#region Coad's Code : Scripting

Favorite Web Design Links

coad — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 04:43:00 GMT

These are some of my core reference links that I consistently refer back to while working on the web (mostly from MSDN). I also use them with many other projects, but most frequently with web/html/scripting/xml apps. The main links have been listed on my IE Links toolbar for awhile and now I can replace them all with a single link here.

I'll be updating this as I come across more. If you have any recommendations of reference links you use frequently, please leave a comment and I'll add them.

Main References
CSS, Color, DHTML, HTA, Regex, JScript, WSH, Filters, Script Runtime, SQL

eXtensible Markup Language
XML, XSLT, XPath, DOM, Node, DHTML, XmlNode, XNode

Secondary Links

Well Formatted Blog, Can't Directly Copy from MS Word

coad — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 04:06:00 GMT

Wow! Well I just had to go back through all my posts and repost them all. It seams that one can not directly copy and paste from a Microsoft Word document to achieve a nicely formatted blog.

Invalid XML code is the end result causing the RSS feed to break. This not only affects my blog’s feed, but also the main MSMVPS.org feed.

Thanks to Miha Markic for pointing this out quickly before I had posted much more than the first 10 initial posts!!

http://www.rthand.com/

I’ve spent much time checking and rechecking the RSS feed and it is now verifiable XML. Thank goodness! BUT it can’t currently be validated by the most common online RSS validator because it BOMBS (see next post)! You can however validate it is a valid XML file with a simple XML parse like my previous post shows.

Much thanks to Roy Osherove's blog on “Pasting nicely formatted code into your blog” which explains the correct steps to use.

http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/archive/2004/02/05/67957.aspx

Here are the steps from Roy’s blog that work well:

Write the code in VS.NET
Paste it into a new Word document
Save the document as HTML (filtered) (or .Text will have trouble with it)
Close the doc, then re-open it without changing any text after that (this is an important step)
Copy the code from the doc into your blog post

Word is a great way to compose the post. I use a single celled table with a white background for the code window and set the tabs to .25”. This allows me to just copy and paste from Visual Studio.

Here is a VB Script that is based off of the script by Roy. I recommend making a Blog.dot Word Template, putting this in the module, and putting a button on a toolbar to access the code. Then base blog posts off of the template.

Sub FormatCodeForBlog()

ActiveDocument.Save

ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:="Blog-Temp.htm", FileFormat:=wdFormatFilteredHTML, _

LockComments:=False, Password:="", AddToRecentFiles:=True, WritePassword _

:="", ReadOnlyRecommended:=False, EmbedTrueTypeFonts:=False, _

SaveNativePictureFormat:=False, SaveFormsData:=False, SaveAsAOCELetter:=False

ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:="Blog-Temp2.htm", FileFormat:=wdFormatFilteredHTML, _

LockComments:=False, Password:="", AddToRecentFiles:=False, WritePassword _

:="", ReadOnlyRecommended:=False, EmbedTrueTypeFonts:=False, _

SaveNativePictureFormat:=False, SaveFormsData:=False, SaveAsAOCELetter:=False

RecentFiles(1).Open

Selection.WholeStory

Selection.Copy

RecentFiles(2).Open

Dim doc As Document

For Each doc In Documents

If doc.Name = "Blog-Temp.htm" Or doc.Name = "Blog-Temp2.htm" Then doc.Close

Next doc

MsgBox "Proper blog compatible XHTML has been copied to the clipboard."

End Sub

The code may seam strange with the two files going on but I found that if you close the active document, the macro stops. Since the file must be reloaded, a second file is created then the first opened. This macro also returns you back to your original document.

JScript XML Data Access

coad — Wed, 14 Apr 2004 04:10:00 GMT

“Random Vocabulary Word.js”

This simple JScript demonstrates just how easy it is to access data from an XML file through the Windows Scripting Host and MSHTML 4.0. You must have “Vocabulary.xml” in the same directory when running.

// Created by Noah Coad, coad.net/noah, 4/13/04

xmlFile = "Vocabulary.xml";

var xml = new ActiveXObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument.4.0");

xml.validateOnParse = false;

xml.async = false;

xml.load(xmlFile);

if (xml.parseError.errorCode != 0)

WScript.Echo("XML Parse Error : " + xml.parseError.reason);

else

{

var root = xml.documentElement;

var oNodeList = root.childNodes;

// Select a random word

var rnd = Math.floor(Math.random() * oNodeList.length);

// Create a message

var msg = oNodeList.item(rnd).selectSingleNode("Word").text;

msg += "\n" + oNodeList.item(rnd).selectSingleNode("Desc").text;

// Display the message

WScript.Echo(msg);

}