Monthly Archives: August 2009

Glow Javascript library

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Only just come across the [Glow Javascript library][glow] that the [BBC][bbc] released under the [Apache license][apache] a couple of months ago. It looks good, and has [excellent API documentation][glowdocs] as well as discussions of general usage for the majority of the tools.

In particular it has widgets for auto-complete text inputs, a simple class for validating form input and supports CSS-style selectors for referencing DOM objects.

Being that the BBC is mightily concerned with scheduled transmissions, Glow has an implementation of a timetable for displaying concurrent “tracks” of time data – I think this would complement the [Simile timeline library][simile] in various situations.

Seeing as I can’t do Javascript without [jQuery][jquery] or getting depressed, Glow is very interesting.

[apache]: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html
[glow]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/glow/
[bbc]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/
[glowdocs]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/glow/docs/
[simile]: http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/
[jquery]: http://jquery.com/

BBC iCalendar schedules

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[Jon Udell][jonudell] recently [wrote about accessing the BBC programming schedules][post] but was put-off by the lack of time zone information in the iCalendar feeds, which prompted me to fix the quick-and-dirty script I have that generates [iCalendar files for the BBC][guide]. (I wrote the first, time zone-blind version of my script in England’s Winter and it worked just perfick back then!)

So [I fix it][fixed]. The updated iCalendar files have events with time zone information.

Everyone’s happy.

Jon Udell’s use of Python to explore data manipulation on the Web was one of the reasons I thought I really ought to get stuck into [Python][python].

[jonudell]: http://blog.jonudell.net/
[post]: http://blog.jonudell.net/2009/08/05/curation-meta-curation-and-live-net-radio/
[guide]: http://reliablybroken.com/guide/
[python]: http://www.python.org/
[fixed]: http://reliablybroken.com/guide/bbcguidetz.py

Microsoft Update versus Internet Explorer 8

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Fun implications of designing [your software update service][msupdate] as a pseudo-application that is actually an ActiveX plugin (that needs to guarantee the owning web page cannot be closed) include refusing to allow _any_ web page to come forward when the owning web page is one of many tabs in Internet Explorer 8.

It is a little satisfying seeing Microsoft’s chickens come home to roost, but I would much rather they hadn’t made such obvious, Web-hostile choices in the first place.

[msupdate]: http://update.microsoft.com/microsoftupdate/v6/default.aspx

Django and time zone-aware date fields (redux)

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Previously on 24…

I posted [a module for handling time zone-aware datetime objects][oldpost], but I left out all the hassle of dealing with form input. Here is a more complete python package for [Django][django] that includes a form field sub-class that can handle a small set of datetime string formats that include a time zone offset.

[Timezones 0.1][timezones]

This code is released under Django’s BSD license.

[oldpost]: http://reliablybroken.com/b/2009/06/django-and-time-zone-aware-date-fields/
[django]: http://www.djangoproject.com/
[timezones]: http://reliablybroken.com/b/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/timezones-01.tar.gz