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Aug 27
When building a select control in a form there are times where its available options need to change
dynamically in response to a change in another control. For instance, a form with both country and
state/province select controls might require the options in the state select to change based on the
country select's current selection. This is what we would call a dependent, or linked, select. One way
to accomplish this is by watching changes in the selection state of one select and finding and setting
the appropriate selection values on the other.
The selection values of Dijit Select widgets can be provided as an array of options objects or a
dojo/store instance. We will walk through an example creating a dependent select for both types of
source data.
Aug 25
dgrid 0.3.16 has been released! It includes the following improvements:
Various improvements to keyboard accessibility, including interoperation with the ColumnSet mixin
and editor column plugin
Additional ARIA attributes for improved accessibility in the ColumnHider and Pagination extensions
Improvements to logic for drag-and-drop operations with DnD extension
More information on dgrid 0.3.16 is available in the release notes.
We are working hard on our next release, dgrid 0.4!
Aug 22
While TypeScript is very simple to understand when performing basic tasks, having a deeper
understanding of how its type system works is critical to unlocking advanced language functionality.
Once we know more about how TypeScript really works, we can leverage this knowledge to write
cleaner, well-organised code.
If you find yourself having trouble with some of the concepts discussed in this article, try reading
through the Definitive Guide to TypeScript first to make sure you've got a solid understanding of all
the basics.
Aug 20
SitePen is a rather unique company. For those of you who don't already know, everyone in our
company works from home. We are all spread across the United States. Despite that, the magic of
our culture is that we feel closer to our coworkers at SitePen than at our previous office-based jobs.
How is that even possible?!? We have grown together (think Katamari Damacy) through phone and
online conversations and the virtual office we share is a very real thing for us. However, as a result,
most of us haven't seen each other's faces before. Unplugged was a treat for everyone as it gave us a
week to indulge in the opposite end of the social spectrum. No electronic devices, only face to face
interactions and (gasp! frightening, I know) eye contact! Hey seriously, stop looking at the floor...
I'm up here!
Leading up to the Unplugged event itself, nobody knew exactly what we were getting ourselves into.
We only knew that we signed a few scary waivers, there would be rafting, no electronic devices, and
that our flights were taking us all to Colorado on the same day. Suspense and intrigue leading into a
new, shared adventure!
Aug 13
Bootstrap is a framework created by Twitter's developers to consolidate their HTML/CSS design and
widgets. Bootstrap provides a clean responsive design, but the set of widgets it includes is limited,
especially when compared to what's available in the Dijit library. The CSS/HTML theme can be used
independently of the widgets, but how do you use the Bootstrap theme with the Dijit library?
As you may have guessed, it's not quite as simple as including the relevant Bootstrap CSS files.
However, Dijit supports custom themes, so with a bit of work the elements of the Bootstrap theme
could be ported to Dijit widgets. Fortunately, this was just what the dbootstrap project set out to
accomplish.
For a better idea of what this Dijit/Bootstrap marriage looks like, check out the dbootstrap gallery, a
modified version of Dijit's Theme Tester that also includes dgrid. Let's take a closer look at
dbootstrap http://www.cityof.lawton.ok.us/Waterplant/wtpfaw.htm and how to use it in your Dojo
application.
Jul 30
When developing for the web, it is a recommended best practice to always test your application
during development with a web server. This is for two primary reasons. By running a web server,
you can approximate a production environment similar to how your application will be served to
your users. Also, browsers implement a same-origin policy that is different for quasi-protocols like
file://. Many of Dojo's modules like dojo/i18n, dojo/text, Dijit templates, and dojox/gfx depend on
loading files from the same origin.
Jul 23
A common practice when adding new elements to a document is to add them to a container DIV and
then insert that node into into a document. A lesser used alternative is the DocumentFragment class.
So, what is a document fragment, and when should you use one instead of a container DIV?
Jul 16
In JavaScript it is common to use a Promise as a placeholder for a value which will eventually be
provided upon completion of some operation. However most JavaScript methods run synchronously
and immediately return a value. Dojo's when module provides a transparent way to apply callbacks
to either values or promises. It can do this in one of two ways:
Using when(value) to always create a promise
Passing callbacks to be applied directly to the value
Jul 14
When writing tests for an application, it's prudent to add mock or stub data in order to allow code to
be properly tested in isolation from other parts of the system. Within a normal Dojo application,
there are typically three places where mocking will occur: I/O requests, stores, and module
dependencies.
Jul 11
Many of the best practices for writing testable code also conform to general code best practices.
Code that is easily testable often also tends to be highly maintainable and resilient against changing
business requirements. This blog post provides a brief overview of key criteria for writing highly
testable code.
http://www.sitepen.com/blog/