Alternative to Event Handle in jquery.validator

Last Updated on Tuesday, 23 April 2013 03:52 Written by David Bauernschmidt Thursday, 25 April 2013 12:00

Even with the validation built into html5 there always seems to be the need for something very unique.  For example, if you need to make sure that First Name and Last Name are filled, or you need to make sure a particular user does not exist before continuing then you will come to realize that the jquery validator is a very good compliment if not still the choice of validation requirements.  I have always loved this validator and still make it an almost automatic load on every web form that requires user input.  I was surprised to see that I had a problem using the validator with jquery 1.9.  After searching the internet for the error message I was receiving:

Working with Selects (dropdowns) in knockout.js

Last Updated on Wednesday, 3 April 2013 06:39 Written by David Bauernschmidt Friday, 5 April 2013 12:00

If you’re like me, I am always excited to try new tools and technologies so in this article I am going to show you how to use knockout.js to bind a dropdown list. It is very similar to non-knockout.js but there is a little bit of a difference. Let’s get started. One quick note is that there are a couple of different ways to do this. If the select name is the same as the value then there is a little easier way to do this, however; in this example I want the name and the value to be different.

Start with creating a jQuery Ajax call. This is pretty much the same as you would for any AJAX method.

Send Email Using jQuery and Web.API (Part 1)

Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 March 2013 09:25 Written by David Bauernschmidt Thursday, 21 March 2013 12:00

Every site no matter how small contains the ability to submit emails. These emails can be for contacting, notifying, fulfilling or subscribing to something. Since the world of AJAX, jquery, and other frameworks have been adopted by “main” stream companies, it seems archaic for a site to request the information and then to hit a submit button and for the complete page to be sent off to the server for processing. In fact, I think that all sites that have emailing of something should be required to use state-less, a sync processing. In this exercise I am going to show you how simple it is to be able to create a standing library that can be modified quickly to fit just about any email requirement. Once this is implemented you will be able to alter this library and have a real professionally done email submitting process.

Return Binary Image Using Web Api and Knockout.js

Last Updated on Tuesday, 12 March 2013 07:29 Written by David Bauernschmidt Saturday, 16 March 2013 12:00

If you have a SQL database that has an image field  in a particular table and want to return the image to the web site using web API’s then you almost have to extract the image as binary, read it to a memory stream and then save it temporarily on the server.  Pass the location back to the web page where the web page then displays the image.

What if you don’t want to create a temporary file or what if you have a lot of images for a particular product you know the user is not going to look at all of them, but since they could you’re left to run through this process anyway.  Here is another way you could do this.  Instead of creating a temporary file just stream the image back in the way of a string.  Then let your browser convert it to the binary image equivalent.

Using Google Analytics to Track PDF Views

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 February 2013 01:37 Written by David Bauernschmidt Wednesday, 27 February 2013 12:00

I currently build and manage a pro-bono site for Greenwood Christian Academy where they have a lot of PDF documents.  The users click on documents for enrollment, calendars, educational forms, health documents, etc.  Just recently they also announced an event that offers sponsorships.  The question that has come up lately is how to use Google Analytics to track how many people view the pdf documents and how many people click on the sponsor links.  This may sound simple but then I realized that Google does not track counts for links that go away from the site or to pdf views.  Not accepting this as failure, I started looking around and came across a “cool” feature that Google offers called ‘_trackEvent’.  You can use this for a multitude of things but I believe this is what I need.  The key is to realize that you need to attach something to the <a href> before the actual redirect.  Since I always use the pdf and external links with a target=’_blank’ I decided to attach an event handler to the <a href>.  The problem is this could take a while, especially if you have a lot of links and pdf.  Thank goodness for jquery.  I attached the code below as close to the end of the page as possible (preferably right before the </body>).  This script attaches a click event to every <a href> if there is a target=’_blank’.  I then determine if it is a pdf or just a “plain” link.