Programming By Stealth

HTML 5 gives us form validation for free, but it's not very nuanced. In this installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart will show us how to use Bootstrap to make our form validation a little less shouty and more useful for the viewer. He shows us how to take a little control, how to take a lot of control and how to take supreme control. That last bit scared me when he introduced it but he does a fantastic job of breaking down the building blocks for us. He builds up the form validation in logical steps, using tools we already know (but might have to dust off a bit.)

Chit Chat Across the Pond this week was Programming By Stealth installment 65 of X. This time Bart takes us through Bootstrap Input Groups. These are really cool. Think about a form that has information you have to fill in, but you're never sure what they're asking for. If they ask for money, what currency do they mean? Are you supposed to include the numbers after the decimal or not? With Bootstrap input groups you can put little symbols or words before or after the input field to make it obvious. As with all things Bootstrap, it's not something that can't be done in HTML, but it's so much easier to make them pretty and elegant without being a designer.

In this Programming By Stealth episode of Chit Chat Across the Pond, Bart Busschots teaches us about three more types of Bootstrap Form Layouts. It's not too tough of a lesson and we had a lot of fun working through the lesson. You can find Bart's full written tutorial at bartbusschots.ie/.... Support Bart on Patreon!

This week in Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots and I spend a fair amount of time going over the homework challenge from PBS 62. The nuances combined with some refresher on how the pieces fit together was something I really needed so hopefully I wasn't alone. The new part of the episode is dedicated to the all-important Bootstrap Button. We'll learn how to turn things into buttons and why you might want to do that, and we'll learn how to make Button Toolbars which are really slick and pretty. We don't have new homework for this week but if you're like me you need time to properly finish last week's homework. You can find Bart's tutorial and solution to the challenge at bartbusschots.ie/... Support Bart on Patreon!

This week's Programming By Stealth was great fun. Bart Busschots teaches us how to create a web form using the Bootstrap classes to do the job. He explains how Bootstrap literally insists that we make our code accessible, and how sensible it is to just that. We learn the importance of Form Groups, and how Checkboxes and Radio Buttons are a slightly different type of input to a form and so have their own Bootstrap class. It's great fun and the challenges look like fun too. At the end of the episode I added what Bart likes to call a Palate Cleanser. I've been following a woman named Samantha Ming on Twitter and samanthaming.com where she posts fun little CSS and HTML tricks. I learned how to make the caret on an input field blink in pink, and how to make regular HTML text on a web page be editable. Bart's tutorial for this episode is available at bartbusschots.ie/...

In this week's installment, Bart explains how to create two simple Bootstrap components, the Jumbotron and badges. A Jumbotron is a show-case area at the top of a website's front page that shouts out the site's main message and usually has a call to action. Badges are the little bubbles next to titles or within buttons that contain extra information. Often they contain a number, such as number of unread messages, or a short phrase like "New!" or "Best Value". It's a pretty easy lesson and the homework looks fun too as we figure out how to add badges to count the number of open alert windows and add a Jumbotron to our work.

In this week's installment of Programming By Stealth Bart introduces us to Bootstrap Components how we can use jQuery to extend Bootstrap. This is the first baby step into JavaScript with Bootstrap. I'm glad Bart started slowly because my JavaScript muscles are just a bit stiff and dusty. You can find Bart's tutorial over at bartbusschots.ie/.... Please consider supporting Bart's work on Patreon.

Bart takes us back to Bootstrap content, now that we know all about breakpoints. He never told us when we were looking at things like margins and float and the display tag that they are also breakpoint-aware, because we didn't know about breakpoints yet. It's an easy lesson and it's great fun to learn more about how responsive design is done with Bootstrap. You can follow along with the audio with Bart's awesome tutorials at bartbusschots.ie/...

In this week's installment of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots explains Bootstrap breakpoints. Breakpoints allow the designer to define how a web page reacts depending on the size of the viewer's screen. He explains how through some very simple Bootstrap classes, we can allow a semantic tag to be in the "correct" order for screen readers and search engines, and yet have the layout be visually appropriate across all screen sizes. Follow along with Bart's detailed tutorial shownotes at bartbusschots.ie/...

Things take a turn for the mind-bendy in this installment about Bootstrap as Bart Busschots explains the Bootstrap Grid. He teaches us how containers have rows, rows have columns and the number 12 is really important. In the end he leads me to understanding but it was a bit of a bumpy road getting me there. You'll probably swim right through it without difficulty because of Bart's fabulous shownotes at bartbusschots.ie/.... If you a

We continue learning about how to style our HTML with Bootstrap as we take a look at styling images, figures, and tables. These Bootstrap classes are really easy to use and make such a difference in the look and feel. You can find Bart's tutorial shownotes and the downloads at bartbusschots.ie/....

We finished learning the Bootstrap Utilities last time so this time we get to start learning about continue to learn about Bootstrap moving on from the Utilities into Bootstrap Content. Content is kind of an odd word; it means Bootstrap's styling of regular HTML tags for things like headers, paragraphs, lists and tables. We have a lot of fun playing with our recipes in this episode, learning how to easily style them to be much prettier. Bart's fabulous tutorial shownotes are at bartbusschots.ie/...

In this week's episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart Busschots takes us through the last bit of the Utilities for Bootstrap 4. We'l refer to the WABAC Machine (kids, ask your parents about Sherman and Mr. Peabody) to installments 8 and 9 comparing positioning with CSS vs. Bootstrap. Thenwe'll learn about sizes and float utilities, Flexbox utilities, and Screen Reader utilities. It's great fun and of course Bart has his excellent companion tutorial at bartbusschots.ie/... and you can find Dorothy's awesome index of all things Programming By Stealth at podfeet.com/blog/pbs-index.

We're finally back to a new episode of Programming By Stealth after a few weeks chatting with different things like GDPR and DNS with Bart Busschots. In this installment, Bart starts explaining the Utilities available in Bootstrap. We'll learn how easy it is to use the pre-built CSS styles in Bootstrap to color text, add borders, spacing, text alignment and fonts all with semantic phrases that actually make sense! In an odd bit of luck, Bootstrap had been updated and Bart's code didn't reflect the new version. In most shows, this would be a problem but the change allowed Bart to walk me through how to figure out what was wrong and how to access the Bootstrap documentation to fix it. The best way to learn something is to break it first, or at least Bart and I feel that way. Bart's most excellent shownotes are at bartbusschots.ie/...

We're finally back after spring break, and we're going to be moving on from JavaScript while we learn about Bootstrap. Bootstrap is a set of open source libraries which provide pre-built foundations for creating responsive and good looking websites. It's an easy episode with easy and fun homework I think you'll enjoy. Before we got started I talked about a fantastic post Will (aka @beiju) wrote to me to help me understand JavaScript objects better. If you've been struggling like I have or just want a nice reference written in conversational style, check it out at Objects in Javascript Explained (for PBS) – by Will aka @beiju

As our last episode of Programming By Stealth before our spring break, Bart wraps up our Cellular Automaton. He goes through his solution to the PBS 49 challenge first, and then he walks us through three examples of how a user could produce three different representations with our code. He demonstrates how to build a Conway Game of Life, the Maze Rule, and Brian's Brain. It's fun to see it all wrapped in a bow ending this long project. We'll be back on March 31st with a whole new project. Bart's full tutorial shownotes are at bartbusschots.ie/...

This week Bart and I celebrate 50 episodes of Programming By Stealth. As Bart points out, we've been at this for two years now. I'm so happy he's stuck with me on this and he says he's got literally years of material yet to go. To commemorate this occasion, Bart got the crazy idea to build a web app live on video. We used a YouTube Live Hangout on Air while he shared his screen. He started with a blank canvas and when he was done we had a working web app. The video is probably a better experience over at podfeet.com but the audio is supplied for those who prefer it. We did try to narrate what was going on to help with the audio.

As promised last week, Bart Busschots brings us the second half of Programming By Stealth 49. We start by going through a lot of revision on JavaScript objects. It's really great to have all of this all in one place, and I got to ask a few questions that have been bugging me for a long time. I understood every bit of this and really enjoyed it, but I'm not going to lie, his little 6-part test after the revision baffled me a bit. But after we slog through that part, Bart gets us back on track improving our Cellular Automata. I never realized that we didn't actually define whether our cells are dead or alive!

In this week's episode of Programming By Stealth, Bart had intended to work on improving our Cellular Automata, but we ended up spending a lot more time on reviewing the challenges from last week that we stopped before getting to the new stuff. The good news is that we're going to do the Cellular Automata improvements in only one week (it will be PBS 49B), and we have no homework for the week! As always, Bart's excellent tutorial shownotes are available at bartbusschots.ie/....

Bart decided to take a closer look at the JavaScript keywords 'this' and 'static' and boy am I glad he did. He said it was the hardest lesson he's put together so far. It's a convoluted topic but he gives great explanations as always. You can find his tutorial at bartbusschots.ie/...