http://kevinjmcmahon.net/ Latest Articles on web design - accessibility, web standards, xhtml, css, php, javascript, seo, and more. Written by Kevin McMahon. en-gb Copyright 2022 Kevin McMahon. All Rights Reserved. Sat, 12 Feb 2022 5:30:22 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/images/logoRSS.jpg http://kevinjmcmahon.net/ http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/24/exporting-mysql-table-data-to-excel-using-php/ How to export data from a MySQL table to an excel readable format, using PHP. Tue, 25 Oct 2011 11:10:36 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/23/website-optimisation-techniques/ Some effective website optimisation techniques and tools for reducing page load time and enhancing efficiency, to improve the performance of your site Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:34:25 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/22/html-and-plain-text-multipart-email-/ How to send a html email with an alternative plain text equivalent for display on email clients unable to handle html, using php. Thu, 01 Jul 2010 8:31:42 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/21/allowing-large-file-uploads-in-php/ When creating an interface for uploading files to a server through a website, there are limitations in place in the PHP configuration that you must be aware of. Tue, 09 Feb 2010 7:43:56 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/20/google-apps-to-discontinue-support-for-internet-explorer-6/ Google have announced that from March 1st 2010, their Google Docs Suite and Google Sites Editor Applications they will no longer be supporting IE6 and other older browsers that are no longer supported by their manufacturers. Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:15:12 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/19/showing-all-errors-with-php/ When developing a site with PHP, it can be a great testing tool to be able to see any errors resulting from your code. Sometimes the default server php configuration hides these errors, but you can show them with a couple of extra lines of code Fri, 22 Jan 2010 6:33:55 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/18/displaying-a-shortened-block-of-text-with-php/ From time to time, I find myself wanting to display a certain amount of text, like and intro or snippet, from a much larger one. This could be a description or intro for an article, or news item for use on a landing page or latest news widget. For dynamic websites, where content is pulled in automatically from a database, this could cause a bit of problem. Mon, 16 Nov 2009 9:26:27 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/17/opening-a-new-window-with-unobtrusive-javascript/ According to the W3C Specifications, XHTML should only deal with information displayed in a browser window. Basically, opening a new window is something that does not relate to the current window, and therefore XHTML should not perform this action. Sun, 08 Nov 2009 4:07:31 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/16/stripping-html-tags-from-content-with-php/ It may sometimes be useful to remove the html tags from a portion of text, for example when you want to display a snippet of text in a paragraph, or add it to an xml feed with breaking it. There are a couple of ways to do this. The most obvious, and blanket solution, is to use the strip_tags() function in php. Fri, 23 Oct 2009 5:46:47 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/15/link-icons-for-external-links-and-different-file-types/ Sometimes you might find yourself with a number of different types of links on your website, from external links, to links opening a new window, links to pdf or document files, or links to print the content of a page. It is important from a user interface perspective to identify these links to your users before they click on them. Thu, 24 Sep 2009 8:56:24 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/14/using-php-to-read-files-from-a-directory/ It’s a really simple, and actually powerful, tool which can help create a list of files, or even a dynamically generated music playlist or photo gallery. Mon, 31 Aug 2009 7:15:06 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/13/styling-submit-buttons-with-images/ There are a number of ways to create fancy looking Submit buttons, whether using html or css. Here’s how I would create an accessible and user friendly submit button Wed, 26 Aug 2009 8:43:33 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/12/what-i-am-looking-forward-to-in-css3/ Implementation of CSS3 is highly anticipated throughout the web, with a lot of designers already using some of its attributes on browsers that will allow it (ie, Safari). Just like HTML5, it's pretty polarising. I for one am looking forward to properly getting my hands dirty with it (rather than just messing about in my spare time), even though that may be a long way away. Mon, 15 Jun 2009 8:21:54 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/11/using-images-in-navigation/ In designing websites, one of more artistic ways to make a site more interesting to the user is to employ the use of images, as opposed to plain text. One particular area where this can be effective is in navigation elements. There are a number of different techniques employed in creating beautiful, image based navigation elements. Mon, 11 May 2009 8:59:56 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/10/flash-and-gracefully-degrading-navigation/ Article describing how, with the use of SWFObject and regular xhtml, you can provide visitors to your site a slick Flash animation without punishing users without the required plugins or browsers. Thu, 30 Apr 2009 5:43:50 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/9/making-use-of-the-html-tag/ When converting a design to a fully functioning html website, one of the aspects of design that can often be troublesome is the page background. Since you neither know the height that any given page will be, nor the width of your users viewport, you always need to ensure that your beautifully complex background image either fades into a solid colour, or is tileable. Wed, 18 Mar 2009 10:17:13 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/8/the-alt-text-attribute-and-accessibility/ Alternative text is a very important part of a webpage, but this is often overlooked by web developers, who neglect it because it can be difficult to implement. Additionally, badly written or misused alt text can be equally damaging. And this comes at a cost the the accessibility of the website. Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:04:15 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/7/safari-4-beta-released/ As a web developer, Safari is an essential program for any computer that I'm working on. Even though it's not my browser of choice, I need to test any site on Safari, as it represents the user agent of choice (or circumstance) for Apple users, and Safari holds almost a 10% share of the market. Tue, 24 Feb 2009 6:42:19 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/6/first-steps-for-a-website-accessibility-review/ Without creating a checklist, or recommending any automated tools to get the job done, and trying not to make reference to specific disabilities or user agents, here are the steps I take to bring some inaccessible websites up to speed. Sat, 10 Jan 2009 6:40:23 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/5/inline-css-formatting/ I adopted this style of CSS straight away and haven't looked back since. It's now almost 2 years later, and I've yet to see this style reach the mainstream, and I don't know why. Sun, 21 Dec 2008 6:37:16 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/4/curing-my-divitis/ When widespread support finally came for CSS, we moved on to more semantic markup, with use of holding div tags floated and positioned to generate the desired effect. Sure, this came along with the need for hacks to cover up inconsistencies between different browsers, but we looked down our noses at those still using HTML tables and cited web standards. But as it turns out, over use on non-semantic "presentation" tags (span and div, both have no actual implied meaning) can be almost as much of a sin as the one we left behind. Tue, 25 Nov 2008 8:25:14 GMT http://kevinjmcmahon.net/articles/3/a-first-post/ I've decided to create a blog on web design because with 7 years of experience in xhtml and css (and developing interest in PHP and Javascript) I have aquired a knowledge base that I would like to share. Mon, 17 Nov 2008 7:35:39 GMT