Archive for the ‘Development Procedures’ Category

MODx Module Development Tips

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

This is an ongoing list of best procedures and tips for MODx module development. Modules are used in the MODx manager to help site administrators control custom functionality.

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Unit Testing Web Services

Friday, August 8th, 2008

Web Services allow web-based applications to communicate without operating system and programming language dependencies. Because Web Services are high-level, it is often difficult to diagnose problems when things go wrong. A programmer may have to inspect every layer between application code and WSDL contents before diagnosing a bug. Luckily, there are open source tools available to help test Web Services. InfoWorld has written a review of three open source Web Services unit testing frameworks here.

Using ASUnit with ActionScript 2.0

Friday, July 18th, 2008

ASUnit is a framework that allows ActionScript developers to create, build, and run test suites. This post demonstrates how to use the ASUnit Extension with AS2.0 and avoids the topic of why a programmer should use test driven development.

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Website Credibility

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

Site visitors and customers take action based on a website’s credibility. Credibility for all intents and purposes is Believability. This article contains links to research that reveals methods for increasing the credibility of a website. In addition, there are links to improving the overall usability of a website. After reviewing the methods for improving website credibility, believability, and usability you are ready to begin implementing them directly into your project plans. (more…)

Learning UML

Wednesday, July 9th, 2008

If a picture is worth 1024 words then a well crafted UML diagram is worth 2048 words. UML diagrams help programmers explain software systems to other developers, project managers, and clients. This article proposes a process for learning UML, recommendations for drawing diagrams, and ways to refine diagrams over time.

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Using NaturalDocs

Monday, July 7th, 2008

Getting up to speed with NaturalDocs will only take a few minutes. This article will show you:

  • Where to find the NaturalDocs executables
  • Where to find commenting guidelines
  • Setup a sample project workspace
  • Automate NaturalDocs with a simple Windows Batch File

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Using PHP to load browser-specific styles

Friday, June 27th, 2008

PHP allows programmers to detect the browser and operating system for every page visitor. This capability isn’t limited to PHP, but that’s what we’ll be working with today. This article is a proposed workflow for solving browser-specific CSS bugs.

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Using Browser Testing Suites

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Testing CSS has been a hurdle for many web developers and their HTML-based projects. This article contains a proposed workflow for fixing CSS discrepancies found during CSS testing.

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