I think it's today. I hope it's today. I'm pretty sure today is the day that PopBox gets a Computer Arts magazine article!

I'm actually still trying to verify this since I can't view the issue online and can't seem to be able to buy it either, but I'm pretty sure it's in the latest issue, No. 154, under "Image pop-ups: Product zooms for websites."

I was contacted a month ago by one of the designers of the Nora Does website, Laura James, and told that she had been asked to write a tutorial for Computer Arts magazine based on the functionality in the Nora Does website.

I'm flattered. Totally flattered. If you're not familiar with Computer Arts it is the premier digital artist magazine available online and in print. Don't believe me? Read these reviews for yourself.

Yes it's a UK magazine so I'm trying to get a couple of copies shipped to myself across the pond and I probably won't be able to see it myself for a couple of weeks. But if you're in the UK, and probably a lot of Europe, you can pick up your copy at newsstands now.

If you have read the article I would appreciate any feedback on it so please email me and let me know what you think!

And be sure to check out the Nora Does website and Laura's too. Both are worth the clicks!

I know what you're thinking... didn't John send out a PopBox announcement just last week?

Well yes I did. But that was for PopBox 2.6. This is for PopBox 2.6b!

There's only one small change, thus the "b" suffix. I modified the PopInPlace method to pop the image over the original, but also to move the image so it will fit in the window if necessary. It's a subtle but significant difference that I believe should make it much more useful for your visitors.

As an example you can look at the Links Page and hover over an image that is very close to the edge of your browser window. In the previous version it would expand only to the window edge. Now hover over an image that is only partially in the window with the rest of it beyond the screen. See how it moves to expand? In the previous version the image would actually shrink to fit within the window. Probably not what you intended.

As always you can get the latest version from the product page and I've updated the documentation page accordingly too.

A couple of new features have gone into this release along with a slew of bug fixes. Overall PopBox has been fairly stable as evidenced by the long interval between releases here.

1. Added the PopInPlace method to more easily pop the image in place instead of to the center of the screen.
2. Added the popBoxExpandCaptionsBelow global variable that will allow you to display the captions below the image instead of over the image.
3. Added the popBoxExpandCaptions global variable that will allow you to display the captions already expanded when the image is popped.
4. Added the RevertAll method that will cause all popped images to revert to their original size.
5. Fixed a few functionality issues that occurred when the page used the <base /> element in the header.
6. Fixed an image size bug where IE would cache the original size of the image. This mostly affected development but it was still a pain.
7. Fixed a positioning bug in FF & Safari when a <div> parent element used the overflow style.
8. Fixed a FF bug where the image would pop twice under very rare conditions.

As always you can get the latest version from the product page and I've updated the documentation page accordingly too.

I also finally created the Popbox Links page where you can see a gallery of web sites that are using PopBox. With over 10,000 downloads this is a very small sampling, but not many have sent in their url either. If you'd like to be included on this page let me know and I'll add you.

I continue to get donation requests so I'm finally giving in. Frankly, now that I only have a part-time job I could use the donations! You may do so on the PopBox Donation page.

FastSpring has added a new pricing scheme so I've added a second entry for them on the E-Commerce Calculator.

They are absolutely loaded with features by the way and seem to be able to do most anything to help your business.

I had previously mentioned that EC Suite was at the top of my list, but now I'm not sure. I think EC Suite might cost less, but they actually might not have as many features as FastSpring. Check them both out and see if you need what they have to offer.

I've been very nervous about the way the Safari 3.0 version handled DHTML interaction with image styles, but it looks like everything is going to be okay. The latest version, 3.1.2, seems to have corrected the matter.

When PopBox expands an image it doesn't actually expand the original thumbnail - it expands a small version of the large image and hides the thumbnail. This transition is pretty seamless and the effect is to look like the original image is popping instead of a completely different image. (This is assuming you're using a separate image for the thumbnail and the large image.)

The hiding of the original image is achieved in script by setting the 'visibility' style of the image to 'hidden', which works like a charm because it doesn't affect the layout or shift the original objects around but just neatly makes the image invisible. All browsers completely ignore all events that occur on an element whose visibility is set to 'hidden'.

Until Safari.

For some unknown reason Safari 3.0 decided that click events on these hidden objects are still valid events. So what do you think happened when someone clicked on the original hidden image in PopBox? Chaos my friend. Chaos.

There were a couple of ways to fix it in the code, but none of them were pretty and all were complicated just to support a browser that has a low percentage usage (2.4% as of this writing).

Now I don't have to fix it because Apple did it for me. Safari now behaves much like the other browsers and correctly ignores the hidden object events. Thank you.

On a related note I received a few vague bug reports for FireFox 3 beta, but I've not been able to duplicate any of them in the release version. Since I have a new version of PopBox coming out in the next week or so I would appreciate receiving any bug reports as soon as possible so I can roll them into the next version.

Today is day 2 of my new job. Yes - new job. With who you might ask? C6 Software. I know you've heard of them - you're reading the blog right now.

For years I've been planning to take the plunge and convert my fledgling consulting practice into a true software company and this is the first major step. Sure I've been working on it when I could - a couple of hours in the morning here and there, a late night once in a while, but this is different. It's major because I cut my consulting in half, working only 20 hours a week for my employer. This has freed up 20+ hours a week to focus on my business.

Ok, so it's only part time, but now my income depends on it. And that's a heck of a motivating factor.

I have a lot planned for the coming months and I'm happy to report that the work began well yesterday. I'm a proponent of Getting Things Done so I spent quite a bit of time yesterday clearing out my inbox and organizing my workspace. There was quite a bit to do but I'm more productive already.

A few changes were made to the E-Commerce Calculator in regards to table formatting and Paypal prices. And I finally had a chance to put iPortis on the grid. Many thanks to Charles out there for being so patient. If you're in the market for an e-commerce provider check them out!

PopBox is rapidly approaching 10,000 downloads which is pretty exciting. There is a major update coming very soon that will fix a few nagging issues, and believe it or not a customer wrote in an excellent solution to make PopBox 100% XHTML compliant and still be 100% backward compatible. I didn't not want to be compliant, I just didn't want to suffer a 'simplicity' penalty.

There are also a few issues with FireFox 3 and Safari that I'm trying to resolve. I can't make any promises with Safari though because they've really screwed up DHTML and script interaction. In every browser except Safari you can't click on an object whose 'style:display' is set to 'none'. Because Safari allows this it royally screws up Popbox. I hope they've fixed it in the final release.

And of course design is progressing on my commercial application. I've switched tacks here and am designing an application that I can reasonably write in a couple of months. Although my savings account will keep my family afloat for a good while I'd rather not tap into it any more than I have to, so if I can get something in the marketplace in early Fall I'll be much happier.

I might even have time for a longer article or two. Exciting times ahead!

I got an email this week from E-Commerce Suite (EC Suite) introducing themselves and asking for a spot on the E-Commerce Calculator. After a quick look at their site I was glad to oblige!

While not the cheapest option for a mISV they definitely have the most features - and all at the same low price. You can host your web site with a shopping cart, sell your products with your credit card of choice, include DRM and license keys and they'll even pay you weekly!

Here's what I wrote on the calculator page about them:

If you're looking for, well... everything in one package then check them out!

A lot of testing and feature requests have gone into this release and I think everyone will be happy with the results. There are a few bug fixes and a couple of new features that will probably make my non-English customers happy too. Yes - PopBox has been localized for your language!

Okay - so it was only two text fields, but it needed to be done.

If you use the pbSrcNL attribute then I would definitely get this upgrade as it fixes a major bug that somehow went unnoticed for months. If you use the roll-over feature you also want to get this upgrade. If you use landscape pictures you want to get this release. If you use PopBox at all you want to get this upgrade.

You'll like it. It's better than Cats. You'll want to use it again and again.

1. Added the capability to pop images in a landscape format where the image is automatically scaled to the height of the browser but will extend beyond the width if necessary to support wide images (ditto for tall images).
   For most customers this is 100% backward compatible, but if you are using the PopEx method instead of the Pop method you should take a look at the parameters as they now have extra functionality. See the function definition for details.
2. Fixed a bug that occurred when the pnSrcNL property was set to a relative path url. If you use the pbSrcNL instead of pbSrc then you need to get this upgrade.
3. Added a work-around for a browser bug where the image would sometimes not revert on roll-overs when the mouse left the image. This fix requires a few more resources but is only enabled for the page when you use the onmouseover feature. There is a global variable, popBoxMouseMoveRevert, that you can set to false to use the old method instead if you prefer.
4. Fixed a bug where the size of the image is incorrectly rendered during a revert if the command to revert the image is initiated prior to the image popping completely. This most often showed up on mouseover effects.
5. Set the minimum value for the top left corner of the popped image to 0,0 if the image is dynamically positioned (you pass in null for the left and top). Most browsers tested had difficulty scrolling to the left and this will solve that problem.
6. The "more" and "less" textual links in the caption are now contained in global variables to support other languages. Now you can set popBoxCaptionMoreText and popBoxCaptionLessText to "mehr" and "kleiner" or to whatever you desire - just keep it short or the length calculations will be off.

As always you can get the latest version from the product page and I've updated the documentation page accordingly too. In the following weeks I'll try to get it to print out correctly for those who don't like to view docs on screen.

I'm also touched by the number of you who have written in wanting to know how to send me money. Thanks, really. I've placed my official position on that subject in the FAQ page.

I have a good five days over the Christmas holiday to work on my next project so I hope to complete enough about it to blog about it here. Stay tuned...

Did you know you can place textual links in the pbCaption? This allows you to support things like "Buy Now!" links and "Add To Cart" links directly in the caption of the image.

It's a bit tricky but works wonderfully. I've written up a sample and added it to the FAQ.

I thought it was about time for an E-Commerce Calculator update since the last check was July 25. Only a few things have changed in the last 3 months.

We saw the demise of two vendors: Digital Candle and Virtually Free. I'm not sure if they just went out of business or were swallowed up by the Digital River juggernaut, but either way they're not around anymore.

I don't think anyone will miss Digital Candle, as they didn't really stand out as good or bad and there are plenty of others to choose, and I'm practically positive that no one will miss Virtually Free as they were easily the most expensive of the group. Sayonara.

Other than that I did notice this sentence on the Plimus fees page:

I've heard good things about their service, so you might want to call them up and see if they'll match Google's advertised rates (free). Tell them I sent you and I promise to publish the hate mail.

Frankly, I'd even be impressed if they'll match Google's advertised rates for 2008.

PopBox was recently mentioned in a few blogs that have a higher readership than mine, and from there it got stumbled, dugg, reddited and delicioused. Is that a word?

The point is that suddenly in the course of 24 hours PopBox went from 10-20 downloads a day to over 300 downloads a day. While I fully expect this to decrease again it has presented me with a much larger user base which means more support and more feature requests.

It also means more testing on more diverse systems under more unusual usage patterns. Thus the release of version 2.4 that includes one new feature and one bug fix:

1. Added events that fire before the image is Popped or Reverted. Now if you have UI elements on the page (such as <select> drop-downs) that always render on top you can hide them prior to the image Popping and then make them visible again when the image Reverts.
2. Fixed a sizing bug that occurred when multiple identical thumbnail images (with the same src value) each Popped to different large images.

If neither of these items affect your installation you don't need to update, but 2.4 is 100% backward compatible with 2.3.

I've also spent a little more time enhancing the Quick Start and FAQ page to better explain some of the features and how to accomplish common tasks. One of the biggest complaints that I read about on one of the blogs was that they wanted to use the "title" attribute instead of the "pbCaption" for the caption of the image.

Actually the fallback to title if pbCaption doesn't exist was built into the caption capability from it's initial release in version 2.1, but they're obviously having difficulty finding where it says that so I added it to the FAQ page. Check it out!

More fun stuff to come soon!

I know what you're thinking - yes they do. But really they don't.

"GLOBAL" and "LOCAL" don't complete the picture. A globally scoped variable is accessible from a stored procedure that is called by the first, and a locally scoped variable is only accessible from within the same stored procedure. But that's really pretty inadequate.

Can you tell me what the final result of this script will be?

If you said 'This is a test.' then you didn't look very hard.

If you said there would be no result because it would never leave the while loop then you correctly understand scoping of variables as used in most modern languages today. But you'd still be wrong.

The correct answer is null.

If you're shaking your head you had the same reaction I did when debugging a production procedure a couple of weeks ago. The declare @str2 varchar(50) only runs the first time through the loop. The second time it already exists and retains its value of 'test.' so it sets @str1 to null which ends the loop.

Of course when you add null and 'test.' you get null.

Next time when you think about scoping variables in TSQL remember to declare your variables outside the loop or explicitly initialize them to the value you want instead of relying on them to be null. You'll be much happier with the results.