Brad's Blog

Its been a while since I have thought about posting anything.  For the summer semester I am taking CPT-114 which is basically Visual Basic, but thus far its mostly been VBScript, a Microsoft proprietary javascript wannabe.  I finally got to a script which was complex enough to post.  Basically, its a program that generates a list of gifts for a wedding registry sorted by side of the wedding party, the original assignment also said to make an additional list of gifts that were repeated, but the instructor said we could omit the last part due to the complexity.   Well that sounded like a challenge to me, so this is what I spaghetti-coded.   (I hope it fits)

<script language="vbScript" type="text/vbscript">
option explicit
dim name, faction, gift, bride_text_out, groom_text_out, groom_counter, bride_counter, flag, flag1, flag2
dim gift_counter, gift_index_list, current_gift, length_check, one_cut, gift_pointer2, single_flag, record_count
dim gift_list, name_list, eof_flag, gift_index_flag, gift_pointer, gift_name, gift_precount
set gift_index_list = createobject("scripting.dictionary")
set gift_list = createobject("scripting.dictionary")
flag = "yes"
Do while flag="yes"
name = inputbox("Enter name:")
faction = inputbox("Enter faction: (bride/groom)")
gift = inputbox("Enter gift name:")
record_count = record_count + 1

if faction = "bride" then
	 bride_counter = bride_counter + 1
	 bride_text_out = bride_text_out  & bride_counter & ". " & name & ": " & gift & "<br>"
else
	 groom_counter = groom_counter + 1
	 groom_text_out = groom_text_out  & groom_counter & ". " &name & ": " &gift & "<br>"
end if

gift_counter = gift_counter + 1
gift_index_list.add gift_counter, gift
if gift_list.exists(gift) then
	 		if left(gift_list.item(gift),1) = "1" then
				 one_cut = len(gift_list.item(gift)) - 1
				 name_list = "1" &name &"<br>"
	 			 name_list = name_list + right(gift_list.item(gift), one_cut)
			else
					name_list = "1" &name &"<br>"
	 				name_list = name_list + gift_list.item(gift)
			end if
			gift_list.remove(gift)
			gift_list.add gift, name_list
else
			name_list = name &"<br>"
			gift_list.add gift, name_list
end if

flag = inputbox ("Would you like to add another gift? (yes/no)")
Loop

document.write "Gifts on the bride side:" &"<br>"
document.write bride_text_out
document.write "<br>"
document.write "Gifts on the groom side:" &"<br>"
document.write groom_text_out
document.write "<br>"

gift_pointer = 0
gift_pointer2 = 0
gift_name = 0

do while flag1 = 0
gift_pointer2 = gift_pointer2 + 1
gift_pointer = gift_pointer2
gift_name = gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer)
	do while record_count > gift_pointer
	gift_pointer = gift_pointer + 1
		if gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer) = gift_name then
		gift_index_list.remove(gift_pointer)
		end if
	loop
		if gift_pointer2 >= record_count then
		flag1 = 1
		end if
loop

gift_pointer = 1
do while record_count >= gift_pointer

	 if gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer) <> "" and Left(gift_list.item(gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer)),1) = "1" then
	 document.write "Multiple " &gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer) &" by:<br>"
	 length_check = len(gift_list.item(gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer))) - 1
	 document.write right(gift_list.item(gift_index_list.item(gift_pointer)),length_check)
	 document.write "<br>"
	 end if
gift_pointer = gift_pointer + 1
loop

document.write ("<br>Spaghetti-coded by <a href='http://bradlavario.info'>Brad LaVario</a>")
</script>

Okay it didn’t quite fit, but here is a link to it.

note:  it will ONLY run in IE (Internet Explorer).

Sometime last night I noticed my bold and italics were not working, so I had to find a fix for it.

I found it here.

I figured I would go ahead and post it, just because the more places you post a fix, the easier it is for someone to find it on Google.  (…and I get to use my codebox again, YAY!!!)

Delete, or “comment out” the following code from your theme’s style.css:

font-weight: inherit;
font-style: inherit;
font-size: 100%;
font-family: inherit;

*note: this code may appear on one very long line or in multiple lines like I have listed, either way comment them out or remove them.

In other news, I figured out how to set the timezone in WordPress, so now all my posts will not be at weird times… err well, they will be at the correct weird times.

With my last post, I found a need for creating a box type in my blog to list code, be it CSS, HTML, JQuery, or what not.

My first shot at this was downloading a plug-in for it, but it basically made multi-color code on white background and honestly, it worked okay, but it was not the look I wanted. Next I tried making a custom <pre> box, this worked well, black text on a cyan box background, but in the process of coding this, I remembered Soh Tanaka‘s tutorial section on his website.  His code boxes looked awesome, and though I would not be adding twenty-seven miles of JQuery code to make it scroll and do mouseover craziness, I wanted to try to get something that looked similar.

So once again we dive into my theme’s style.css sheet, and add some stuff.

This is the <pre> CSS section I added, and this is what it looks like when used:

pre {
	background: url(images/pre-back.jpg);
	border: solid 2px #999999;
	font-size: 12px;
	line-height: 20px;
	color: black;
	margin: 10px;
	padding: 10px;
}

The graphic   in the background is simply a 40px by 40px square with cyan on top for 10px, white in the middle for 20px, and cyan once more on the bottom for 10px, it does not have to be more than 1px wide, but I made it 40px here so it could be better shown in the blog.  To use this after you change the CSS, all you have to do is click the HTML tab when editing a post and place your listing between <pre></pre> tags, and you are ready to go.

Well after about 3-4 hours of looking and trying 5 different themes I have one I will run for a while.  I did not realize it would be so time consuming as I wanted a certain look, but I also wanted the functionality to work as a website (page links on top, blog stuff on the side)  took me a few tries.

I settled on Carbonize theme from wordpress.org, I did have to make a minor style sheet hack as it was doing that annoying Firefox outline on graphic links that drives me crazy, I eventually just cut all link outlines with this:

a {outline: none;}

(added to my theme’s style.css file)

I also had to re-make my metal&glass “W” graphic as the boxes in this theme are not a set color. It took me a while to figure out they had some sort of  transparent tile in the boxes, it looked one color but there were slight variations in random places that would never let a solid color .jpg match the box around it. I wound up changing it from a jpeg with a #080808 background color to a .png file with a transparent background, a .png will have a slightly higher load time, but at least, it matches.

Thus far the WordPress code seems to load pretty quick, so I don’t think a few extra fat graphics will slow it down much.

I am setting up WordPress today, as this will be my “sandbox” for all things WordPress, plus it gave me an excuse to make a new metal&glass graphic.