Plugin

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jQuery.extend({
  parseQuerystring: function(){
    var nvpair = {};
    var qs = window.location.search.replace('?', '');
    var pairs = qs.split('&');
    $.each(pairs, function(i, v){
      var pair = v.split('=');
      nvpair[pair[0]] = pair[1];
    });
    return nvpair;
  }
});

Usage

Assuming the URL is http://mydomain.com/page.html?foo=bar&somevalue=myvalue, you can either access an index directly jQuery.parseQuerystring().foo, or by setting a variable, like this:

var qs = jQuery.parseQuerystring();
//qs['foo'] == "bar"
//qs.somevalue == "myvalue"

The goal of extending the jQuery object with this utility (meaning that it does not require a selected set of elements, and in this case does not even require an argument) was flexibility, however it can easily be converted to a function in the global namespace. If you would rather download the files, they are zipped up and ready (ParseQuerystring jQuery Plugin).

Are there additional operations you’d like to see added to this, or relating to the URL and querystring? Let me know in the comments.

Update: Code posted to GitHub as a Gist snippet

I saw this post on the CSS Tricks Snippet Feed which addresses a commonly desired form behavior: to provide default text in an INPUT element that disappears when the user enters that field. The example provided works, but I have a couple issues with it:

1. Uses inline JavaScript, and must be reapplied to each element affected
2. Repeats the contents of the value attribute
3. The default text is not replaced if the user exits the field without entering new data

So I created a possible solution, using jQuery:

HTML

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<input type="text" value="Place default text here" />

JavaScript

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jQuery( function(){
  $( 'input[type="text"]' ).each( function(){
    $(this).attr( 'title', $(this).val() )
      .focus( function(){
        if ( $(this).val() == $(this).attr('title') ) {
          $(this).val( '' );
        }
      } ).blur( function(){
        if ( $(this).val() == '' || $(this).val() == ' ' ) {
          $(this).val( $(this).attr('title') );
        }
      } );
  } );
} );

This script first iterates over each of the text input to assign a semantic text attribute, helpful not only in storing the default value, but also providing a tool-tip for reference as the user interacts with the page. It then assigns behaviors for both the onfocus and onblur events, eliminating the need to respecify data for comparison. The script is cleanly separated from the markup and, using jQuery, additional specifications may be made so as to only affect children of a particular FIELDSET or only those that possess a certain class.

I hope you find this snippet useful, and feel free to comment if you have additional information to share.

UPDATED!

We, as designers and developers, cannot help but go back to review our sites and code to make updates and revisions as our skills, philosophies and tastes change. In this spirit, I would like to offer an alternative to the above JavaScript snippet. The one above, in my opinion, is lacking in the following ways:

1. Applies the behavior to all input[type="text"] elements indiscriminantly.
2. Overwrites any existing title attribute content
3. Does not account for existing text field values resulting from pre-population or validation.

So with that in mind, here’s the new solution:

HTML

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<input type="text" title="Place default assistive text here (e.g. First Name)" />
<input type="text" title="Default assistive text (e.g. E-Mail Address)" value="invalid@ddr.ess" />

jQuery Plugin

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$.fn.toggleField = function(){
  return this.each(function(){
    var $this = $(this);
    if($this.val() === '' && $this.attr('title') !== ''){
      $this.val($this.attr('title'));
    }
    $this.bind('focus blur', function(){
      var $this = $(this);
      if($this.val() === $this.attr('title')){
        $this.val('');
      }else if($this.val() === '' || $this.val() === ' '){
        $this.val($this.attr('title'));
      }
    });
  });
};

JavaScript

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jQuery(document).ready(function(){
  $('input[type="text"]').toggleField();
});

By converting the behavior into a plugin, it becomes chainable and more flexible. Perhaps in a future version it would be useful accommodate additional field types or textarea elements. I have also packaged the plugin for download (ToggleField jQuery Plugin). I look forward to seeing your questions or suggestions in the comments below!

Project Moved to Git

After further review and consideration, I decided to make some more changes to the plug-in to take advantage of some of the new features promoted in HTML5. Specifically the placeholder attribute, since this is essentially the behavior that we are trying to mimic. Here is an example:

<label for="email">Email:</label>
<input type="email" id="email" name="email" title="Enter a valid email address" placeholder="account@domain.tld"/>

The previous zip file will remain available above, but the toggleField.jquery.js project updates will progress on GitHub instead. Thanks to everyone for your suggestions and support!

One interesting link is to an article about methods for presenting information and creating systems to enhance user experience:

Delivering informative structure is the primary task an interactive user interface should be able to cope with. The more intuitive layout structure is designed, the better users can understand the content.

Read the full article on Noupe.

A collection of best designed logos around the web is showcased in Logo Faves. We don’t want to be like other Logo repositories, our idea is to bring you all the best of best logos.

Also relying on suggestions and entries from webmasters to compile its collection, Web2.0 categorizes over 100 logos and displays the user-ratings for each.

FontFeed took a bit of a different approach in grouping popular web logos by style, and even though the article was published in 2006, it is still a great source of information.

So what are you waiting for? Check out some of the design resources over at For Web Designers and submit your best work!

Of course, you could always just use a pre-configured generator.

Highlights include:

• STC fontBROWSER – an online tool for browseing varoius fonts and viewing how your selected text looks with each.
• WhatTheFont – upload any image with characters and instantly find the closest matches within their database
• Typetester - compare different fonts for the screen, up to three at a time
• Font Burner – replace text on your page with one of 1000 vector-based fonts with a simple block of code

Check out the entire list of 21 Typography and Font Web Apps You Can’t Live Without.

Considering almost all the recent updates to the framework relate to improving speed, why not take fullest advantage of them in making your application as responsive as possible?

For instance the current markup on this site gets rendered like this:

According to the documentation and examples, the colors represent:

• blue: links (the A tag)
• red: tables (TABLE, TR and TD tags)
• green: DIV tags
• violet:  images (the IMG tag)
• yellow: forms (FORM, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT and OPTION tags)
• orange: linebreaks and blockquotes (BR, P, and BLOCKQUOTE tags)
• black: the HTML tag, the root node
• gray: all other tags

Processing is an open-source programming language and development environment used for prototyping and producing images, animation, and interactions within a visual context. The code-graphing applet requires Java, but processing.js has made the language more widely accessible and available for experimentation.

To this goal, Nick Stakenburg released a script that gently alerts the user that their browser could use an upgrade. Pushup detects the version of the client and briefly flashes a notice with a link to download an update. The entire package is fairly lightweight (only 11kb, zipped) and includes the images, sylesheets and JavaScript files to run. Implementation and customization information is provided on the download site, in addition to ports of the function for dojo and jQuery.

This doesn’t really help users whose IT departments prohibit them from updating, but if it helps those who are unaware that there is a better web experience to be had then it is worthy of praise and support.

UPDATE

VICTORY!!! Even Microsoft is denouncing IE6. Track the downfall of this archaic software at IE6 Countdown.