Using CSS Media Queries as a Data Transport

Sorry for the long delay. I recently changed jobs and with family I had no time to get this out. I am going to try to return to every other week articles again.

My recent work involved creating web destinations based on both dynamic content, dynamic form, and responsive design with no preset dimensions. The pages would have to adjust to fit multiple sizes set at compile time. Each size could have its own specific properties and shared properties. The one thing I did know was that I could rely on any screen specific properties to have an identifier appended to the property name to make it unique. I needed a way to find the correct identifier for the current screen size. To make this work we decided to use CSS to store it. The solution worked for all modern browsers. Internet Explorer 8 received an alternate css and workflow since it doesn't support the MediaQueryList object.

Tips For Using JsDoc on Enyo Kinds, and Other Factory Pattern Types

My journey to better practices has led me through the forest of unit testing to a new destination. I have reached that dark, scary marsh that many in the IT world dread. The very mention of its name sends grown men to tears and panic. I find myself at the Marsh of Documentaion!

Using Jasmine-Node to Test Your Node Server

I've been working with Jasmine to test my client side code, however, my code extends beyond the client. I am working on server side JavaScript using Node.js. It would be great to apply my test driven process to my node server as well. Luckily, the Node community is large, helpful, and talented. Jasmine has been ported to the server with the jasmine-node project by Miško Hevery (https://github.com/mhevery/jasmine-node). The github readme summarizes the process of setting up jasmine-node, so this post will expound on those points.

Building a Unit Test in Jasmine, Part 4

The last part in this series is going to involve some time travel.  Physics aside, let's assume six months have passed since our original JasmineTester object was created.  The object was a great success and has been embedded all throughout the organization.  We have forgotten the details of our earlier work as multiple other projects have come and gone.  While still basking in the glow of our earlier success, a new requirement comes down the line: make a new object exactly like the JasmineTester but with multiplication.  Thanks goodness we used Jasmine!

Building a Unit Test in Jasmine, Part 3

We created a Jasmine unit test example in the first two parts of this series that started with a statement and then abstracted out to an object.  This time we will expand the object to be more robust.  Most importantly, we are not changing the tests currently in place.  

The JasmineTester is going to be updated to accept a random number of values.  The first step is to create a unit test to describe this.  The number of properties being added is upped to 4.  The new test will check to make sure the new object constructor still returns an object by using the toBeDefined matcher.