In this section
The Code Style site has evolved by gradual refinement and accumulation of features and content. This review is part of a fully backdated site log and archive that sheds light on when, why and how particular features were implemented.
This log is sometimes updated several times per week, sometimes with a long overdue backlog of items. Many log entries refer to the Code Style Java package that delivers the servlet services and utilities used to manage this site.
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Reverse chronology
Feed profile loader for ping application, 30th October 2006
Refactored the Channel interface to extract a new super interface Profile to represent the channel title, feed URI and source URI. Created a working draft FeedProfile with Swing interface for the main fields to build into the PingApplication. Replaced the current text input fields in the PingApplication with a single new FeedProfile object and added buttons for New profile, Save and a LabelledSelectList to choose the profile to update. The buttons and select list initially have no action listeners.
IE7 media style sheet bug remains, 28th October 2006
Updated the CSS media monitor test pages and browser conformance summaries with results for Internet Explorer 7. In short, the results are un-changed from IE6. A significant bug with media dependent @import rules breaks overall conformance. Deleted many former server side include files for the conformance summaries and created new includes for IE7 un-supported media types.
Compacted text ad padding separately from other side bar types.
.TextAd {
width: 22%;
padding: 0.2em 0.5em 0em 0.5em;
}
And override smaller font size for form elements in menu box paragraphs, such as the site log archive, with just small.
#Content .MenuBox p label,
#Content .MenuBox p select,
#Content .MenuBox p input {
font-size: small;
}
Altered the mailing list serviceline table's foreign key constraints to CASCADE when their references are updated or deleted. Also added a UNIQUE constraint to the service table's service_name field.
Top questions per section, 23rd October 2006
Created a new SQL script to alter the FAQ section table to add the URL of a "very common questions" server side include. Inserted the top questions include references to each of the main section landing pages. Updated the Section interface, FaqSection class and FaqDataEditor to handle the new top question include references.
JDialog alerts for FAQ editor, 21th October 2006
Added basic JDialog alerts to the FaqDataEditor application in the case of SQLException, mainly to notify problems with database constraints. Removed the SQLException catch blocks from the delete() methods of FaqSection, FaqCategory and FaqQuestion classes so any exceptions are thrown to the FaqDataEditor class for alerts. Also removed catch blocks from the AbstractJPanelSQLEntity class store(Connection) method.
JDBC
- What's the difference between a data store and a database?
- How do you make a database insert using JDBC?
Java abstract classes
Java objects
Java servlet API
Java servlets
Java threads
Javascript "how to"
Site manager
Drafted an SQL select statement for the top 7 most frequently asked questions in each root section for use in the FaqMenuGenerator.
Refactored the printVeryCommonQuestions(File, Connection) method in the FaqMenuGenerator class to create a separate printTopQuestions(PrintStream, ResultSet) method. Also created a new printSectionCommonQuestions(File, Connection) method to generate server side include (SSI) menus for the most common questions in each main section. Adjusted the draft SQL selection statement for very common questions to exclude URL-only questions.
Reduced spacing between text ads to make the listing more compact:
.TextAd, .Sponsor {
clear: right;
margin-top: 0.3em;
margin-bottom: 0em;
}
Unique FAQ field values, 20th October 2006
Created an SQL script to make various name and URL fields in the Code Style FAQ database unique and applied the update.
PSFTP script for text ad updates, 19th October 2006
Updated all relevant include files and servlets with a new text ad booking. Also created a PSFTP upload script and Windows batch file for all relevant code.
PSFTP upload scripts, 15th October 2006
Created new Windows batch file and PSFTP put scripts to upload the site log and FAQ menus only.
Four new FAQ sections, 14th October 2006
Created four new FAQ sections by splitting off questions from other categories for Mac fonts, Java inheritance, Java compiler and Java utility classes answers. Had to re-arrange the main FAQ section menu server side include file to balance the section listings, so created a new column headed Learning Java. Adjusted the cascading style sheets to reduce the font size in the menu and reduced the table padding. Also added 10 new FAQ answers.
Cascading Style Sheets
Document Object Model
Java language
Java objects
Java programming
Java servlets
Java threads
Servlet exceptions
Servlet threads
Created SQL VACUUM scripts for Code Style databases to recover storage with the PostgreSQL ANALYSE option to re-compute statistics for queries.
Previously on Code Style
These backdated pages record detailed changes to the Code Style Web site since July 2000, when development first got underway. Some pages may refer to documents or features that have since changed or are no longer part of the site, but the archive is checked to ensure there are no dead links.
Site log, origins to present
For a summary overview, see the annotated site log contents.
