Node.js development: 2015

Wednesday, 29 July 2015

Taking photo with web camera without Flash

With HTML5, you can connect to the web cam and take photo without using Flash or any other third party component.

To connect to the web cam, you need to explore the following Javascript method:

navigator.MediaDevices.getUserMedia()

For the detailed explanation, please refers to the following article.

http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/getusermedia/intro/

and also refer to the up-to-date reference:

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MediaDevices/getUserMedia

I found this library and the sample web pages are working (able to take photo). But, yet to write some web page to do the job:

https://github.com/jhuckaby/webcamjs

Printing without the URL at the page header

Below is the sample HTML which will hide the URL at the page header when printing with Javascript.

   <html moznomarginboxes >
   <head>
   <style type="text/css">

      @page{                size: auto;                margin: 3mm;           }

   </style>
   </head>
   <body>
         My page content goes here..
   </body>
   </html>

The simple way to print the current page is to call the following JavaScript method:

   window.print();

The Javascript library to print the specific element/container:

https://github.com/jasonday/printThis

Wednesday, 22 July 2015

Adding public and private method/property

Here is how you returns a Person object to the caller:

function Person(name)
{
    // increase the head count (static property)
    this.constructor.headCount++;

    // private variable
    var _dob;
    var _name = name;

    //public functions
    this.helo = function () { return 'helo work..' };
    this.toString = function () { return _name };

    // public property
    this.money = 1000;
}

// public functions
Person.prototype.sayMyName = function () { return this.toString() };
Person.prototype.myBalance = function () { return this.money; };

// static property
Person.headCount = 0;

var p1 = new Person('mike');
var p2 = new Person('john');
var count = Person.headCount;    // the output is '2' because you called 'new' twice

For detail explanation, please refers to the following artcile:
http://phrogz.net/JS/classes/OOPinJS.html

Thursday, 25 June 2015

Fixed column table with horizontal scrolling

While I was working on a project which I need the first column in the table to the "fixed" (non-scrollable) while other columns are scrollable. I was wondering if this is possible and does it requires any JavaScript plug-in to achieve that.

After searching in the Internet, it turns our that it is very easy to do with CSS. No JavaScript is required. HTML is amazing.

Below is the sample page that I have done it myself while referencing the tutorial of fixed column.

"fixed_div" - this is the main container for the table.
"scroller" - this is the container that limit the width (width:600px) of the table to be displayed on the screen so that the horizontal scrollbar is scrollable. While "margin-left:100px" will ident the div to 100px to the right. Without this attribute the horizontal scrollbar will start showing at left = 0.
"table" - the table-layout must be "fixed" or else the cell might be shrunken.
"th" - the "position:absolute" will mark the cell to be fixed (non-scrollable) and "left:0" will let it stick to the left.

<html>
<head>
    <style type="text/css">
        table{
            table-layout:fixed;
            width:100%;
        }
        th {
            width: 100px;
            position: absolute;
            left:0;
            background-color:yellow;
        }
        td {
            width: 300px;background-color:yellow;
        }
        .scroller {
            overflow-x: scroll;
            overflow-y: visible;
            width: 600px;
            margin-left: 100px;
        }
        .fixed_div {
            position: relative;
        }
    </style>
</head>
<body>

    <div class="fixed_div">
        <div class="scroller">
            <table>
                <tr>
                    <th>
                        header 1
                    </th>
                    <td>
                        cell 11
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 12
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 13
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 14
                    </td>

                    <td>
                        cell 15
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>
                        header 2
                    </th>
                    <td>
                        cell 21
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 22
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 23
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 24
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 25
                    </td>
                </tr>
                <tr>
                    <th>
                        header 3
                    </th>
                    <td>
                        cell 31
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 32
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 33
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 34
                    </td>
                    <td>
                        cell 35
                    </td>
                </tr>
            </table>
        </div>
    </div>
</body>
</html>

Node.js development