kilic.net

Being a developer that codes regularly on both Windows and Macintosh platforms, over the years I've found the tools that I'm most comfortable with and have customised them to my liking. Typically, any HTML coding that I do ends up being written in a text editor, on the Mac I use Textmate from Macromates, and on my Windows machines it's TextPad, from Helios software.

TextPad and Clip Libraries

TextPad has a feature called Clip Libraries, which basically is a library of code snippets. Each snippet is identified by a short name and the full code (of the actual snippet). Once the short name is double-clicked, the expanded code snippet is placed at the location of the cursor.

Out of the box TextPad provide a handful of these libraries, such as SMS Texting, HTML Characters, and Control Characters to name but a few.

Doctypes

As I previously wrote, I end up writing most of my code in a plain text editor (rather than a WYSIWYG editor). The other side of the story is that you need to remember all of the available elements of the language, which really isn't terribly difficult for HTML, but when it comes to doctype's I always seem to draw a blank!

When I was to start a new HTML document, and in need of a doctype, I would end up going to a site in one of my bookmarks, viewing source, and copying the doctype. Works most of the time if I got the site correct for which doctype I wanted to use! So, rather than relying upon guess work I ended up writing a Clip Library for HTML doctype's.

Clip Libraries Location

The process is fairly straightforward, and it really only involved a few minutes of tinkering with one of the existing libraries and searching for the doctype's.

Once you download the HTML Doctype Clip Library below simply save the file into the user folder for your clip libraries. You can find this by going to Configure | Preferences menu, then click through to Folders | Clip Library and note the folder path. On my Windows 7 system it's located in C:\Users\serdar\App Data\Roaming\Helios\Textpad\5.0\ and place the file in there. You may have to show hidden files in Windows Explorer to see the App Data folder.

Do not save the file where the default Clip Libraries are, which would be in the Program Files\TextPad\Sample folder, as the next time you restart your machine you'll see that you're custom libraries would have disappeared!

Download the HTML Doctype Clip Library

A goal I set for myself this year was to publish more, more photos, more blog posts, basically open the flood gates of communication.

To remind myself of writing more throughout the year I signed up to Project 52, I won't rehash the purpose of the program but do expect a blog post at least every week of this year.

As a work in progress I'll be making some minor and some major improvements (well, I classify them as improvements!) to this weblog. I'll still be running MovableType as it has served it's purpose well over the years and there's little incentive to move to another platform, but I will be upgrading to the latest version.

So it's time to dust off the cobwebs and give this weblog a bit of a tune up!

First up, two quick changes, one being to the about page to reflect some new items and remove what is now inaccurate. Yes, a new profile picture is on the cards as well!

Secondly, the homepage now lists the last 5 published items in contrast to the last item that use to be published. This should liven things up a little as I plan on writing a little more than I did last year.

I've never really been into Star Trek, there were probably only a handful of episodes that I've watched over the years, typically the ones that featured Jean-Luc Picard.

However, for the last several weeks, maybe even months, the apple.com homepage has been featuring the new iMac with a desktop photo of a scene from the new Star Trek movie. Every time I see this, I want to go out and watch the movie. Of course, on a Mac as well.

Yesterday I finally succumbed to the marketing and hired the blu-ray version from my local Blockbuster. I have to say I did have my doubts about whether or not I'll actually watch it till the end, however, I ended up finding it to be quite engaging and thought the performance of "Sylar" as Spock was what really made the movie.

I haven't read any reviews so not sure on what the general consensus or what the "trekkies" thought of the movie but it's definitely one that I'll look forward to owning.

Interesting to see that the Opera Community page is greeting me in Turkish. Interesting because, even though I am Turkish, my regional settings in Mac OS X and in the Opera preferences page are set to English. So either it's a hiccup on the Opera website and pure coincidence that it's displaying in Turkish, or they're onto something really smart ;-)