for the Apple Special Event, the event where we normally expect new Macs (but don't always get what we want).
Apple's event largely focused on the Macs, but it started off with a bit of information on the new TV app coming to the Apple TV and iOS. The new app will let you watch live TV and find relevant video content.
As well as this Apple launched a new range MacBook Pros. These MacBook Pros also feature a new OLED Touch Bar and Touch ID (it's taken ages for Macs to get this, as fingerprint recognition has been around for at least 10 years in the public domain) as we expected. Also, Apple did not refresh the Air, so MacBook Air users will be hugely disappointed.
Was the event exciting as it has always been? No. I don't feel that there is much in the way of huge innovation with Apple anymore, and certainly not with Macs. It's the same old stuff year after year and it's this that is finally swaying me away from Apple.
I'm actually inclined towards a Windows 10 machine now with the Razer Blade Stealth.
Apple chose not to refresh the MacBook Air
In this post I'm going to outline what's new for BalfSlider.
Firstly, the slider now has many new animations, in fact there is now a total of 18 of them. As well as this, the design of BalfSlider allows you to easily write your own effects quickly.
BalfSlider also includes several external functionalities that are accessible through the jQuery library such as a newly added Repaint function. I use this Repaint function to redraw the slider when the landing page on my website disappears, since the height will not be correct initially. This can also be used if the slider is not visible initially.
There are several new features planned for the next iteration, but until then they shall remain a surprise.
A main focus in BalfBlog is having a functional dashboard. The dashboard is incredibly functional and well written so that it can be expanded easily. The BalfBlog Dashboard was originally developed to be entirely inspired by the host website, but as time went on, this concept became hard to manage and develop for and I began to write the new dashboard.
BalfBlog Dashboard is a complete back-end development environment for BalfBlog. It's great because it maintains it all in one simple place as well as ensures that only the right users can access content without needing some complicated system that the host website needs to provide. It was originally themed from my own website and I continued this theme for some time. It still follows this and the big changes I've made to my own website are now also included in BalfBlog. I always planned, and have continued to, keep it free from orange. Even though orange is my favourite colour, BalfBlog takes another colour from my website for it's theme.
The colour #269 is the dark blue you'll find across my website as my secondary colour also being used on buttons across my website now has found it's way into BalfBlog as the new primary colour here.
However, the restyling does not end here. I've got many plans on what is coming next. Most of the next few updates will focus on back-end updates, particularly related to user access.
Ultrabooks are amazing devices - combining high end mobile computing power with a slim design and decent battery life. The first ultrabook released was probably the MacBook Air, a moment I remember like it was yesterday. I've always really liked them and have always had an interest in them but never went out and got one.
In the last few years I've been following the development of one or two of them but one came to my attention - the Razer Blade Stealth. This ultra portable features two USB 3.0 ports and one USB-C port. The USB-C port also supports 40Gb/s over Thunderbolt allowing Razer to take advantage of the PCI-Express standard built into the laptop itself. As a result, Razer have developed the Razer Core, an external dock which features a full PCI-Express x16 slot in it. This allows you to insert a discrete desktop graphics card into the dock and use this as the laptops graphics processor. This is why this Ultrabook excited me so much.
Now the latest Razer Blade Stealth has arrived in the UK and is available to buy from their website.
The thing is I'm saving my money and until I decide to sell my MacBook Pro, if that ever happens, I cannot be buying this laptop.
My next major project is to develop a bulletin system. If you've ever used phpBB you'll know how great it is. I was a huge fan and used to run it on my own development sub-domain, DevNet.
All that aside, phpBB is easy to manage and has the concept of integrity within the network security triangle. This means that users are assigned different roles and given different access rights.
However, phpBB has a pretty big collection of files during installation and it didn't fit with the rest of my website. This is where my next project will come in.
BalfBulletin will be the next big project in my Web Independently Styled Project. Since my Web Independently Styled Project's core principal and aim is to develop web applications that fit in to any website, BalfBulletin will leaving styling to the website and the developer of the website. It will also focus on being very lightweight. As with all of my projects, particularly those in the Web Independently Styled Project, a lot of time will go into actually planning the application.
The main premise and indeed the motivation for the development of this is because I'm planning on developing a forum for my PhD project (more will come with time).
The other idea I came up with was integrating this into BalfBlog. For now however, it will be a separate project altogether.
The latest update to BalfBlog brings a range of new features. The most crucial is that you can now manage subscribers and users from the dashboard. On top of this, you can now change the date of a post after posting (I am putting in an option to disable this by default, but some people may want this).
This update also focuses on the dashboard side of things and improving the way it works. A lot of JBlogs 1.x is still exists in BalfBlog and it's being replaced with newer stuff in each update. This update removed a lot more of this.
As well as this, I focused on the way JavaScript is included. Since many people who use BalfBlog are developers I wanted to make it easier to include your JS in the post. A separate text area allows you to quickly insert JS code.
Today BalfSlider received it's first major update - adding functionality to the slide control buttons and to give more externally available features. It also added newly exposed Back, Forward, Stop and Start functions. This update makes the slider controllable by users through two different accessible options.
The first of these options is through the slider buttons. The slider buttons are found on almost every slider as a crucial feature allowing users to select a slide of their choice (so if they caught only a glimpse of a slide but missed the main focus of it they can easily go back to it quickly without needing to go through the whole slide show). BalfSlider simply detects whether there is a ul element with the class selectors inside the BalfSlider element. If it detects one it will bind a click event to each of these and it's corresponding slide. Theoretically, this is the best way to prevent any external exposure of these on your website. There's no need for external exposure anyway.
On the subject of external exposure, the second option is designed for this. This method binds the Back, Forward, Stop and Start functions to the plugin and makes it very easy to go backward, forwards, pause and play your slide show from JavaScript - a feature I've desired on many other sliders out there. This is designed for use at an elementary level meaning you can easily just call the function. Let's take a look at how we do this:
var s = jQuery('.balfslider').BalfSlider({AspectRatioWidth : 16, AspectRatioHeight : 9}); jQuery('button').click(function(){ s.Forward(); }
So in this instance we use jQuery to bind a click event to the button which when triggered will call our Forward function on the BalfSlider assigned to the variable s. That's pretty easy to understand.
The update will be available to play with on the webpage on my website dedicated to this project. It's still in development stages so bugs may be found in the version up there.
This post also was to describe the inner workings of BalfSlider and what it does that's different. Well BalfSlider takes a new concept introduced with one of my projects a few months back of a model that represents the internal functions, basically acting like an interface. This model is an object which all different transitions must follow. The object features several (empty) functions such as the Next function and the Animate function. These functions are placeholders that should be replaced with the transitions own implementations of them. This makes BalfSlider very lightweight and easy to update too but also makes the development easier. This method of development means that all that is needed to develop a transition is a few implementations that fit the model's specifications.
Also, this is my 300th post on my blog! This marks a very important moment for my blog and for BalfBlog in general.
