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Posts Tagged ‘saving time and moeny’

Client-side validation for the new Symfony forms with jQuery

Posted on:Friday, January 23rd, 2009 by Hamid Palo
The new Symfony forms are great improvement over the old forms and once you get over the learning curve you can’t imagine life without them. The only problem with them is that they don’t really offer client-side validation (yes, being agnostic when it comes to Javascript libraries is maybe good but come on). There is fortunately a plugin that does client-side validation but it is Prototype-based, and looks a bit clunky.
For those of us using jQuery there was nothing, so we decided to write our own small helper that integrates this jQuery validator with the new forms. It’s nothing fancy, but it does the trick for now, and we may expand it into a full-fledged plugin that does all sorts of crazy things.
Using the helper:
  1. Download and install the jQuery validation plugin.
  2. Download the helper and put it in lib/helper/jQueryValHelper.php
  3. Include the jQueryVal helper.
  4. To enable the helper for a specific form:
    <?php echo jquery_val_form_tag($form, array(‘action’ => url_for(“@register“) ))?>

That’s it.

The validator currently supports email, min and max length validation. The only required option is action, the other options you can pass it are:

  1. error_placement: Change where the errors are rendered, for example:
    'error_placement' => 'error.prependTo(element.parent().next())'
  2. error_element: Change the element used to render the errors, default is label.

All other options you pass are added to the form as attributes.

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Posted in Free Advice | 2 Comments »

Importance of Having Technical Knowledge Onboard

Posted on:Friday, December 5th, 2008 by Matt Daum

Today I want to take the chance to stress the importance of having someone onboard that knows some technology. Through our experience we’ve often had clients who were mislead or taken advantage of by other technology firms. Whether it is being given poor advice or being overcharged for simple tasks, we’ve seen it quite a bit. In many of these situations a person with some technological knowledge would have saved them money and time.

What can a person with technical knowledge do?

  • Know what questions to ask – “Do you provide documentation for your code? Do you use a framework? Is your code MVC compliant? etc.”
  • Know when you are being taken advantage of – We’ve seen in the past many clients purchased servers and functionality they just don’t need. A technical person can make sure that you aren’t purchasing five servers when one will do, that you aren’t overpaying for simple hosting, etc.
  • To help choose your development firm. It is very difficult to tell whether a firms code is good. If you do not have knowledge in the area, good code and bad code appear to be the same. Choosing the development firm for your project can make or break the project. If the firm chosen produces messy, inefficient code, it dooms your product before it is even launched.
  • To monitor code quality. Once you’ve picked your development firm, it is important to check in now and then to make sure the quality of the code is of the caliber you are paying for. It is crucial to catch poor code in the beginning, to make sure the firm doesn’t continue to use the same coding style.

What if you don’t want to have a technical person on staff full time? Hire a consulting firm. Many firms provide assistance with choosing your development team and to monitor most of the technical aspects of the product. We offer these services.

Moral: Having technical knowledge onboard prevents your company from being taken advantage of and will often pay for itself in saved time and a quality delivered product.

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Posted in Free Advice, General | 3 Comments »