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Sausage Sizzler - Non-Stop Nathan

To receive this newsletter via email subscribe here. To manage your exisitng subscription (for example change of email address) please use Subscription Management. In this Edition Editorial May 9th 2002 Sponsor - Salary.com Dynamic Tip HTML Basics SuperToolz Sizzler Forum Spotlight Sponsor - Computer Memory from Crucial Gear Grinders Designed for Browsing

Editorial May 9th 2002

G'day Sizzlers!

Well I feel like I haven't stopped in months. Between working, I have been to Australia, Kentucky and Chicago. Lots of flying and driving!

The FMI convention was amazing! I have never had so much free food and drink in my life! Chicago was great and definitely will be on my list of places to explore in more depth.

I also took on the task of fulfillment with the Lockergnome GnomeSTORE I thought it would be a good test of how easy it will be to fulfill orders for Sausage, once we get new t-shirts and the like to sell. It has been a mini nightmare getting everything organized and a process going. However, from what I am learning I will make sure Sausage make a more comprehensive and user friendly back-end to our new store, which is currently in development.

On the search for the missing Sausage font we have a few contenders, however I haven't had a chance to compare them yet, so no winner yet.

Now we finally have a Reptile 3 in a form that you can download and register. This new version is US$19.95 and is featured in this weeks SuperToolz section.

Keep on sizzling!

Nathan Allan
Sausage Sizzler Editor
editor@sausage.com

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Dynamic Tip

I'm sure there have been times where you've had some ugly integer and you've wanted to format it to look like a pretty dollar amount with decimal space and two zeros. Well the perfect function for this and for formatting any type of variable is sprintf.

Sprintf accepts at least two arguments. The first argument is the formatting for the rest of the arguments. My example above would have us use an integer, such as 39, and turn that into a nicely formatted dollar amount such as $39.00.

The formatting for this function is a bit tricky at first to understand but once you get the hang of it its easy. For our example the formatting would be "$%01.2f". The dollar sign ($) is the literal dollar sign, this doesn't mean anything else but that. The percent sign (%) tells us that what follows is special code for the formatting. The 0 tells sprintf that this is what we will pad our number with if we specify a length longer than the length of our number. The 1.2 tells sprintf that we want to have 1 number before the period and 2 numbers after the period and finally the f tells sprintf that the number should be treated as a float.

So my code would look like this:

$myvar = 39; $myformattedvar = sprintf( "$%01.2f", $myvar );

"echo $myformattedvar;" would result in $39.00.

You can also just use printf(); if you want to print the formatted string out rather than save it to a variable as I did in my example.

One more example. You have then number 15 and you need to format it so that it is 5 digits, meaning you want it to read 00015. You can print that out using the following.

printf( "%5d", 15 );

So there you have it, this is just touching on sprintf. If you want to find out more about sprintf check your local php manual or point your browser to:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.sprintf.php

Tip by Roger Ramirez
PHP Programmer, Web Designer, Amateur Photographer

EDITORS NOTE: Roger is filling in for Rich, while Rich puts together a new series.

HTML Basics

Tables

We covered the table tag last week so this week we progress to tr and td tags.

The tr tag is used to define each row of the table you have created. You may have one to many rows. Attributes include:

• align - specifies the horizontal alignment for each cell in the row. i.e. left, right and justify.
• valign - specifies the vertical position of a cell's contents. i.e. top, bottom and middle.

The td tag is used to define a data cel in a table. Attribute include:

• colspan - number of columns spanned by the cell.
• align - specifies the horizontal alignment.
• valign - specifies the vertical alignment.
• width - specifies the width of the cell
• height - specifies the height of the cell
• bgcolor - specifies the background color of the cell

An example of tr and td would be:

<tr align="left" valign="justify">
<td width="100"></td>
<td width="200"></td>
</tr>

As always these attributes may not all be compliant with W3C standards but they will more than likely work in most browsers.

Tip by Nathan Allan

SuperToolz

Name: Reptile
Version: 3
Cost: US$19.95
Website: http://www.sausage.com/supertoolz/reptile3.html
Download: ftp://ftp.sausage.com/pub/supertoolz/reptile3.exe

Note that this is not the final release as it does not include the updated help files. However the program is complete.

New in Reptile 3:

• Added Advanced dialog--integrated those factors into the Save/Load preset routine
• Fixed bug in Export Animation that was missing the last frame
• Fixed bug in Export Animation that wrongly used the "Last Frame" setting even when "All Frames" was selected.
• Rearranged interface, made it larger by default, and made it resizeable.
• Allowed resizing of image files being loaded as "initial texture type" to current texture size.
• Added mouse wheel control to sliders
• Added "show nth frame" to animation of growing texture
• Added F9 preview, put Lorem Ipsum in preview text and note about refreshing.
• Fixed bug on Gradient tab: Width had max value of 200 though it was allowed to go higher. Removed max limit.
• Added Import Texture Pack feature: allows us to release more textures at later dates.
• Started on the ability to use the current texture gradient as the "fade border" gradient.

So what does this technospeak mean? It means that Reptile is better than ever! More inputs and tweaks to make an infinite amount of textures.

Review by Nathan Allan

Sizzler Forum Spotlight

Making it download

This week our own editor has posed a very good question. How does one make the document/file download dialog box pop up rather than loading a document in your browser?

There have been quite a few postings and many points are made along with some great references. One of the forum regulars even posted some JavaScript that is quite useful.

Check it out: http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=362

Review by Bram Leland Scolnick

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Gear Grinders

Conducting Business

How do you conduct business? That does not necessarily imply how do you run a business but more how do you get your things done? How do you communicate with your co-workers?

I work at a computer all day and have for a long time. I do get up to use the facilities and to get some water but most people refer to me as "working in my cave". Since I'm on the computer all day I have taken to communicating with friends, family, co- workers, business associates and clients via Instant Message. I answer the phone when it rings but to answer that phone that means I'm breaking my focus or train of thought. Granted IM’s can do that as well, but I can set myself to an away mode when needed.

When it comes to workflow, what makes your work flow? For me it's optimization of time. For example, if I am designing something, a web page for example, why do I want to get up and walk over to another person's desk and show them? OR, why do I want to e-mail someone if I need a quick response?

Here is an interesting note. I have never spoken with the editor of this newsletter. In fact, almost all of my contact with him is via Instant Messaging.

There are programmers that I work with that will Instant Message me with URLs to view and there are clients that will Instant Message me while they are on phone calls with others.

Instant Messaging has become yet another tool in the multi- tasking world. There is also a dark side to this force; the controversy of security. Security issues go beyond just buffer overruns that AOL's Instant Messenger software is suffering from right now, for example. Security concerns in the corporate world also pertain to the leaking of information whether intentional or merely conversational. Imagine that you work at X Company and you friend works at a competitor, Y Company. You casually mention that your boss is meeting with Z Company in 2 days to discuss ABC proposal and you are all excited. Well, your pal may mention this and his boss could hear and then rush to Z Company and knock your company out. Tons of other scenarios exist and as a result, many companies that allow use of Instant Messaging also track conversations while other companies have completely banned the use of such software.

How do you IM and what’s your take on this?

http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=388

Discuss your experiences with Bram Leland Scolnick

Designed for Browsing

Design Methods

It seems as though I always start with a question. Now that I have not, tell me, how do you design? What process do you go through?

I have a few that I use. Sometimes I have a large project that requires me to make a Harvard Outline to plan a design. Other times I have a decent idea of what I want and sketch on paper. Yet other times I get right on the computer and make what I want. Yet other times still I have no idea what to do, so I go running by the beach. I have been able to actually create a drawing board or computer screen in my head as I run. After 5 miles I usually come home with a solid idea.

I have designed layouts of web pages initially with desktop publishing software. I have then made some basic images and built a rough idea using Dreamweaver. Of course I have later cleaned the HTML with HotDog.

There are tons of ways to get a design out of your head and online or in print. What is your process? How do you go about designing?

http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=389

Discuss with Bram Leland Scolnick

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