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I'm working on a personal project and I'm trying to figure out how to randomly 'color' various parts of an image. The result I'm looking for is like the following image generator when you click "Generate":
Random Color Image Generator
I'm not even sure where to begin. Is it possible to assign different Element IDs to a single image?
Thank you!
Laura
This is not a pure HTML project from what I understand of your requirements. HTML is not a programming language, it is a markup language for displaying things. Where anything apart from display is involved, a scripting or programming language is needed.
In your project, HTML would be used for the front-end, for example to gather information for example about which color goes where, and to show a 'generate' button that the viewer can click.
You will then need (to build) an actual program in the back-end (on a server etc) that will generate the image based on the parameters collected from the viewer.
The HTML front-end can then fetch the generated image and display it to the viewer.
The back-end can be built in a number of ways in a number of programming languages. PHP is a typical language for something like this. It can also be done in javascript (node.js), python, etc.
A good starting point is looking at open-source projects on github. A quick search showed me a few projects which might be in line with yours.
https://github.com/kotekipiesek/3D-Pony-Creator
https://github.com/lat9nq/make-pony
https://github.com/Tailszefox/Pony-Fusion
Even with the programming language, you would typically not interact deeply with the JPG or PNG file formats. Your scripting language would use a library to do this. ImageMagick is one such popular library.
Here is a question that I think you might ask if you pick node.js as your language:
How to replace a color with another using GraphicsMagick Nodejs
Does anyone know if I can integrate GrapeJS into my own website so clients could build their own websites using it? IF anyone has done this, how easy is it and are there downsides?
This question is pretty open ended, but I'll take a shot at it.
The short answer is yes, you can use Grapesjs to allow clients to make their own sites; however, the details matter.
Grapesjs by default doesn't know anything about your stack, website structure, metadata, etc. You will need to either supply plugins or implement those features yourself. I've worked on a project for a company that used Grapesjs to implement single page apps and I'll include just some of the tweaks we had to manage.
Hiding certain layers that only confuse average users.
Hiding pretty much all of the styling, and using traits to allow people to pick from some predefined styles.
Take the html, css on store and generate the final html page, and store it in our static serving folder on the server.
Implement a wrapping "App" component that has traits for the different metadata we want users to control (open graph metadata, title, etc)
and those are just the big things, I'm sure I am forgetting several small ones.
For your application, you'll also need to implement a custom trait for links / buttons that allows you to link from one "page" to another. As well as, a way to allow a user to pick which page to work on.
The long answer is Yes, but Grapesjs is only the starting point.
Yes you can.
However it is not straightforward.
If you want to build a Drag Drop Editor like GrapeJS Demo, here is the Source Code - https://github.com/artf/grapesjs-preset-webpage
You can see an implementation at https://codegres.org/dragdrop
I currently have lots of documentation to write in markdown and, therefore, I'd like my favorite editor to properly syntax-highlight it.
Problem is: the default color scheme of SublimeText (in my case, Monokai) doesn't seem to make a good use of colors with markdown. See by yourself.
That being, while searching for a solution, I found a comment on github mentioning other color schemes working way better for markdown: Cobalt, Dawn and Sunburst.
The thing is I'm pretty used to Monokai (never switched to another color scheme so far) and I'd like to avoid switching everytime I have to work with markdown.
Why does syntax highlight vary that much while I'm only using non-exotic themes ?
More important: what can I do ?
It's slightly annoying, but you can customize the existing color scheme. You simply need to determine the scopes for certain blocks of code, then create a color "binding" for that. I'd recommend copying the contents of the Monokai color scheme out and saving it in Packages/User. That way, you aren't messing up the built in one if you accidentally mess things up beyond repair. This also makes it easy to move the color scheme between machines (if that applies to you).
To determine scope, I'd recommend using ScopeHunter. There is built in functionality also, but I like ScopeHunter better (but that's a personal preference). To find the default key bindings, search for the command "show_scope_name`. You can look at the entries already there for an example of how to set up colors, though if you need some additional clarification, please comment as such. Oh and if you would rather work in JSON instead of XML, you might also want to take a look at PlistJsonConverter
As an alternative, you can try to find someone who has already made the appropriate modifications to the color scheme file.
Please point me to some guides on how to master (X)HTML, CSS with Vim. I preffer to create web pages by hands and I decided to go with Vim.
Any useful plugins, tips & tricks, tutorials, how-tos, books, articles?
Thanks!
You'll "master (X)HTML, CSS with Vim" the same way you'd do with any other text editor or language: by working hard, reading books, watching screencasts and keeping up with the news. The editor you choose is totally irrelevant.
That said, here are a few native features and plugins that helped me a lot:
Omnicompletion is Vim's own autocompletion-like feature, except that it's not automatic.
Hit ctrlp or ctrln to complete with a word contained elsewhere in your document.
Hit ctrlxctrlo to display a list of possible completions based on the language.
BEGIN EDIT
Another very very useful feature is "file-path completion", start typing the path to a file and hit <C-x><C-f> to display a menu with possible completions.
Also, the aforementioned features can be automated with plugins, the one I use is AutoComplPop.
END EDIT
Objects allow you to move, select and perform actions on your code in crazy cool ways.
Say you have <div>word</div> with the cursor on o, dit will delete word, cit will delete word and place the cursor between the tags for further editing and so on…
If you know what d, c or v mean, that i roughly means inside and a roughly means around and that t means tag you already have a very powerful tool, there. Vim has other objects very useful for code editing: ", ', (, [, { etc, type :help objects for more.
For me, this feature alone was enough to justify scraping TextMate.
Blockwise Selection does what it says. :help blockwise-visual for more info.
:normalize or :norm is also very useful to prepend or append something to a group of lines.
SnipMate is a plugin inspired by TextMate's snippets system. You type form then hit tab to expand to a complete boilerplate <form> element in which you can move by further hitting tab to edit values and attributes.
Surround takes the objects business to another level by making it possible to add tag pairs around your selection, deleting them or changing them.
If you take the example above, hit cst<p> to change it in a more correct <p>word</p>. To add a pair of tags to word, select it with v then hit S and type the tag you want.
Sparkup is a pretty awesome plugin. Besides that, I normally use both snipMate and delimitMate, though those are useful for coding in any language.
I do it that way. I haven't found that much support for it, so I wrote a little of my own. I keep it on Google code hosting. I also use a version of Vim with Python embedded, and use some Python to extend some functionality. That's in the pycopia.vimlib package.
There is only a little, but hopefully useful stuff. You can start from there.
Install CSS3 syntax plugin.
Install HTML5 syntax plugin.
Install Syntastic syntax checker plugin.
You'll also have to install CSS Lint's CLI tool, since the syntax checker uses it.
There are a lot more plugins related to general development, which you can find in several questions scattered around this website, but the ones above a specifically related to help writing better CSS & HTML.
Emmet. Which was called zencoding a long time ago, is a nice plugin for several editors (including vim) with many features that enables you to code html and css very rapidly.
For example, you can type div.some span.other<ctrl+y> ans you'll get:
<div class="some>
<span class="other>
(cursor here)
</span>
</div>
tl;dr; install this vim setup https://github.com/jameslai/jvim
James Lai wrote an amazing article on Frontend Vim which was 404'ing when I answered this. It has helped me switch from ST2 to VIM so I'm posting it here.
Why I Use VIM as My Editor of Choice for Front End Development
by James Lai
I’ve been using VIM for years, and I just can’t get away from it. While many people like to use Sublime Text 2, and I can’t help but absolutely encourage that, if you’d like to use an editor that can scale with your knowledge, VIM should be your editor of choice.
Easily edit content within tags
As FED’s, we’re constantly editing content within tags. VIM makes this easy with its “tag” text object - t. Here’s a common scenario, you have source code that looks like:
<div>Some content within here</div>
In VIM, to replace the content within that tag, you merely need to press cit. This will change the inner tag and you’ll be left with this:
<div></div>
Easily replace HTML attributes
Similar to the above, we deal with content within quotes all the time, often as attributes within our HTML. You may have something that looks like:
<aside class="one-third author box">
In this scenario, just hit ci". Perhaps the neatest part about this trick, if this was the only content on that line, you don’t even need your cursor anywhere near the quote itself! VIM is intelligent enough to simply empty out the content of the quote regardless of its position in the line, and you’ll be left with:
<aside class="">
Jump back and fourth between where you’ve edited
As FEDs, we are constantly jumping back and fourth between places we’ve previously edited. VIM maintains a “jump list” which is easily navigated by Ctr+O (jumping to previous locations) and Ctr+I (forward). This makes our routine of editing many files simultaneously incredibly painless.
More information on jumps
On a mac? In VIM, you’ve got a proper delete key again
Mac keyboards don’t come with a normal “delete” key - we essentially have a backspace key but it’s labelled delete. Sure, you could reach for funcdelete, but that function key is sure out the the way. Instead, hit x!
Move CSS like a master
Often I’ll need to refactor some CSS and move properties between selectors. With VIM, I can move content from various lines to my cursor position with a simple:
:<linenumber>,<linenumber>m
Common operations like these are made laughably easy with VIM.
Jump to the end or beginning of a line
This is unusually common in my workflow - needing to jump to the end of a line. Perhaps I forgot a semicolon at the end of a CSS property or line of Javascript. To jump to the end of the line, simply hit A and you’re in insert mode at the end of the line. Need to edit at the beginning (not counting tabbing)? Use I.
Edit at the speed of thought
One of the staple concepts of VIM is to prevent needing to reach for your mouse. When I’m in my flow, I never reach for the mouse unless its to interact with a web page I’m working on. Getting good at VIM means your ability to edit and manipulate text nearly approaches how fast you can think of the problem. Because of the concept of text objects, thinking “I want to delete this line” becomes a trivial dd, or deleting a word with daw. As you think about the problem, you more often then not have a easy command to describe to the editor. The ability to get into your flow with VIM is, in my opinion, higher than most other editors.
Easy split windows
Something that completely changed how I developed was learning how to really leverage split windows in VIM. Yes, VIM has split windows, and they’re amazing! Some editors come with this functionality, but it can be cumbersome to use, or difficult to remember to use.
Spits are powerful because we’re often addressing the same item in a number of places. If you’re addressing an element, you’ll often want the HTML file up. If you’re applying styling to it, you’ll want the CSS up, and if you’re applying behaviors, you’ll want the Javascript up as well. Seeing them all at the same time has saved me literally countless headaches in editing. The flow feels very “natural”, not to mention just how awesome your editor will look. Often I’ll have at least 4 splits going at any one time.
A great way to get started is by typing :Vex. This opens a Vertical exploration window. From here you can browse to whatever file you want to, and that file will appear in the split. There’s also the always salacious :Sex command, which will open a horizontal split explorer window.
Vertical Split Windows
More information on splits
More information on the file explorer
Your setup, anywhere
Perhaps one of the most compelling features is the ability to have your customized setup very quickly. I keep my VIM configuration in a GitHub repo, meaning regardless of what machine I’m on, I’m about 2 commands away from having my complete setup ready to go.
…even on remote machines
Front end developers will inevitably work on a remote server at some point. Heck, many of us have local linux boxes in a VM replicating our server environments. You’re going to need an editor, and rather than either fumble around in VIM due to not knowing how to actually make it dance, or using a basic and underpowered editor like nano, getting good at VIM client-side means you’re going to be a master server-side.
Final thoughts
VIM is an amazing editor, and although you may think it’s old, it’s actually more than up to the task for today’s editing. No matter what new editor hits the market, I may try them out to see what innovations are out there, but in the end, I always come back to VIM for all my editing, and I love it.
I use a lot zencoding, so, if you're used with zen-coding try the zenCoding plugin for Vim find it here
If you want to learn more about zen-coding you could read: zen coding vim tutorial
Although I've done programming, I'm not a programmer. I've recently agreed to coordinate getting a Website up for a club. The resources are--me, who has done Web content maintenance (putting content into HTML and ColdFusion templates via a gatekeeper to the site itself; doing simple HTML and XML coding); a serious Web developer who does database programming, ColdFusion, etc., and talks way over the heads of the rest of us; two designers who use Dreamweaver; the guy who created the original (and now badly broken) site in Front Page and wants to use Expression Web; and assorted other club members who are even less technically inclined.
What we need up first is some text and graphics (a gorgeous design has been created in Dreamweaver), some links (including to existing PDF newsletters for download), and maybe hooking up an existing Blogspot blog. Later (or earlier if it's not hard), we may add mouseover menus to the links, a gallery, a calendar, a few Mapquest hotlinks, and so on.
My question--First, is there any real problem with sticking with HTML and jpegs for the initial site? Second, for the "later" part of the site development, what's the simplest we can go with? Third, are there costs in doing this the simple way that will make us regret it down the road? Also, is there a good site/resource where I can learn more about this from a newbie perspective?
If you don't require any dynamic content, heck, if you don't plan on editing the content more than once a week, I'd say stick to basic HTML.
Later, you'd probably want a basic, no-fuss and easily installable CMS. The brand really depends on the platform (most likely PHP/Rails/ASP), but most of them can be found by typing " CMS" into Google. Try prefixing it with "free" or "open source" if you want.
I'm pretty sure you can do all this for absolutely free. Most PHP and Ruby CMS's are free and web hosting is free/extremely cheap if you're not demanding.
And last/best tip: Find someone who has done this before, preferably more than once. He'll probably set you up so you never have to look at anything more complicated than a WYSIWYG editor.
Plain old HTML is fine, just as long as you don't use tags like blink and marquee.
I personally love tools like CityDesk.
And I'm not just plugging Joel. (There are others out there in this class I'm sure.) The point is they make making a static website very easy:
The structure is just a filesystem structure
pages have templates to consolidate formatting
all resources are contained in one file
easy and fast Preview and Publish functions
For a dynamic collaborative site, I would just install one of many open source CMSs available on shared hosting sites.
If you're familiar with html/javascript basics I'd look into a CMS - wordpress, drupal, joomla, nuke, etc. All of these are free. Very often your web hosting company will install one of these by default which takes all of the hard part out of your hands. Next is just learning to customize the system and there's tons of docs out there for any of those systems.
All that being said there is noting wrong with good old fashioned html.
In addition to some of the great content management systems already mentioned, consider cms made simple.
It makes it very easy to turn a static site into a content managed site (which sounds like exactly what you might need to do in the future), and the admin area is very easy to use. Our clients have found it much simpler to use than the likes of Joomla.
It's also free and open source.
Good luck!
There's no reason to not go with plain old HTML and JPGs if you don't know any server side scripting languages. Also, once you want to get more advanced, most cheap hosting services have tools that can be installed with one click, and provide things like blogs, photo galleries, bulletin boards (PHPBB), and even content management tools like Joomla.
I had the same problem myself, I was just looking for something really easy to smash together a website quickly. First I went with just plain old HTML, but then I realised a simple CMS would be better.
I went for Wordpress. Wordpress is mostly known as a blogging platform, but in my opinion it is really great as a deadly simple CMS as well.
why not simply use Google pages?
Here is an example of a website I did, takes about 2 hours, easy to maintain (not that I do (-: ) and FREE.
I think that suggesting you mess with HTML for what you need is crazy!
Plain HTML is great, gives you the most control. If you want to make updating a bit easier though, you could use SSI. Most servers have this enabled. It basically let's you attach one file to many pages.
For example, you could have your menu in navigation.html and every page would include this file. That way you wouldn't have to update this one file on every page each time you need to update.
<!--#include virtual="navigation.html" -->
I agree with the other commenters that a CMS might be useful to you, however as I see it, probably a solution like Webby might do it for you. It generates plain HTML pages based on Templates. Think about it as a "webpage preprocessor" which outputs plain HTML files. It has most of the advantages of using a server-based CMS, but without a lot of load on the server, and making it easy for you to change stuff on any of the templates you might use.
It's fine
Rails (or purchase / use a CMS)
Not unless you start becoming crazy-popular
It really depends on what you go with for 2. Rails has a plethora of tutorials on the net and any product you go with will have its own community etc.
To be perfectly honest though, if the dynamic part is someone elses blog and you move the gallery out into flikr you may find that you can actually live with large parts of it being static HTML for a very long time.
If a to Implement a website With User Profiles/Logins, Extensions, Gallery's etc s a Newbi then a CMS like Joomla, Etc are good , but Else if you presently have only Static Content then Its good to go with Good Old HTML, About JPEG , I though Presently Its better to use PNG or GIF as its Less Bulky.
Also About you Query About Shifting to Server Scripts , When you have Database Driven Material or When you have Other Things that Require Advanced Prog Languages , Just use PHP Scripts inside PHP , and Rename teh File as a PHP, Thats IT, No Loss to you HTML Data.....
Do Go Ahead and Launch you Site ......
Dude, you're talking about HTML, obviously you'll be styling your content with CSS. Wait till you run into IE issues and god forbid your client wants ie6 compatibility.
Go with the HTML for now, I'm sure you guys will hack it through. Our prayers are with you.
Personally, I'd never use JPEG images on a website, mainly because of three reasons:
JPEGs often contains artifacts.
Quality is often proportional
with filesize.
Does not support
alpha transparency.
That said, I'd recommend you to use PNGs for images since it's lossless and a 24-bit palette (meaning full colors + alpha transparency). The only quirk is that IE6 and below does not support native alpha for PNGs, however this could be resolved by running a javascript which would fix this issue.
As for designing a website, there's both pros and cons for this. I suggest you read through:
37 Signal's Why We Skip Photoshop
Jeff Croft's Why We Don't Skip Photoshop
As for newbie resources, I'd recommend you flip through the pages at W3 Schools.