Windows Apps for Web and Front End Developers

Posted on by Rob Larsen

Spurred on by this post by Rey Bango, I thought I’d share some of the tools I’m using myself when working on Windows. Rey’s post is great, but since Window-based developers are under-served by the community (even though there are a lot of us) I figured it couldn’t hurt to add my own options. These are almost all in addition to the tools Rey mentions as I use a lot of the same tools in his post.

Visual Studio 2012

As I mentioned, I’m going to try to avoid a lot of repetition of Rey’s options in this post (which is why you won’t see Sublime Text mentioned, even though it’s #3 in my code editor triumvirate.) Still, I feel like I have to add in my two cents on VS2012. One of the weird things about the web developer community is that, as a whole, we recognize that the tools we have aren’t as good as they should be. Some of this stuff is hard to do right or do efficiently and doing both is often the domain of the real experts. Then, in the very next breath, some folks will pile onto Microsoft and Adobe with as much vitriol as they can manage. The thing is, and this is something you pick up pretty quickly when you start to work with XAML, Silverlight and Flex refugees on the open web stack, Adobe and Microsoft created pretty sweet tools and APIs. People could get their jobs done. No, they weren’t perfect but their developers felt empowered. It’s surprising that they stick around at all, after they see what our ragtag band has to offer.

VS2012 is one of those tools. Yes, it costs money. Yes, it only runs on Windows. Yes, it’s a multi-GB install. No, it has no street cred. All that said, even out of the box it’s a powerful editor for web tech and, if you take the time to configure it properly it’s ridiculous.

I’ve been using this more and more recently.

Adobe Dreamweaver

This isn’t necessarily a Windows-only thing, of course. But still, it’s worth pointing out as Dreamweaver gets a bad rap.

Yes, it’s a WYSIWYG editor that people have made awful things with for 15 years and people disparage “Dreamweaver developers” as people who don’t know how to hand-code anything.

The thing is, while it can be those things, it’s also pretty great. From the beginning (FWIW, the first version I used, 1.2, came out in 1998), Dreamweaver has embraced and understood JavaScript in ways that other editors only started to recently. Dreamweaver extensions are written in JS so JavaScript isn’t some add-on, it’s core to the product. It’s also the heir of HomeSite, the great web-centric text editor that was my bread and butter for nearly the entire 2000s.

While it’s still got WYSIWYG features aplenty, it’s a fine, configurable editor with great code hinting, excellent site management tools and plenty of opportunities for automation. Mixed with Adobe Fireworks, you can smoothly move between graphics files and your web editor for even more webtastic power. My go-to editor at home where I’m running CS6.

I love being able to open an HTML document and having the full context of the attached files available when I’m editing. You always remain in the context of the HTML page, even when you’re switching back and forth between the attached JavaScript and CSS files.

TextPad

My utility text editor. If I need to open and manipulate a big text file on Windows I do it with TextPad.

MarkdownPad

A great editor for Markdown files. Buy the $15 license and get support for Github flavored markdown right on your Windows desktop.

Paint.net

I run CS6 at home. Having a big monitor, mouse, scanner, etc. make for a better experience with my CS6 Creative Cloud subscription. That said, I have a Lenovo Yoga that I spend a lot of time on and having Paint.net on it for basic image manipulation. It’s a great image editing app. It’s not a Photoshop replacement but for an image editing utility it can’t be beat.

Minimalist GNU for Windows/Minimal SYStem

If you’ve installed Git for Windows, you’ll know these projects as “Git Bash.” While I’m a fan of Powershell and pin it to my taskbar, I’m glad to have this scaled down Bash prompt available to me as well. It’s surprisingly robust.

WinSCP

I’ve just started using this tool as a replacement for FileZilla and like it. The difference maker for me is that the local window is just an Explorer window, which means that all the customization I have on the Explorer context menu are available right in the WinSCP interface. When you’re trying to put out a fire, it’s a big deal to be able to fall back on consistent patterns (right click> open in Sublime Text, for example)

WinMerge

I don’t get bent out of shape with conflicts because I’ve got WinMerge. It’s just good software.

Mongoose

While I’m as happy to spin up a node server to test locally as the next guy, double clicking a file to start up a quick web server is super convenient. No command line needed. Drop mongoose.exe in a folder, double click and you’re good to go. Pretty sweet little app.

7 Zip

The Swiss Army knife for compressed files.

Java, Ruby, Perl, Python, and Node installed and on my path

Many doors open up if you’ve got common programming languages installed and on your path. I’ve obviously made good use of Java over the years, but I commonly use Node, Python, and even Ruby tools.

S3Fox

While much of the work I do with Amazon S3 and Cloudfront is automated, occasionally you need to get up there and poke around. S3Fox adds an FTP style interface for AWS right into a Firefox tab.

Those are my additions to the Windows web dev canon. What else is out there? What are we missing?

My Slides from HTML5DevConf, Now with 100% More Browsing (and Photos)

Posted on by Rob Larsen

let's do this

My slides from HTML5DevConf are now up for viewing on Github pages, so you don’t even need to type node web-server.js to view them. There’s one hitch where svgz files aren’t rendering, but I’m not going to worry about that right now. If, in the interim, you really want to see that image, you can grab it from the repo.

There should be video at some point in the future. When there is, I will be sure to let you all know.

I’m also going to be giving this talk at the Boston Front End Developers meetup in May. I’ll be sure to share that as well, once the meetup announcement is online.

I presented in twin peaks

ready to go

Quick Note: I’ve Got a Few Posts on Amazon’s tech.book(store)

Posted on by Rob Larsen

I’ve written three articles for them. The first two are up now:

Recommended HTML5 and Open Web Platform Books

In which I recommend books that I think are pretty good for HTML5 and general front end engineering.

Spoiler alert! I recommend my own book. I happen to think it’s pretty good so I’m not going to apologize 🙂

The Modern State of Web Browsers

In which I talk about the current browser landscape. A post which was rendered a little bit out-of-date a week later when Google announced Blink. On the other hand, my concerns about Opera, outlined in the article, have already been addressed. Blink replaces Presto in the rendering engine landscape and creates a more powerful alternative to Webkit than Presto was ever going to be. Boom! Webkit monoculture averted.

I’ve got one more post ready to go, I’m assuming it will drop next week. I’ll be sure to share when it does.

Sure, It’s 5 Months Too Late for the Contest, BUT.. I Finally Did Something with the Hubway Data

Posted on by Rob Larsen

hubway-static

The Hubway Data Visualization Challenge was a contest run using the data released by the local bike share. I really wanted to do something for the contest and even started a project in October to try to do something with it.

You know how that turned out

Anyway, between finding myself with a life that I can fill occasionally with fun programming and the need to do some cool visualizations for my presentation at HTML5 Developer Conference, I resurrected the project and managed to finish the thing over a weekend.

What did I do?

The image above shows a snapshot of the final output. What does it show?

  • The top ten Hubway departure points mapped against their top ten destinations.
  • Google is queried for each departure/arrival pair to create a “bike-friendly” route between the two points.
  • This is then plotted on the map using one color for each departure station. The size of the line is directly proportional to the number of trips for each departure and arrival pair.
  • Every line is 40% opaque, so the darker the path on a particular road, the more different trips pass over that road.
  • The bicycling layer is turned on, to show bicycle infrastructure. So basically, thick dark lines on top of a bike path = a good match for usage and infrastructure*.

*Theoretically. As the following table shows, the “bike friendly” route is not always the most direct. What I did here was calculate the correlation between the distance between the two latitude and longitude points in a straight line and the distance as calculated by the Google directions service. As you can see, some of the routes are 2x as far as the flying crow when approached on a bike-friendly route.

Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St. 2.13
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. 2.04
Boylston St. at Arlington St. TD Garden – Legends Way 1.98
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. TD Garden – Legends Way 1.93
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Aquarium Station – 200 Atlantic Ave. 1.87
TD Garden – Legends Way Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.85
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. 1.83
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. 1.83
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St. 1.75
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Stuart St. at Charles St. 1.74
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.66
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.57
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Newbury St / Hereford St. 1.57
TD Garden – Legends Way Post Office Square 1.56
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. 1.51
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St. 1.5
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. 1.49
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. 1.47
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. TD Garden – Legends Way 1.46
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Fanueil Hall – Union St. at North St. 1.46
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.45
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Post Office Square 1.45
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Washington St. at Rutland St. Boston 1.45
South Station TD Garden 1.44
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Yawkey Way at Boylston St. 1.44
Back Bay / South End Station Prudential Center / Belvidere 1.43
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Kenmore Sq. /Comm Ave 1.42
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave. 1.4
South Station Seaport Hotel 1.39
TD Garden – Legends Way South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave. 1.38
TD Garden – Legends Way Faneuil Hall – Union St. at North St. 1.38
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Mayor Thomas M. Menino – Government Center 1.38
Back Bay / South End Station Christian Science Plaza 1.38
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Fanueil Hall – Union St. at North St. 1.36
Back Bay / South End Station Boston Medical Center – 721 Mass. Ave 1.36
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave 1.36
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Beacon St. / Mass Ave 1.35
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. 1.35
Back Bay / South End Station Washington St. at Rutland St. Boston 1.34
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Tremont St. / West St. 1.33
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. TD Garden – Legends Way 1.33
TD Garden – Legends Way Aquarium Station – 200 Atlantic Ave. 1.32
South Station Cross St. at Hanover St. 1.31
South Station Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.31
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Landmark Centre 1.31
TD Garden – Legends Way Summer St. / Arch St. 1.3
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Kenmore Sq / Comm Ave. 1.29
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Beacon St / Mass Ave 1.28
Back Bay / South End Station Stuart St. at Charles St. 1.28
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. 1.28
South Station Boylston St. / Berkeley St. 1.27
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Congress / Sleeper 1.26
Back Bay / South End Station Tremont St / W Newton St. 1.25
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Seaport Square – Seaport Blvd. at Boston Wharf 1.25
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Stuart St. at Charles St. 1.22
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave. 1.22
Back Bay / South End Station Washington St. at Waltham St. 1.22
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Kenmore Sq / Comm Ave 1.22
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. The Esplanade – Beacon St. at Arlington St. 1.22
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. 1.21
South Station Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. 1.2
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Newbury St. / Hereford St. 1.19
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. 1.19
South Station Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave 1.17
South Station Aquarium Station – 200 Atlantic Ave. 1.17
TD Garden – Legends Way Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave. 1.17
Lewis Wharf – Atlantic Ave. Chinatown Gate Plaza – Surface Rd. at Beach St. 1.17
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Cross St. at Hanover St. 1.16
TD Garden – Legends Way Congress/Sleeper 1.15
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Stuart St. at Charles St. 1.15
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Tremont St. / West St. 1.13
TD Garden – Legends Way Seaport Square – Seaport Blvd. at Boston Wharf 1.11
Back Bay / South End Station Columbus Ave. at Mass Ave. 1.11
Charles Circle – Charles St. at Cambridge St. Mayor Thomas M. Menino – Government Center 1.11
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. Boylston / Mass Ave 1.11
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Packard’s Corner – Comm Ave. at Brighton Ave. 1.11
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Landmark Centre 1.09
South Station Rowes Wharf – Atlantic Ave. 1.08
Back Bay / South End Station Roxbury Crossing Station 1.07
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. MIT at Mass Ave / Amherst St. 1.07
Newbury St. / Hereford St. Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.07
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave. 1.06
Boston Public Library – 700 Boylston St. Boylston St. at Arlington St. 1.06
Boylston St. at Arlington St. Newbury St. / Hereford St. 1.06
Boylston St. at Arlington St. South Station – 700 Atlantic Ave. 1.04
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. Christian Science Plaza 1.02
Beacon St. / Mass Ave. Kenmore Sq. / Comm Ave 1.01
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Agganis Arena – 925 Comm. Ave. 1
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave B.U. Central – 725 Comm Ave 1
Kenmore Square / Comm Ave Packard’s Corner – Comm. Ave at Brighton Ave. 1

The intent is to highlight where bicycle infrastructure can be improved in the city- especially for the presumably inexperienced cyclists on Hubway machines.

I’ll follow up with a post on the technical implementation shortly. In the interim, check out the code on Github

Beginning HTML and CSS is O-U-T

Posted on by Rob Larsen

I’ve mentioned it on Google+ and Twitter. I should probably mention it here: Beginning HTML and CSS is out. It came out yesterday.

Here’s proof:

20130311_162525

The book looks great. I’m really happy with it.

Are there things I wish I could redo? Sure. Of course. But overall, based on what I had to work with in terms of existing material, time and other obligations, I don’t think I could improve on what’s on the shelves in any significant way.

I’m very proud of the introduction to jQuery chapter. It was written towards the end of the book and was one of the things I was most interested in writing when I started the project. I think the combination of my own interest in the subject and the fact that I had a solid foundation of cranking out 2-4 pages a day for months at a time made for some really good writing. Easy writing to do, but still pretty good.

If you’re a novice web programmer or an experienced programmer who has never used HTML,CSS and JavaScript to build a web front end, I really think this book will be an invaluable guide to get you up and running.

The Next One

Both books I’ve written (and the other book I was writing that got shelved) have had other authors involved. With Professional jQuery I came in, late in the project, with the goal of finishing it off. I spent the whole time on that book reacting to what was there. I think I did some good work there, but it’s not the book I would write if the project were 100% mine. I would have approached it differently from the first chapter. And even putting structure aside, the chapters that I normally would be most interested in writing (the chapters introducing the jQuery API) were already done when I started in on the book. It was a great experience, just not an optimal one.

This book had existing material as well, so I was once again reacting to the structure and content that was already there. The good thing about this experience is that I was able to use what I wanted and had carte blanche to tear things apart if I felt like it would make a better book.

So, with all that in mind, the next book I write is going to be mine from the ground up. That’s really important to me. While I’ll always listen to opportunities in this space, and I try not to say “never” (although… I’d really to say that I’m never using ExtJS again and know that it will be the gospel truth;) I really don’t want to go through this process again unless the book is wholly mine. Too much is invested in this kind of work to not be able to steer the content to the greatest possible degree. Obviously, writing books is collaborative and I’m not just being polite when I thank all the people involved (notably Carol Long, Katherine Burt and Dan Maharry here) there’s still a level of control I’ve yet to achieve having never truly been the sole author of one of these things.

I’d like to do that.

I’d also like it to be shorter. I’d love to write a thinner volume since it’s difficult to maintain book writing pace over a long period of time. 2-300 pages sounds pretty good to me right now.

Not that I know what it would be.

(Rob runs off to think about the next thing)