@jim said:

One technique I have used is to pass the name of the Ruby callback to the Javascript. In many cases, you can use a single Javascript function to call any number of Ruby callbacks.

Neat trick, and that tells me exactly what I wanted to know. Now where to we go to get the docs to say "add one or more callbacks ..."?

@rickw said:

If you give all your form fields an ID, you can reference them in ruby without relying on the info passed in the callback. In fact, there are times I don't pass any data in the callback itself, instead using

dialog.get_element_value("myfield")

to access the information I need. I only pass the info through the callback if the info is limited to one data set, and then only occasionally.

Excellent tip. Thanks.

There is a link to this blog post in the WebDialog docs, but the link is broken.

Is this an appropriate place for an item like this?

@chris fullmer said:

So if you ever hit sort by color, it will be on that next time you open SU.

Beautiful! No more confusion here, I was sorted by color (whatever that means). Now I'm sorted by name, as everyone has been saying.

Check out Firebug lite.

http://getfirebug.com/lite.html

It works for IE and Safari. All you have to do to debug your Webdialogs is add this line to your HTML:

<script type='text/javascript' src='http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/1.2/firebug-lite-compressed.js'></script>

hm.. that's interesting. Haven't paid much attention to HTML5 the last few months.

@martinrinehart said:

But we wander. Back to my original question..

Ah, yea. The topic! 😄 Sorry, I often stray away and webdev is one of my major interests so I stray even quicker and further when that topic is even remotely related. 😳

@martinrinehart said:

As browsers are more predictable in standards mode than quirks mode, Ruby-generated HTML should include a doctype and should be valid for its doctype.

Agree. Since webdialogs must run under the webkit engine and IE the best chance for platform compatibility is following the W3C standards.

When I make webdialogs I do the same as I do when I develop websites. I code to the standards, then to account for IE notoriously bad handling of the standards I add some conditional comments that adds CSS and JS fixes. Most of the time visual quirks in IE is by triggering hasLayout

For better legibility and re-usability, separate CSS and JS their own respective files.

Using HTML validators to detect correct markup is very important. Once a document is invalid there's no way to predict how the different rendering engines will recover and you can not expect cross platform compatibility.

I'm starting to realise that there hasn't been posted any recommendations of best practices when it comes to webdialogs. Coming from a webdesign background I haven't given it much thought.

I like that too Martin, thanks! Good to see you around the forums again,

Chris

If we didn't rely on (many) undocumented things, there wouldn't be need for a forum. 😄

@jim said:

Hi Martin,

You don't need to re-install - I'm sure this is just a configuration issue.

First, IRB and sketchup.rb do not mix.

Stupid me! That was the whole problem.

Thanks!

@martinrinehart said:

Off topic: My wife's best friend came from Pecs. Expert tapestry restorer.

Hehe... Everyone who is worth something is leaving here. I'm also packing my things soon.
😄