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If you use Oracle and your query is a bit slow, read this. Please read this. Your DBA's will love you for it.
Generating and displaying the execution plan of a SQL statement is a common task for most DBAs, SQL developers, and preformance experts as it provides them information on the performance characteristics of a SQL statement. An execution plan shows the detailed steps necessary to execute a SQL statement. These steps are expressed as a set of database operators that consumes and produces rows. The order of the operators and their implentation is decided by the query optimizer using a combination of query transformations and physical optimization techniques.

While the display is commonly shown in a tabular format, the plan is in fact tree-shaped. For example, consider the following query based on the SH schema (Sales History):



select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
from sales s, products p
where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
group by prod_category;


The tabular representation of this query's plan is:



------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

While the tree-shaped representation of the plan is:

   GROUP BY
      |
     JOIN
 _____|_______
 |            |
ACCESS     ACCESS
(PRODUCTS) (SALES)




When you read a plan tree you should start from the bottom up. In the above example begin by looking at the access operators (or the leaves of the tree). In this case the access operators are implemented using full table scans. The rows produced by these tables scans will be consumed by the join operator. Here the join operator is a hash-join (other alternatives include nested-loop or sort-merge join). Finally the group-by operator implemented here using hash (alternative would be sort) consumes rows produced by the join-opertor.

The execution plan generated for a SQL statement is just one of the many alternative execution plans considered by the query optimizer. The query optimizer selects the execution plan with the lowest cost. Cost is a proxy for performance, the lower is the cost the better is the performance. The cost model used by the query optimizer accounts for the IO, CPU, and network usage in the query.

There are two different methods you can use to look at the execution plan of a SQL statement:


  1. EXPLAIN PLAN command - This displays an execution plan for a SQL statement without actually executing the statement.

  2. V$SQL_PLAN - A dictionary view introduced in Oracle 9i that shows the execution plan for a SQL statement that has been compiled into a cursor in the cursor cache.


Under certain conditions the plan shown when using EXPLAIN PLAN can be different from the plan shown using V$SQL_PLAN. For example, when the SQL statement contains bind variables the plan shown from using EXPLAIN PLAN ignores the bind variable values while the plan shown in V$SQL_PLAN takes the bind variable values into account in the plan generation process.

Displaying an execution plan has been made easier after the introduction of the dbms_xplan package in Oracle 9i and by the enhancements made to it in subsequent releases. This packages provides several PL/SQL procedures to display the plan from different sources:


  1. EXPLAIN PLAN command

  2. V$SQL_PLAN

  3. Automatic Workload Repository (AWR)

  4. SQL Tuning Set (STS)

  5. SQL Plan Baseline (SPM)


The following examples illustrate how to generate and display an execution plan for our original SQL statement using the different functions provided in the dbms_xplan package.

Example 1 Uses the EXPLAIN PLAN command and the dbms_xplan.display function.


SQL> EXPLAIN PLAN FOR
 2   select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 3   from sales s, products p
 4   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 5   group by prod_category;

Explained.



SQL> select plan_table_output
 2    from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------


The arguments are for dbms_xplan.display are:


  • plan table name (default 'PLAN_TABLE'),

  • statement_id (default null),

  • format (default 'TYPICAL')


More details can be found in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmsxpln.sql.

Example 2 Generating and displaying the execution plan for the last SQL statement executed in a session:



SQL> select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 2   from sales s, products p
 3   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 4   group by prod_category;

no rows selected


SQL> select plan_table_output
 2    from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'basic'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------


The arguments used by dbms_xplay.dispay_cursor are:


  • SQL ID (default null, null means the last SQL statement executed in this session),

  • child number (default 0),

  • format (default 'TYPICAL')


The details are in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmsxpln.sql.


Example 3 Displaying the execution plan for any other statement requires the SQL ID to be provided, either directly or indirectly:

  1. Directly:

    SQL> select plan_table_output from
     2   table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fnrtqw9c233tt',null,'basic'));


  2. Indirectly:

    SQL> select plan_table_output
     2   from v$sql s,
     3   table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(s.sql_id,
     4                                  s.child_number, 'basic')) t
     5   where s.sql_text like 'select PROD_CATEGORY%';


Example 4 - Displaying an execution plan corresponding to a SQL Plan Baseline. SQL Plan Baselines have been introduced in Oracle 11g to support the SQL Plan Management feature (SPM). In order to illustrate such a case we need to create a SQL Plan Baseline first.


SQL> alter session set optimizer_capture_sql_plan_baselines=true;

Session altered.

SQL> select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 2   from sales s, products p
 3   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 4   group by prod_category;

no rows selected

If the above statement has been executed more than once, a SQL Plan Baseline will be created for it and you can verified this using the follows query:


SQL> select SQL_HANDLE, PLAN_NAME, ACCEPTED
 2   from dba_sql_plan_baselines
 3   where sql_text like 'select prod_category%';

SQL_HANDLE                     PLAN_NAME                      ACC
------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---
SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772       SYS_SQL_PLAN_31ed7772f2c7a4c2  YES


The execution plan for the SQL Plan Baseline created above can be displayed either directly or indirectly:

  1. Directly
    select t.* from
    table(dbms_xplan.display_sql_plan_baseline('SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772',
                                               format => 'basic')) t


  2. Indirectly
    select t.*
        from (select distinct sql_handle
              from dba_sql_plan_baselines
              where sql_text like 'select prod_category%') pb,
             table(dbms_xplan.display_sql_plan_baseline(pb.sql_handle,
                                                        null,'basic')) t;



The output of either of these two statements is:



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL handle: SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772
SQL text: select prod_category, avg(amount_sold) from sales s, products p
          where p.prod_id = s.prod_id group by prod_category
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan name: SYS_SQL_PLAN_31ed7772f2c7a4c2
Enabled: YES     Fixed: NO      Accepted: YES     Origin: AUTO-CAPTURE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plan hash value: 4073170114

---------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation                 Name               
---------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                             
   1   HASH GROUP BY                               
   2    HASH JOIN                                  
   3     VIEW                   index$_join$_002   
   4      HASH JOIN                                
   5       INDEX FAST FULL SCAN PRODUCTS_PK        
   6       INDEX FAST FULL SCAN PRODUCTS_PROD_CAT_IX
   7     PARTITION RANGE ALL                       
   8      TABLE ACCESS FULL     SALES              
---------------------------------------------------------


Formatting


The format argument is highly customizable and allows you to see as little (high-level) or as much (low-level) details as you need / want in the plan output. The high-level options are:

  1. Basic
    The plan includes the operation, options, and the object name (table, index, MV, etc)
  2. Typical
    It includes the information shown in BASIC plus additional optimizer-related internal information such as cost, size, cardinality, etc. These information are shown for every operation in the plan and represents what the optimizer thinks is the operation cost, the number of rows produced, etc. It also shows the predicates evaluation by the operation. There are two types of predicates: ACCESS and FILTER. The ACCESS predicates for an index are used to fetch the relevant blocks because they apply to the search columns. The FILTER predicates are evaluated after the blocks have been fetched.
  3. All
    It includes the information shown in TYPICAL plus the lists of expressions (columns) produced by every operation, the hint alias and query block names where the operation belongs. The last two pieces of information can be used as arguments to add hints to the statement.
The low-level options allow the inclusion or exclusion of find details, such as predicates and cost.
For example,


select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic +predicate +cost'));

-------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name      Cost (%CPU)
-------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                    17  (18)
   1   HASH GROUP BY                      17  (18)
*  2    HASH JOIN                         15   (7)
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS      9   (0)
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL               5   (0)
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES         5   (0)
-------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - access("P"."PROD_ID"="S"."PROD_ID")



select plan_table_output from
table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'typical -cost -bytes'));

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name      Rows  Time      Pstart Pstop
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                    4  00:00:01             
   1   HASH GROUP BY                      4  00:00:01             
*  2    HASH JOIN                       960  00:00:01             
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS   766  00:00:01             
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL            960  00:00:01      1     16
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES      960  00:00:01      1     16
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - access("P"."PROD_ID"="S"."PROD_ID")

Note Section


In addition to the plan, the package displays notes in the NOTE section, such as that dynamic sampling was used during query optimization or that star transformation was applied to the query.
For example, if the table SALES did not have statistics then the optimizer will use dynamic sampling and the plan display will report it as follows (see '+note' detail in the query):


select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic +note'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

Note
-----
- dynamic sampling used for this statement


Bind peeking



The query optimizer takes into account the values of bind variable values when generation an execution plan. It does what is generally called bind peeking. See the first post in this blog about the concept of bind peeking and its impact on the plans and the performance of SQL statements.
As stated earlier the plan shown in V$SQL_PLAN takes into account the values of bind variables while the one shown from using EXPLAIN PLAN does not. Starting with 10gR2, the dbms_xplan package allows the display of the bind variable values used to generate a particular cursor/plan. This is done by adding '+peeked_binds' to the format argument when using display_cursor().
This is illustrated with the following example:



variable pcat varchar2(50)
exec :pcat := 'Women'

select PROD_CATEGORY, avg(amount_sold)
from sales s, products p
where p.PROD_ID = s.PROD_ID
and prod_category != :pcat
group by PROD_CATEGORY;

select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'basic +PEEKED_BINDS'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------

1 - :PCAT (VARCHAR2(30), CSID=2): 'Women'


plan sql table prod id plan table prod select statement access hash display sales products join dbms execution operation query xplan group name category null shown example basic cost bind cursor optimizer partition information range output rows used baseline default values displaying format oracle index predicates handle variable text baselines level session produced tree operators different package typical details sql plan table access dbms xplan plan table execution plan prod category xplan display sql statement hash join select prod table dbms partition range hash group select statement select plan operation name explain plan plan baseline null basic amount sold category avg avg amount query optimizer table output sys sql sql handle display cursor plan shown plan baselines display plan table null variable values bind variable sql text plan name null null peeked binds xplan package table outputfrom outputfrom table dynamic sampling prod category% rows produced bind peeking pcat varchar2 sql 1899bb9331ed7772 dba sql scan products handle plan predicate information information identified information shown level options display sql index fast format argument fromtable dbms sql example tree shaped execution plans default null products pwhere plan takes plan command access operators bind variables format default default typical join operator statement executed cursor null dbmsxpln sql admin dbmsxpln oracle home home rdbms rdbms admin child number dbms xplan display select plan table table dbms xplan sql plan baseline avg amount sold select prod category plan table output plan table null sql plan baselines xplan display cursor display plan table xplan display plan bind variable values select prod category% outputfrom table dbms plan table outputfrom dbms xplan package table null basic table outputfrom table predicate information identified sql handle plan handle plan name fromtable dbms xplan oracle home rdbms format default typical sql plan takes explain plan command home rdbms admin rdbms admin dbmsxpln cursor null null display cursor null sql statement executed null null basic ]]>Inside the Oracle Optimizer
First shared by - robdiana
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Shared by robdiana
If you use Oracle and your query is a bit slow, read this. Please read this. Your DBA's will love you for it.
Generating and displaying the execution plan of a SQL statement is a common task for most DBAs, SQL developers, and preformance experts as it provides them information on the performance characteristics of a SQL statement. An execution plan shows the detailed steps necessary to execute a SQL statement. These steps are expressed as a set of database operators that consumes and produces rows. The order of the operators and their implentation is decided by the query optimizer using a combination of query transformations and physical optimization techniques.

While the display is commonly shown in a tabular format, the plan is in fact tree-shaped. For example, consider the following query based on the SH schema (Sales History):



select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
from sales s, products p
where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
group by prod_category;


The tabular representation of this query's plan is:



------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

While the tree-shaped representation of the plan is:

   GROUP BY
      |
     JOIN
 _____|_______
 |            |
ACCESS     ACCESS
(PRODUCTS) (SALES)




When you read a plan tree you should start from the bottom up. In the above example begin by looking at the access operators (or the leaves of the tree). In this case the access operators are implemented using full table scans. The rows produced by these tables scans will be consumed by the join operator. Here the join operator is a hash-join (other alternatives include nested-loop or sort-merge join). Finally the group-by operator implemented here using hash (alternative would be sort) consumes rows produced by the join-opertor.

The execution plan generated for a SQL statement is just one of the many alternative execution plans considered by the query optimizer. The query optimizer selects the execution plan with the lowest cost. Cost is a proxy for performance, the lower is the cost the better is the performance. The cost model used by the query optimizer accounts for the IO, CPU, and network usage in the query.

There are two different methods you can use to look at the execution plan of a SQL statement:


  1. EXPLAIN PLAN command - This displays an execution plan for a SQL statement without actually executing the statement.

  2. V$SQL_PLAN - A dictionary view introduced in Oracle 9i that shows the execution plan for a SQL statement that has been compiled into a cursor in the cursor cache.


Under certain conditions the plan shown when using EXPLAIN PLAN can be different from the plan shown using V$SQL_PLAN. For example, when the SQL statement contains bind variables the plan shown from using EXPLAIN PLAN ignores the bind variable values while the plan shown in V$SQL_PLAN takes the bind variable values into account in the plan generation process.

Displaying an execution plan has been made easier after the introduction of the dbms_xplan package in Oracle 9i and by the enhancements made to it in subsequent releases. This packages provides several PL/SQL procedures to display the plan from different sources:


  1. EXPLAIN PLAN command

  2. V$SQL_PLAN

  3. Automatic Workload Repository (AWR)

  4. SQL Tuning Set (STS)

  5. SQL Plan Baseline (SPM)


The following examples illustrate how to generate and display an execution plan for our original SQL statement using the different functions provided in the dbms_xplan package.

Example 1 Uses the EXPLAIN PLAN command and the dbms_xplan.display function.


SQL> EXPLAIN PLAN FOR
 2   select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 3   from sales s, products p
 4   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 5   group by prod_category;

Explained.



SQL> select plan_table_output
 2    from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------


The arguments are for dbms_xplan.display are:


  • plan table name (default 'PLAN_TABLE'),

  • statement_id (default null),

  • format (default 'TYPICAL')


More details can be found in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmsxpln.sql.

Example 2 Generating and displaying the execution plan for the last SQL statement executed in a session:



SQL> select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 2   from sales s, products p
 3   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 4   group by prod_category;

no rows selected


SQL> select plan_table_output
 2    from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'basic'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------


The arguments used by dbms_xplay.dispay_cursor are:


  • SQL ID (default null, null means the last SQL statement executed in this session),

  • child number (default 0),

  • format (default 'TYPICAL')


The details are in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/dbmsxpln.sql.


Example 3 Displaying the execution plan for any other statement requires the SQL ID to be provided, either directly or indirectly:

  1. Directly:

    SQL> select plan_table_output from
     2   table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor('fnrtqw9c233tt',null,'basic'));


  2. Indirectly:

    SQL> select plan_table_output
     2   from v$sql s,
     3   table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(s.sql_id,
     4                                  s.child_number, 'basic')) t
     5   where s.sql_text like 'select PROD_CATEGORY%';


Example 4 - Displaying an execution plan corresponding to a SQL Plan Baseline. SQL Plan Baselines have been introduced in Oracle 11g to support the SQL Plan Management feature (SPM). In order to illustrate such a case we need to create a SQL Plan Baseline first.


SQL> alter session set optimizer_capture_sql_plan_baselines=true;

Session altered.

SQL> select prod_category, avg(amount_sold)
 2   from sales s, products p
 3   where p.prod_id = s.prod_id
 4   group by prod_category;

no rows selected

If the above statement has been executed more than once, a SQL Plan Baseline will be created for it and you can verified this using the follows query:


SQL> select SQL_HANDLE, PLAN_NAME, ACCEPTED
 2   from dba_sql_plan_baselines
 3   where sql_text like 'select prod_category%';

SQL_HANDLE                     PLAN_NAME                      ACC
------------------------------ ------------------------------ ---
SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772       SYS_SQL_PLAN_31ed7772f2c7a4c2  YES


The execution plan for the SQL Plan Baseline created above can be displayed either directly or indirectly:

  1. Directly
    select t.* from
    table(dbms_xplan.display_sql_plan_baseline('SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772',
                                               format => 'basic')) t


  2. Indirectly
    select t.*
        from (select distinct sql_handle
              from dba_sql_plan_baselines
              where sql_text like 'select prod_category%') pb,
             table(dbms_xplan.display_sql_plan_baseline(pb.sql_handle,
                                                        null,'basic')) t;



The output of either of these two statements is:



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SQL handle: SYS_SQL_1899bb9331ed7772
SQL text: select prod_category, avg(amount_sold) from sales s, products p
          where p.prod_id = s.prod_id group by prod_category
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Plan name: SYS_SQL_PLAN_31ed7772f2c7a4c2
Enabled: YES     Fixed: NO      Accepted: YES     Origin: AUTO-CAPTURE
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plan hash value: 4073170114

---------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation                 Name               
---------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                             
   1   HASH GROUP BY                               
   2    HASH JOIN                                  
   3     VIEW                   index$_join$_002   
   4      HASH JOIN                                
   5       INDEX FAST FULL SCAN PRODUCTS_PK        
   6       INDEX FAST FULL SCAN PRODUCTS_PROD_CAT_IX
   7     PARTITION RANGE ALL                       
   8      TABLE ACCESS FULL     SALES              
---------------------------------------------------------


Formatting


The format argument is highly customizable and allows you to see as little (high-level) or as much (low-level) details as you need / want in the plan output. The high-level options are:

  1. Basic
    The plan includes the operation, options, and the object name (table, index, MV, etc)
  2. Typical
    It includes the information shown in BASIC plus additional optimizer-related internal information such as cost, size, cardinality, etc. These information are shown for every operation in the plan and represents what the optimizer thinks is the operation cost, the number of rows produced, etc. It also shows the predicates evaluation by the operation. There are two types of predicates: ACCESS and FILTER. The ACCESS predicates for an index are used to fetch the relevant blocks because they apply to the search columns. The FILTER predicates are evaluated after the blocks have been fetched.
  3. All
    It includes the information shown in TYPICAL plus the lists of expressions (columns) produced by every operation, the hint alias and query block names where the operation belongs. The last two pieces of information can be used as arguments to add hints to the statement.
The low-level options allow the inclusion or exclusion of find details, such as predicates and cost.
For example,


select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic +predicate +cost'));

-------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name      Cost (%CPU)
-------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                    17  (18)
   1   HASH GROUP BY                      17  (18)
*  2    HASH JOIN                         15   (7)
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS      9   (0)
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL               5   (0)
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES         5   (0)
-------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - access("P"."PROD_ID"="S"."PROD_ID")



select plan_table_output from
table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'typical -cost -bytes'));

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name      Rows  Time      Pstart Pstop
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT                    4  00:00:01             
   1   HASH GROUP BY                      4  00:00:01             
*  2    HASH JOIN                       960  00:00:01             
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS   766  00:00:01             
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL            960  00:00:01      1     16
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES      960  00:00:01      1     16
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Predicate Information (identified by operation id):
---------------------------------------------------
2 - access("P"."PROD_ID"="S"."PROD_ID")

Note Section


In addition to the plan, the package displays notes in the NOTE section, such as that dynamic sampling was used during query optimization or that star transformation was applied to the query.
For example, if the table SALES did not have statistics then the optimizer will use dynamic sampling and the plan display will report it as follows (see '+note' detail in the query):


select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display('plan_table',null,'basic +note'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

Note
-----
- dynamic sampling used for this statement


Bind peeking



The query optimizer takes into account the values of bind variable values when generation an execution plan. It does what is generally called bind peeking. See the first post in this blog about the concept of bind peeking and its impact on the plans and the performance of SQL statements.
As stated earlier the plan shown in V$SQL_PLAN takes into account the values of bind variables while the one shown from using EXPLAIN PLAN does not. Starting with 10gR2, the dbms_xplan package allows the display of the bind variable values used to generate a particular cursor/plan. This is done by adding '+peeked_binds' to the format argument when using display_cursor().
This is illustrated with the following example:



variable pcat varchar2(50)
exec :pcat := 'Women'

select PROD_CATEGORY, avg(amount_sold)
from sales s, products p
where p.PROD_ID = s.PROD_ID
and prod_category != :pcat
group by PROD_CATEGORY;

select plan_table_output
from table(dbms_xplan.display_cursor(null,null,'basic +PEEKED_BINDS'));

------------------------------------------
 Id   Operation              Name   
------------------------------------------
   0  SELECT STATEMENT              
   1   HASH GROUP BY                
   2    HASH JOIN                   
   3     TABLE ACCESS FULL   PRODUCTS
   4     PARTITION RANGE ALL        
   5      TABLE ACCESS FULL  SALES  
------------------------------------------

Peeked Binds (identified by position):
--------------------------------------

1 - :PCAT (VARCHAR2(30), CSID=2): 'Women'


plan sql table prod id plan table prod select statement access hash display sales products join dbms execution operation query xplan group name category null shown example basic cost bind cursor optimizer partition information range output rows used baseline default values displaying format oracle index predicates handle variable text baselines level session produced tree operators different package typical details sql plan table access dbms xplan plan table execution plan prod category xplan display sql statement hash join select prod table dbms partition range hash group select statement select plan operation name explain plan plan baseline null basic amount sold category avg avg amount query optimizer table output sys sql sql handle display cursor plan shown plan baselines display plan table null variable values bind variable sql text plan name null null peeked binds xplan package table outputfrom outputfrom table dynamic sampling prod category% rows produced bind peeking pcat varchar2 sql 1899bb9331ed7772 dba sql scan products handle plan predicate information information identified information shown level options display sql index fast format argument fromtable dbms sql example tree shaped execution plans default null products pwhere plan takes plan command access operators bind variables format default default typical join operator statement executed cursor null dbmsxpln sql admin dbmsxpln oracle home home rdbms rdbms admin child number dbms xplan display select plan table table dbms xplan sql plan baseline avg amount sold select prod category plan table output plan table null sql plan baselines xplan display cursor display plan table xplan display plan bind variable values select prod category% outputfrom table dbms plan table outputfrom dbms xplan package table null basic table outputfrom table predicate information identified sql handle plan handle plan name fromtable dbms xplan oracle home rdbms format default typical sql plan takes explain plan command home rdbms admin rdbms admin dbmsxpln cursor null null display cursor null sql statement executed null null basic ]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 07:15:25 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,1 How to stop worrying and love Facebook Credits http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Venturebeat/~3/q9AvEJNeb84/ Shared item VentureBeat
First shared by - robdiana
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Shawn Foust is head of the video game industry team at law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

Facebook Credits are here, and they're sparking quite a bit of debate. Credits are the virtual currency that Facebook hopes third-party game makers will use so that there's a single, consistent currency across all the games in the Facebook community. But if you're going to use Credits, you not only have to pay Facebook a 30 percent cut of any transaction you make with the currency, you also have to keep to some pretty stringent terms dictated by Facebook.

The terms are simultaneously very broad and very narrow. They're broad in the sense that they establish a comprehensive set of regulations governing the implementation of Facebook Credits but narrow in the sense that those regulations only apply to Facebook Credits. The terms do not provide a comprehensive framework for all forms of in-game currency.

That's an important distinction.

The terms only have power so long as Facebook Credits are in play. If you take the Credits out of the equation by exchanging them for your own currency, many of the rules and restrictions are no longer applicable. So the solution for game developers is to accept Facebook Credits but not abandon your own currency.

Specifically, here are a few select things the terms explicitly prohibit you from doing with Facebook Credits:

  • You will not (and you will not enable or allow any third party to) sell Credits to, or trade or otherwise exchange Credits with, any third party.
  • You may not accept Credits as payment for tangible goods, except in the Facebook Gift Shop.
  • You may not accept Credits as payment for a currency or other stored value item that can be used outside of the application.

Further, you as the game developer are not the Facebook Credits mint. That means you lose a lot of practical control:

  • You do not control the supply of Credits. That means you cannot offer a sale or giveaway of Facebook Credits (the Terms prohibit you from transferring or trading Credits to a third party). You cannot summarily issue 1000 Facebook Credits to your users to spark interest in your game. You cannot distribute Facebook Credits to the masses and live in a post-currency narco-syndicalist commune. Facebook controls the generation and distribution of Facebook Credits, not you.
  • You cannot lock in value. Facebook Credits are a fungible good that can be used in any application that accepts credits. If a person purchases $100 in Facebook Credits with the intention of purchasing things in your application, if they only spend $80, the remaining $20 is free to go elsewhere.
  • Credits can abandon you. Facebook retains the right to revoke your eligibility to accept Credits at any time in [its] sole discretion. That means your economy can get up and walk away in an instant.

So why not walk away from Facebook Credits? Well, it's a payment option that resides natively on your lifeline platform. I'm not going out on a limb in guessing that Facebook Credits will quickly develop into a robust and flexible payment services option that will play an important role in the social game ecosystem. You probably don't want to walk away from that.

So why your own currency?
As mentioned previously, the current terms don't extend beyond Facebook Credits. So creating your own in-game currency frees the game developer from constraints while still permitting them access to an important option for payment services.

Since your currency is not subject to the terms, you have full control over its use (subject to Facebook's Developer Policies and Statement of Rights of course). For example, you can permit trading of your currency between players within an application, which is prohibited for Credits. That means Little Jill Jellybean can send Disaster Dollars to her friend so the friend can buy spent fuel rods in Uranium Enrichment City. Perhaps that inspires the friend to play more and convert into a paid user later on.

More importantly, you have control over your in-game economy. If you want to give away Disaster Dollars to a loyal user, you can. If you want to run a contest with an award of Disaster Dollars, there's no problem. None of this is possible if you implement Facebook Credits directly into your game since the only source for Facebook Credits is Facebook.

You also can build in a safeguard from having the plug pulled. If you implement your own in-game currency you can offer your users a variety of options for the purchase of that currency other than Facebook (such as Paypal or Offerpal). Thus, if Facebook decides you are unworthy of Facebook Credits your game still has a viable means for monetization. If you rely solely on Facebook Credits you're at the mercy of the eligibility clause.

Further, offering multiple options creates a greater possibility that a particular user will find one that appeals to him or her. Users with a preference for Facebook Credits may use that option. Alternatively, if a user has a pre-existing relationship with another payment services provider and would prefer to use that provider, they can. Help them help you make money. It's not asking too much.

How do I set up my own currency?
You permit the user to purchase only one thing with Facebook Credits: your currency. Once the users have exchanged Facebook Credits for your currency, they can participate in the broader game economy. There should be no direct purchase of any items or anything other than your currency with Facebook Credits.

Once the exchange is made, you've locked up the value of those Credits in your own currency, ensuring it won't move off to another application. You also introduced the user to an economy where you control the rules. And, as most game developers will tell you, few things are more important to a game than a well structured economy. The economy can dictate the tempo of the game and can have dramatic effects on a user's interaction with the content. Normally it wouldn't be something a developer would consider ceding control over.

So there's the case for your own currency. There are arguments against, of course. Some argue that creating a separate currency is confusing and creates additional friction. Others argue that implementing Facebook Credits directly is good for the reputation of the game. I'm sympathetic to these arguments, but I find them unpersuasive in light of the root issue: direct implementation of Facebook Credits without a buffer currency effectively shifts control of a critical aspect of your game (which is often the main source of monetization) to a third party with potentially different incentives. Not good.

A buffer currency allows you to leverage a powerful new player in the payment services space while retaining control and flexibility.

Shawn Foust is an attorney with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton's Silicon Valley and Century City offices and head of the firm's video game industry team. He focuses on tackling the cutting edge legal issues facing businesses in the entertainment, new media, and technology industries. He handles a blend of intellectual property licensing/litigation and emerging growth finance work.

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credits facebook currency game control credits facebook currency game control terms user payment economy third means party application services developer users cannot accept facebook credits own currency third party payment services disaster dollars accept credits game currency shawn foust game economy credits directly buffer currency video game game developer sheppard mullin industry team game developers game industry mullin richter facebook credits directly sheppard mullin richter game industry team video game industry ]]>VentureBeat
First shared by - robdiana
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Shawn Foust is head of the video game industry team at law firm Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP.

Facebook Credits are here, and they're sparking quite a bit of debate. Credits are the virtual currency that Facebook hopes third-party game makers will use so that there's a single, consistent currency across all the games in the Facebook community. But if you're going to use Credits, you not only have to pay Facebook a 30 percent cut of any transaction you make with the currency, you also have to keep to some pretty stringent terms dictated by Facebook.

The terms are simultaneously very broad and very narrow. They're broad in the sense that they establish a comprehensive set of regulations governing the implementation of Facebook Credits but narrow in the sense that those regulations only apply to Facebook Credits. The terms do not provide a comprehensive framework for all forms of in-game currency.

That's an important distinction.

The terms only have power so long as Facebook Credits are in play. If you take the Credits out of the equation by exchanging them for your own currency, many of the rules and restrictions are no longer applicable. So the solution for game developers is to accept Facebook Credits but not abandon your own currency.

Specifically, here are a few select things the terms explicitly prohibit you from doing with Facebook Credits:

  • You will not (and you will not enable or allow any third party to) sell Credits to, or trade or otherwise exchange Credits with, any third party.
  • You may not accept Credits as payment for tangible goods, except in the Facebook Gift Shop.
  • You may not accept Credits as payment for a currency or other stored value item that can be used outside of the application.

Further, you as the game developer are not the Facebook Credits mint. That means you lose a lot of practical control:

  • You do not control the supply of Credits. That means you cannot offer a sale or giveaway of Facebook Credits (the Terms prohibit you from transferring or trading Credits to a third party). You cannot summarily issue 1000 Facebook Credits to your users to spark interest in your game. You cannot distribute Facebook Credits to the masses and live in a post-currency narco-syndicalist commune. Facebook controls the generation and distribution of Facebook Credits, not you.
  • You cannot lock in value. Facebook Credits are a fungible good that can be used in any application that accepts credits. If a person purchases $100 in Facebook Credits with the intention of purchasing things in your application, if they only spend $80, the remaining $20 is free to go elsewhere.
  • Credits can abandon you. Facebook retains the right to revoke your eligibility to accept Credits at any time in [its] sole discretion. That means your economy can get up and walk away in an instant.

So why not walk away from Facebook Credits? Well, it's a payment option that resides natively on your lifeline platform. I'm not going out on a limb in guessing that Facebook Credits will quickly develop into a robust and flexible payment services option that will play an important role in the social game ecosystem. You probably don't want to walk away from that.

So why your own currency?
As mentioned previously, the current terms don't extend beyond Facebook Credits. So creating your own in-game currency frees the game developer from constraints while still permitting them access to an important option for payment services.

Since your currency is not subject to the terms, you have full control over its use (subject to Facebook's Developer Policies and Statement of Rights of course). For example, you can permit trading of your currency between players within an application, which is prohibited for Credits. That means Little Jill Jellybean can send Disaster Dollars to her friend so the friend can buy spent fuel rods in Uranium Enrichment City. Perhaps that inspires the friend to play more and convert into a paid user later on.

More importantly, you have control over your in-game economy. If you want to give away Disaster Dollars to a loyal user, you can. If you want to run a contest with an award of Disaster Dollars, there's no problem. None of this is possible if you implement Facebook Credits directly into your game since the only source for Facebook Credits is Facebook.

You also can build in a safeguard from having the plug pulled. If you implement your own in-game currency you can offer your users a variety of options for the purchase of that currency other than Facebook (such as Paypal or Offerpal). Thus, if Facebook decides you are unworthy of Facebook Credits your game still has a viable means for monetization. If you rely solely on Facebook Credits you're at the mercy of the eligibility clause.

Further, offering multiple options creates a greater possibility that a particular user will find one that appeals to him or her. Users with a preference for Facebook Credits may use that option. Alternatively, if a user has a pre-existing relationship with another payment services provider and would prefer to use that provider, they can. Help them help you make money. It's not asking too much.

How do I set up my own currency?
You permit the user to purchase only one thing with Facebook Credits: your currency. Once the users have exchanged Facebook Credits for your currency, they can participate in the broader game economy. There should be no direct purchase of any items or anything other than your currency with Facebook Credits.

Once the exchange is made, you've locked up the value of those Credits in your own currency, ensuring it won't move off to another application. You also introduced the user to an economy where you control the rules. And, as most game developers will tell you, few things are more important to a game than a well structured economy. The economy can dictate the tempo of the game and can have dramatic effects on a user's interaction with the content. Normally it wouldn't be something a developer would consider ceding control over.

So there's the case for your own currency. There are arguments against, of course. Some argue that creating a separate currency is confusing and creates additional friction. Others argue that implementing Facebook Credits directly is good for the reputation of the game. I'm sympathetic to these arguments, but I find them unpersuasive in light of the root issue: direct implementation of Facebook Credits without a buffer currency effectively shifts control of a critical aspect of your game (which is often the main source of monetization) to a third party with potentially different incentives. Not good.

A buffer currency allows you to leverage a powerful new player in the payment services space while retaining control and flexibility.

Shawn Foust is an attorney with Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton's Silicon Valley and Century City offices and head of the firm's video game industry team. He focuses on tackling the cutting edge legal issues facing businesses in the entertainment, new media, and technology industries. He handles a blend of intellectual property licensing/litigation and emerging growth finance work.

Tags:

Companies:

People:







credits facebook currency game control credits facebook currency game control terms user payment economy third means party application services developer users cannot accept facebook credits own currency third party payment services disaster dollars accept credits game currency shawn foust game economy credits directly buffer currency video game game developer sheppard mullin industry team game developers game industry mullin richter facebook credits directly sheppard mullin richter game industry team video game industry ]]> Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:55:26 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,2 Android 2.2 Download Now Available For HTC EVO [Android] http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/41bC59_DwzE/android-22-download-now-available-for-htc-evo Shared item Gizmodo
First shared by - Lucid00
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Android 2.2 is supposed to roll out to the Sprint EVO next week, but it looks like there's a direct download already available through HTC. Here's how to get it: More




android evo htc download direct ]]>Gizmodo
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Android 2.2 is supposed to roll out to the Sprint EVO next week, but it looks like there's a direct download already available through HTC. Here's how to get it: More




android evo htc download direct ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 20:15:28 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,3 Clicky Adds Video Analytics and Offers Direct Vidder Connection http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Centernetworks-/~3/NmmE7DR7Zwk/clicky-adds-video-analytics-and-offers-direct-vidder-connection Shared item CenterNetworks
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Web analytics service Clicky has announced the launch of their video analytics service which is part of the overall Clicky web analytics platform. Clicky has integrated directly with video hosting company Viddler and provides the ability to track videos from YouTube and Vimeo as well.

The Viddler integration will go live sometime in August as Clicky notes that the Viddler team has some additional work on their end before the connection is made live. The Viddler integration will not require you do anything different to make sure the video stats reach Clicky.

To use the YouTube connection with Clicky, there is a bit of work involved. You can read about the changes to your blog or website that must be added on the Clicky help site. It addition, the way you embed videos is different than just copying and pasting the code directly from YouTube into your blog. The same goes for Vimeoyou would need to add some code to your templates and then change the way you insert videos into your blog or website.

Here's an example of the stats page:

Note we are an affiliate for Clicky but none of the links in this post are affiliate links.


Find more stories about: , , , ,


CenterNetworks Partner: Get your business cards scanned and transcribed with CloudContacts.



clicky viddler analytics video blog clicky viddler video analytics viddler integration analytics service web analytics video analytics ]]>CenterNetworks
First shared by - robdiana
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Web analytics service Clicky has announced the launch of their video analytics service which is part of the overall Clicky web analytics platform. Clicky has integrated directly with video hosting company Viddler and provides the ability to track videos from YouTube and Vimeo as well.

The Viddler integration will go live sometime in August as Clicky notes that the Viddler team has some additional work on their end before the connection is made live. The Viddler integration will not require you do anything different to make sure the video stats reach Clicky.

To use the YouTube connection with Clicky, there is a bit of work involved. You can read about the changes to your blog or website that must be added on the Clicky help site. It addition, the way you embed videos is different than just copying and pasting the code directly from YouTube into your blog. The same goes for Vimeoyou would need to add some code to your templates and then change the way you insert videos into your blog or website.

Here's an example of the stats page:

Note we are an affiliate for Clicky but none of the links in this post are affiliate links.


Find more stories about: , , , ,


CenterNetworks Partner: Get your business cards scanned and transcribed with CloudContacts.



clicky viddler analytics video blog clicky viddler video analytics viddler integration analytics service web analytics video analytics ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:45:35 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,4 Lessons Learned From Maintaining a WordPress Plug-In http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/07/30/lessons-learned-from-maintaining-a-wordpress-plug-in/ Shared item Smashing Magazine Feed
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Recently I released a WordPress plugin for Google Analytics that adds a tracking code and dozens of various pieces of meta data to blogs. Since the release of version 4, I've updated it 6 times, to the point where it's now at version 4.0.6. In this article I would like to share with you my experiences in maintaining this and other WordPress plug-ins and common good practices that I've distilled from that work.

The updates that I released had a couple of purposes, ranging from bug fixes to new features and fixes in documentation. While all of these are nice to talk about, the bug fixes are the ones you'll learn the most from, so let's start by going through these.

Website and Account Configuration

Almost as soon as I released the plug-in, people who updated were telling me that it worked wonderfully, and others were telling me that it didn't work for them. Turns out I hadn't tested the plug-in with a Google Analytics account that has only one website registered; I expected the websites to be an array. Fixing this bug was easy, but determining that this was the problem took a while.

Being able to log into a few hosts of people who gave me access to their back end and FTP so that I could test my fix proved invaluable. This enabled me to release 4.0.1 within an hour of the 4.0 release.

Another mistake I made was forcing everyone to reconfigure the plug-in. I assumed it wouldn't be too much work for people, and it wanted to be sure the settings were clean, but it turns out quite a few people didn't want to reconfigure. With 4.0.2, I came up with a way to inherit some of the settings and clean up the mess I made, and in 4.0.4 I made a change that I will add to all of my plug-ins:


Large view

Good practice #1: Don't assume anything about people's websites and external accounts.

Versioning Option Arrays

As a seasoned WordPress developer, I store all of the options for my plug-in in one option in the database, which is basically a big array. Why I hadn't ever added a version number to these options is a mystery to me. Doing so makes it possible to do some very cool things: I can now add new features and set a default for these new features as soon as a user upgrades; I can show the user different messages based on the version they had before they upgraded; and more.

Good practice #2: Add a version number to your option arrays.

I'm still not using the WordPress option API stuff (check out this post by Ozh to learn all about it), which I probably should, but for now I find it easier to handle the saving and validation of options myself.

Don't Release Too Soon

If you've got a bug that's bugging a lot of your plug-in's users, you'll probably want to release a bug fix as soon as possible. I know I do. This caused an issue with my 4.0.3 release, though, because I didn't properly test some of the code I introduced, causing me to have to release 4.0.4 just two hours later to fix a stupid mistake I'd made with booleans. Nothing is as painful as 500 people downloading a version of your plug-in that doesn't actually work.

Good practice #3: Test, test, test before you release, even when you're in a hurry.

Know Which Version People Are On

Over the past two weeks, I've been helping several people who said they were on the latest version of my plug-in but in fact were not. To remedy this, I've started outputting the version number in the comment that the plug-in outputs before the tracking code. Problem is, if people run a plug-in such as W3 Total Cache (which everyone should use by the way) or anything else that minifies their output, that comment will get lost.

There's a solution for that, too: I'd already wrapped the script in <CDATA> tags, to help with Strict XHTML validation. Minifying will not occur within those CDATA tags, so I moved my branding comment to the CDATA section, and I can now always see, first, that my plug-in is active and, secondly, which version of the plug-in they're using.

Good practice #4: Make sure you can see which version of your plug-in people are running.

URLs in WordPress

One of these things that can generate pretty awful bugs is a blog's URL. Whether it's due to people running their entire blog on https or simply running their blog in a sub-directory, it can cause headaches. It did for me in version 4.0.2 when I added URL sanitization: all relative URLs in posts and text widgets starting with a / were made absolute, in order to properly track these URLs. Tiny issue: I forgot about blogs in sub-directories, so a tiny portion of people would end up with links that used to go to /home but that now went to http://example.com/blog/home. I know, that was stupid; but that's why I'm telling you: so you don't make the same mistake.

Good practice #5: Make sure all URLs you use will work in all circumstances, whether WordPress is in a sub-directory, on a subdomain or just in the root.

Writing to the Root Directory

Somewhat related to the last issue, although I encountered this while developing my WordPress SEO plug-in, not the Google Analytics plug-in: if you write a file say, an XML site map file to the root of a website, and the website is actually a WordPress multi-site installation, things can go horribly wrong.

Check out the following scenario:

  1. User 1 writes and publishes a post on example.com/blog-1/.
  2. An updated XML site map for example.com/blog-1/ is generated, and example.com/sitemap.xml is updated.
  3. User 2 writes and publishes a post on example.com/blog-2/.
  4. An updated XML site map for example.com/blog-2/ is generated and example.com/sitemap.xml is overwritten.

See what just happened? The XML site map now contains only the posts from blog-2 This is exactly why the wp-content directory was created. There's hardly ever a need to put a file in the root of an installation, and by not doing so, you make it far easier to run your plug-in in a multi-site/WordPress MU environment.

Good practice #6: If you're generating files, generate them in the wp-content directory of your blog. Do not write files to the root directory unless you absolutely, positively have to. And if you do have to do it, make sure it doesn't go wrong when your plug-in is active on multiple blogs in the same multi-site instance.

Rethink Your Filters

On the day that I released 4.0, I got quite a few feature requests, ranging from very simple to somewhat more complex. One that came in quite rapidly and caught my eye happened to be quite simple: the user wanted the same outbound link that in my plug-in tracks the content of an article to track in text widgets. Because I don't use text widgets that much, it never occurred to me to do this. It was a valuable lesson, though:


Large view

Good practice #7: If you're filtering content, try to filter it in as many places as you can, so that users get consistent results all over WordPress.

[Offtopic: By the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has a mobile version? Try it out if you have an iPhone, Blackberry or another capable device.]

Never Assume

It's true for everything, I guess, but especially true for WordPress developers: never assume. The seven best practices above mostly boil down to abandoning all assumptions about states, URLs and locations, and even about people knowing which version of a plug-in they're using. Take all these matters into your own hands; your plug-in will be the better for it!

(al)

Joost de Valk for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: ,



plug version wordpress blog release plug version wordpress blog release site practice example user urls post test updated root work directory content quite released website sure comment site map xml site multi site google analytics text widgets version number smashing magazine sitemap xml content directory updated xml test test plug ins tracking code bug fixes large viewgood wordpress plug viewgood practice sub directory large viewgood practice ]]>Smashing Magazine Feed
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Recently I released a WordPress plugin for Google Analytics that adds a tracking code and dozens of various pieces of meta data to blogs. Since the release of version 4, I've updated it 6 times, to the point where it's now at version 4.0.6. In this article I would like to share with you my experiences in maintaining this and other WordPress plug-ins and common good practices that I've distilled from that work.

The updates that I released had a couple of purposes, ranging from bug fixes to new features and fixes in documentation. While all of these are nice to talk about, the bug fixes are the ones you'll learn the most from, so let's start by going through these.

Website and Account Configuration

Almost as soon as I released the plug-in, people who updated were telling me that it worked wonderfully, and others were telling me that it didn't work for them. Turns out I hadn't tested the plug-in with a Google Analytics account that has only one website registered; I expected the websites to be an array. Fixing this bug was easy, but determining that this was the problem took a while.

Being able to log into a few hosts of people who gave me access to their back end and FTP so that I could test my fix proved invaluable. This enabled me to release 4.0.1 within an hour of the 4.0 release.

Another mistake I made was forcing everyone to reconfigure the plug-in. I assumed it wouldn't be too much work for people, and it wanted to be sure the settings were clean, but it turns out quite a few people didn't want to reconfigure. With 4.0.2, I came up with a way to inherit some of the settings and clean up the mess I made, and in 4.0.4 I made a change that I will add to all of my plug-ins:


Large view

Good practice #1: Don't assume anything about people's websites and external accounts.

Versioning Option Arrays

As a seasoned WordPress developer, I store all of the options for my plug-in in one option in the database, which is basically a big array. Why I hadn't ever added a version number to these options is a mystery to me. Doing so makes it possible to do some very cool things: I can now add new features and set a default for these new features as soon as a user upgrades; I can show the user different messages based on the version they had before they upgraded; and more.

Good practice #2: Add a version number to your option arrays.

I'm still not using the WordPress option API stuff (check out this post by Ozh to learn all about it), which I probably should, but for now I find it easier to handle the saving and validation of options myself.

Don't Release Too Soon

If you've got a bug that's bugging a lot of your plug-in's users, you'll probably want to release a bug fix as soon as possible. I know I do. This caused an issue with my 4.0.3 release, though, because I didn't properly test some of the code I introduced, causing me to have to release 4.0.4 just two hours later to fix a stupid mistake I'd made with booleans. Nothing is as painful as 500 people downloading a version of your plug-in that doesn't actually work.

Good practice #3: Test, test, test before you release, even when you're in a hurry.

Know Which Version People Are On

Over the past two weeks, I've been helping several people who said they were on the latest version of my plug-in but in fact were not. To remedy this, I've started outputting the version number in the comment that the plug-in outputs before the tracking code. Problem is, if people run a plug-in such as W3 Total Cache (which everyone should use by the way) or anything else that minifies their output, that comment will get lost.

There's a solution for that, too: I'd already wrapped the script in <CDATA> tags, to help with Strict XHTML validation. Minifying will not occur within those CDATA tags, so I moved my branding comment to the CDATA section, and I can now always see, first, that my plug-in is active and, secondly, which version of the plug-in they're using.

Good practice #4: Make sure you can see which version of your plug-in people are running.

URLs in WordPress

One of these things that can generate pretty awful bugs is a blog's URL. Whether it's due to people running their entire blog on https or simply running their blog in a sub-directory, it can cause headaches. It did for me in version 4.0.2 when I added URL sanitization: all relative URLs in posts and text widgets starting with a / were made absolute, in order to properly track these URLs. Tiny issue: I forgot about blogs in sub-directories, so a tiny portion of people would end up with links that used to go to /home but that now went to http://example.com/blog/home. I know, that was stupid; but that's why I'm telling you: so you don't make the same mistake.

Good practice #5: Make sure all URLs you use will work in all circumstances, whether WordPress is in a sub-directory, on a subdomain or just in the root.

Writing to the Root Directory

Somewhat related to the last issue, although I encountered this while developing my WordPress SEO plug-in, not the Google Analytics plug-in: if you write a file say, an XML site map file to the root of a website, and the website is actually a WordPress multi-site installation, things can go horribly wrong.

Check out the following scenario:

  1. User 1 writes and publishes a post on example.com/blog-1/.
  2. An updated XML site map for example.com/blog-1/ is generated, and example.com/sitemap.xml is updated.
  3. User 2 writes and publishes a post on example.com/blog-2/.
  4. An updated XML site map for example.com/blog-2/ is generated and example.com/sitemap.xml is overwritten.

See what just happened? The XML site map now contains only the posts from blog-2 This is exactly why the wp-content directory was created. There's hardly ever a need to put a file in the root of an installation, and by not doing so, you make it far easier to run your plug-in in a multi-site/WordPress MU environment.

Good practice #6: If you're generating files, generate them in the wp-content directory of your blog. Do not write files to the root directory unless you absolutely, positively have to. And if you do have to do it, make sure it doesn't go wrong when your plug-in is active on multiple blogs in the same multi-site instance.

Rethink Your Filters

On the day that I released 4.0, I got quite a few feature requests, ranging from very simple to somewhat more complex. One that came in quite rapidly and caught my eye happened to be quite simple: the user wanted the same outbound link that in my plug-in tracks the content of an article to track in text widgets. Because I don't use text widgets that much, it never occurred to me to do this. It was a valuable lesson, though:


Large view

Good practice #7: If you're filtering content, try to filter it in as many places as you can, so that users get consistent results all over WordPress.

[Offtopic: By the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has a mobile version? Try it out if you have an iPhone, Blackberry or another capable device.]

Never Assume

It's true for everything, I guess, but especially true for WordPress developers: never assume. The seven best practices above mostly boil down to abandoning all assumptions about states, URLs and locations, and even about people knowing which version of a plug-in they're using. Take all these matters into your own hands; your plug-in will be the better for it!

(al)

Joost de Valk for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
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plug version wordpress blog release plug version wordpress blog release site practice example user urls post test updated root work directory content quite released website sure comment site map xml site multi site google analytics text widgets version number smashing magazine sitemap xml content directory updated xml test test plug ins tracking code bug fixes large viewgood wordpress plug viewgood practice sub directory large viewgood practice ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 12:30:44 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,5 7 Ways Real-Life Crime Fighting Mirrors "Minority Report" http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fastcompany/headlines/~3/ect9He6oZTw/minority-report-7-ways-crimefighting-tech Shared item Fast Company
First shared by - Avi
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From Facebook to facial recognition, the police state imagined in the Tom Cruise flick feels a bit more real every day.

Steven Spielberg's Minority Report wowed audiences with its futuristic tech: flashy hand-gesture computers, flex-screen displays, holograms, and Lexus-designed auto-piloted vehicles. The sci-fi flick also showed the world a dystopian, draconian picture of a crime-free society: "precogs" predicting murders, eye-scanners dotting the streets and subways, a jet-pack-toting police force, and a public seemingly deprived of any right to privacy. Spielberg envisioned this for 2054, but advances in technology are bringing that future sooner and sooner. Here's a look at some of our own sci-fi crime fighting tools.

1. Blue CRUSH IBM's new Blue Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History (CRUSH) programs feels almost directly inspired by Minority Report. Similar to the "precogs," IBM's new system uses "predictive analytics," mining years and years of incident reports and law enforcement data to "forecast criminal 'hot spots.'" Police in Memphis have already had great success with the $11-billion "precrime" predicting tool: Since installing Blue CRUSH, the city has seen a 31% drop in serious crime.

2. Facebook There's no escaping the system when we've all voluntarily tapped into it. With Facebook having some 500 million registered users, the social network is quickly becoming a powerful source of data for the police, who can scan profiles for suspect clues. Only this week, law enforcement used Facebook to nab a murder suspect through photos posted on his page. Witnesses were able to independently ID the alleged killer using these pictures alone, which the city police chief called "ironclad" evidence. And this isn't the first time. In 2009, an escaped criminal used Facebook to taunt police while on the lamb, posting pictures of himself flaunting his freedom--before he was soon caught.

3. Google Maps Internet crime updates such as Gothamist's incident map now allow the public to track the police blotter next-to-real-time. But it's not just concerned citizens and nosy neighbors who are plugging into Google's mapping tech. Google Earth has given law enforcement access to satellite imagery, enabling them to track down criminals from the sky. In Sweden, for example, police were able to zoom down close enough to discover a two-acre marijuana plantation, leading to the arrest of 16 perps and the seizure of 1.2 tons of pot. Drug-sniffing dogs are now a thing of the past.

4. OnStar In the film, all vehicles are auto-piloted along tracks and can be controlled by law enforcement. When scanners detect a wanted criminal entering a car, police can automatically pull the vehicle over. Looks like this directly inspired OnStar's Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology. The system enables customers and police to locate a stolen car using GPS, depower the vehicle, and watch as it glides to safety along the side of the road, ending any chance for a high speed chase. Did I mention OnStar even force-locks the doors until police can arrive?

[youtube ZIIM8rw0au8]

5. Scanners, Everywhere The days of comical-disguises are numbered for Boris and Natasha, who will have to figure out another way to get past airport security. New facial recognition scanners such as the one installed last year in London enable airport security to measure "points on a person's face and compare them with [their] digital passport photograph." Of course, law enforcement isn't only tracking you by air. Automatic number plate recognition technology is becoming more ubiquitous, allowing police to monitor you real-time, even when they're not looking.

6. Drones A bill circling the House of Representatives aims to legalize unmanned aerial vehicles to fly over domestic skies for enhanced border security and oil pipeline monitoring. British units are already using UAVs to keep watch of its citizens, which would perhaps raise more questions over privacy violations if London wasn't already chock-full of CCTV cams.

[youtube s79QlJGQKks]

7. Mii? Easily the best Minority Report-like tool, however, comes courtesy of Nintendo. In Japan, police searching for a hit-and-run suspect put up wanted posters around town, but they didn't have the perp's photograph. Instead, they just used his Mii image. So if you happen to run into him at the Wii resort, be sure to alert the proper authorities. (On second thought, this could just be awesome viral marketing.)




police crime enforcement facebook law police crime enforcement facebook minority scanners real law enforcement minority report airport security used facebook directly inspired blue crush facial recognition auto piloted crime fighting ]]>Fast Company
First shared by - Avi
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From Facebook to facial recognition, the police state imagined in the Tom Cruise flick feels a bit more real every day.

Steven Spielberg's Minority Report wowed audiences with its futuristic tech: flashy hand-gesture computers, flex-screen displays, holograms, and Lexus-designed auto-piloted vehicles. The sci-fi flick also showed the world a dystopian, draconian picture of a crime-free society: "precogs" predicting murders, eye-scanners dotting the streets and subways, a jet-pack-toting police force, and a public seemingly deprived of any right to privacy. Spielberg envisioned this for 2054, but advances in technology are bringing that future sooner and sooner. Here's a look at some of our own sci-fi crime fighting tools.

1. Blue CRUSH IBM's new Blue Crime Reduction Utilizing Statistical History (CRUSH) programs feels almost directly inspired by Minority Report. Similar to the "precogs," IBM's new system uses "predictive analytics," mining years and years of incident reports and law enforcement data to "forecast criminal 'hot spots.'" Police in Memphis have already had great success with the $11-billion "precrime" predicting tool: Since installing Blue CRUSH, the city has seen a 31% drop in serious crime.

2. Facebook There's no escaping the system when we've all voluntarily tapped into it. With Facebook having some 500 million registered users, the social network is quickly becoming a powerful source of data for the police, who can scan profiles for suspect clues. Only this week, law enforcement used Facebook to nab a murder suspect through photos posted on his page. Witnesses were able to independently ID the alleged killer using these pictures alone, which the city police chief called "ironclad" evidence. And this isn't the first time. In 2009, an escaped criminal used Facebook to taunt police while on the lamb, posting pictures of himself flaunting his freedom--before he was soon caught.

3. Google Maps Internet crime updates such as Gothamist's incident map now allow the public to track the police blotter next-to-real-time. But it's not just concerned citizens and nosy neighbors who are plugging into Google's mapping tech. Google Earth has given law enforcement access to satellite imagery, enabling them to track down criminals from the sky. In Sweden, for example, police were able to zoom down close enough to discover a two-acre marijuana plantation, leading to the arrest of 16 perps and the seizure of 1.2 tons of pot. Drug-sniffing dogs are now a thing of the past.

4. OnStar In the film, all vehicles are auto-piloted along tracks and can be controlled by law enforcement. When scanners detect a wanted criminal entering a car, police can automatically pull the vehicle over. Looks like this directly inspired OnStar's Stolen Vehicle Slowdown technology. The system enables customers and police to locate a stolen car using GPS, depower the vehicle, and watch as it glides to safety along the side of the road, ending any chance for a high speed chase. Did I mention OnStar even force-locks the doors until police can arrive?

[youtube ZIIM8rw0au8]

5. Scanners, Everywhere The days of comical-disguises are numbered for Boris and Natasha, who will have to figure out another way to get past airport security. New facial recognition scanners such as the one installed last year in London enable airport security to measure "points on a person's face and compare them with [their] digital passport photograph." Of course, law enforcement isn't only tracking you by air. Automatic number plate recognition technology is becoming more ubiquitous, allowing police to monitor you real-time, even when they're not looking.

6. Drones A bill circling the House of Representatives aims to legalize unmanned aerial vehicles to fly over domestic skies for enhanced border security and oil pipeline monitoring. British units are already using UAVs to keep watch of its citizens, which would perhaps raise more questions over privacy violations if London wasn't already chock-full of CCTV cams.

[youtube s79QlJGQKks]

7. Mii? Easily the best Minority Report-like tool, however, comes courtesy of Nintendo. In Japan, police searching for a hit-and-run suspect put up wanted posters around town, but they didn't have the perp's photograph. Instead, they just used his Mii image. So if you happen to run into him at the Wii resort, be sure to alert the proper authorities. (On second thought, this could just be awesome viral marketing.)




police crime enforcement facebook law police crime enforcement facebook minority scanners real law enforcement minority report airport security used facebook directly inspired blue crush facial recognition auto piloted crime fighting ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 11:01:09 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,6 Microsoft tablets - straight from Ballmer http://www.infrageeks.com/groups/infrageeks/weblog/f521b/ Shared item Search results in infrageeks
First shared by - StephenFoskett
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The Loop: During the question period, Ballmer said Microsoft's tablet will be made with Intel processors and Windows 7, instead of its mobile Windows platform.

We're coming, he said. We're coming full guns. The operating system is called Windows.

Sigh. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result? The reason the iPad is doing so well is that it's an entirely new take on how to interact with a device in this form factor, from the UI, to the application provisioning, to the administration (or more specificaly, the lack thereof).

A Windows based tablet inherits all of the faults of the Windows desktop environment. It's the user's responsibility to manage security, to manage anti-virus, to manage a firewall and so on. This will definitely appeal to the enterprise market with complete mature device management based on Active Directory, WSUS and internal software distribution tools.

But this does not represent the requirements of the general public. Up until now, they've been following the IT direction for the simple reason that it's what they were exposed to most of the time and learning how to manage an entirely new environment, be it OS X or Linux represented a serious investment of time and energy. The iPad does away with all of this with a UI that is immediately usable without any appreciable training requirement and zero management overhead.

The advantage of a Windows tablet environment is that it will be more "open" and flexible in that there is no gatekeeper on the software front, but for the general public, that's not necessarily a good thing since most Windows applications will not be optimized for this form factor since the mass of the Windows market is about the desktop. Which will make for an even worse user experience than Windows on the desktop.

So it's a given that there will be Windows and Android tablets for christmas, it's going to be interesting to see just how well they will sell into the general public. With any luck there will be at least a few credible competitors to keep Apple on its toes and pushing the envelope.

Next gen iPad?

There's been some rumors that Apple will release a new iPad with camera(s) for christmas, but unless another tablet maker hits one out of the park and forces Apple's hand, I suspect that we'll be seeing a repeat of the iPhone annual release model. iPads in the spring, iPhones in the summer, iPods in the fall seems to be a fairly solid structure at the moment that lends itself well to predictable internal development cycles and logistics development so that there aren't multiple massive product changes hitting the market simultaneously.

So then : what mystery product does Apple have slotted for the winter release slot?



windows tablet manage ipad apple windows manage ipad tablet general public ]]>Search results in infrageeks
First shared by - StephenFoskett
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

The Loop: During the question period, Ballmer said Microsoft's tablet will be made with Intel processors and Windows 7, instead of its mobile Windows platform.

We're coming, he said. We're coming full guns. The operating system is called Windows.

Sigh. Isn't the definition of insanity doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result? The reason the iPad is doing so well is that it's an entirely new take on how to interact with a device in this form factor, from the UI, to the application provisioning, to the administration (or more specificaly, the lack thereof).

A Windows based tablet inherits all of the faults of the Windows desktop environment. It's the user's responsibility to manage security, to manage anti-virus, to manage a firewall and so on. This will definitely appeal to the enterprise market with complete mature device management based on Active Directory, WSUS and internal software distribution tools.

But this does not represent the requirements of the general public. Up until now, they've been following the IT direction for the simple reason that it's what they were exposed to most of the time and learning how to manage an entirely new environment, be it OS X or Linux represented a serious investment of time and energy. The iPad does away with all of this with a UI that is immediately usable without any appreciable training requirement and zero management overhead.

The advantage of a Windows tablet environment is that it will be more "open" and flexible in that there is no gatekeeper on the software front, but for the general public, that's not necessarily a good thing since most Windows applications will not be optimized for this form factor since the mass of the Windows market is about the desktop. Which will make for an even worse user experience than Windows on the desktop.

So it's a given that there will be Windows and Android tablets for christmas, it's going to be interesting to see just how well they will sell into the general public. With any luck there will be at least a few credible competitors to keep Apple on its toes and pushing the envelope.

Next gen iPad?

There's been some rumors that Apple will release a new iPad with camera(s) for christmas, but unless another tablet maker hits one out of the park and forces Apple's hand, I suspect that we'll be seeing a repeat of the iPhone annual release model. iPads in the spring, iPhones in the summer, iPods in the fall seems to be a fairly solid structure at the moment that lends itself well to predictable internal development cycles and logistics development so that there aren't multiple massive product changes hitting the market simultaneously.

So then : what mystery product does Apple have slotted for the winter release slot?



windows tablet manage ipad apple windows manage ipad tablet general public ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:00:29 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,7 Directory lists businesses that are based on sharing and participation http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/springwise/~3/NzggxSdlWrA/ Shared item Springwise
First shared by - chrisbrogan
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Regular Springwise readers are already familiar with transumers and the many ways in which they share and exchange goods without ever having to own them. The Mesh Directory is an online network that attempts to encapsulate that trend, aggregating all the many companies that now create, share and use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright, in the site's own words.

Similar in many ways to Milk or Sugar, the Mesh Directory provides a freely searchable index of some 1,500 companies that are helping to enable the new sharing economy. Designed as a companion site to a forthcoming book on the same topic, the directory allows users to browse alphabetically or by category as well; among the categories included are transportation, fashion, food, real estate, travel, finance and entertainment. Provided for each company on the list are its URL and contact information along with a description of its offerings; there's also an option for companies not already on the list to request to be added. Included on the list, incidentally, are numerous alumni of our pages, including Kisskissbankbank, RelayRides, thredUP, Kickstarter and Aakash Ganga.

Given the rapid growth and far-reaching impact of many consumer trends, figuring out what's already out there can be a considerable challenge. Where else might web users need some guidance navigating new ground...? (Related: First magazine for green weddings Product portal for independent retailers Online library of green building materials.)

Website: www.meshing.it
Contact: info@meshing.it

Spotted by: Jon Wisler




directory list companies contact new directory mesh directory ]]>Springwise
First shared by - chrisbrogan
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Regular Springwise readers are already familiar with transumers and the many ways in which they share and exchange goods without ever having to own them. The Mesh Directory is an online network that attempts to encapsulate that trend, aggregating all the many companies that now create, share and use social media, wireless networks, and data crunched from every available source to provide people with goods and services at the exact moment they need them, without the burden and expense of owning them outright, in the site's own words.

Similar in many ways to Milk or Sugar, the Mesh Directory provides a freely searchable index of some 1,500 companies that are helping to enable the new sharing economy. Designed as a companion site to a forthcoming book on the same topic, the directory allows users to browse alphabetically or by category as well; among the categories included are transportation, fashion, food, real estate, travel, finance and entertainment. Provided for each company on the list are its URL and contact information along with a description of its offerings; there's also an option for companies not already on the list to request to be added. Included on the list, incidentally, are numerous alumni of our pages, including Kisskissbankbank, RelayRides, thredUP, Kickstarter and Aakash Ganga.

Given the rapid growth and far-reaching impact of many consumer trends, figuring out what's already out there can be a considerable challenge. Where else might web users need some guidance navigating new ground...? (Related: First magazine for green weddings Product portal for independent retailers Online library of green building materials.)

Website: www.meshing.it
Contact: info@meshing.it

Spotted by: Jon Wisler




directory list companies contact new directory mesh directory ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 09:40:14 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,8 Moving Your Mind Into Vim Mode http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/wekeroad/EeKc/~3/Zy9dg3LQhA4/vim-is-your-daddy Shared item Rob Conerys Blog
First shared by - Proto
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You Won't Like It

If you haven't used Vim before and you're looking to learn it - it's kind of like a first taste of coffee. Or beer. It's bitter, not particularly sweet, and you get pretty damn tired of people talking about how much they love it rather quickly.

But then the buzz kicks in. The buzz of "hey - you know when you get used to it - you kind of like it... and HOLY SH** I can sling some text now!". That's what I read in Yehuda's post, at least.

See there - I did it again - even while writing about that very aspect that you (if you're new to Vim) will probably not like: me crowing about how much I like it. Sorry - let's start again.

No Really - You Won't Like It. Unless...

Here's how typical coversations go with friends who code Ruby in TextMate:

Them: "So I see you're getting into Vim. What do you like about it so much?"

Me: "Well - Vim's focus is on editing, not text entry and"

Them: "Huh? What does that even mean?"

Me: "That you spend more time editing than you do writing"

Them: "Oh. Well I'm pretty happy with TextMate. You should write a blog about Vim."

Me: "I have."

Them: "Well maybe write about what you like about it."

Me: "I have"

Them: "Hmm - well I didn't get it. Maybe write a better one."

... which lands us at the feet of Yehuda's post. Vim is a hard thing to talk about - it's not terribly pretty, has a pretty hard-core "geek legacy", and is probably the most unwelcoming first experience you could want to have. Imagine trying to explain just how good Racer 5 IPA is (or better yet Deschutes Inversion IPA) to a person who's never tasted beer!

Yes, I just compared Vim to beer. In fact I've done it twice. I know that for the Vim-curious users out there this is going to sound strange - but it's the mindset I'm going to get into today - so let's get to it.

Sit back while I open up the tab - I have a frosty pint of Vim comin your way...

Vim Smells Weird

It's not like any text editor you've used. It's not like TextMate, it's not an IDE. It looks like the terminal (or console if you're on windows) and indeed - typing "vim" into the terminal will launch it - right inside the terminal!

The best description I've heard with regards to Vim is from Dan Benjamin in the Peepcode "Smash into Vim" screencast:

"It's precise: you'll feel like a text surgeon"

I remember hearing that and thinking "what a weird thing to say" - but it's where I think I'd like to focus first.

Text Surgery

Most programmers understand that the bulk of coding an application comes after the application is first written. Debugging, refactoring, adding new functionality - this is the bulk of our work. This is what Vim is all about.

Vim's focus is on editing - and the mode you work in (I'll talk more about modes in a minute) most of the time is Normal mode. In this mode you don't enter text - but you can deftly edit it.

With the exception of Emacs - just about every code editor out there (including IDEs) focuses on text entry. The editing of the text is lumped into the entering of the text.

Vim turns this entire concept around - the entry of the text is set aside for when you need to do it - editing it comes first. I'm sure this sounds weird - let's dive into some examples. I'll be using GVim on windows - everything will work using MacVim as well if you're on a Mac.

Your First Drag of Vim

To say that Vim is not very welcoming is a bit of an understatement:

When windows devs see this - well let's just say it's the last impression they have of Vim. What to do next is just not apparent, the tildes, old-skool icons, and blocky Lucida Console font send most people running for their familiar IDEs.

Assuming you're still reading - let's try another sip and see what happens.

Another Sip - Not as Bad as The First

This is where it becomes apparent that we're not working in a typical code editor. There's no "project drawer" - no indication of other files, let alone where the hell you are.

Yet Vim works (sort of) with the concept of a "project" if you want it to. When you first open Vim, you'll be in a "Working Directory" - the "root" if you will in which all commands will run (like making directories, files and so on - more on that in a bit). If you've opened GVim using the icon on your desktop - you'll be in C:\Windows\system32. To verify this - enter ":pwd" (Present Working Directory) - the status window will tell you where you are.

Yah - weird. That's OK we can change that really quickly. It's worth noting here that Vim doesn't want to be opened with an icon; it's built to be opened from a terminal by entering "gvim" (or "mvim" if you're on a Mac). Doing it this way will auto-set your working directory to the current directory.

First - let's change the default startup. System32 is a bit ridiculous - right-click on the icon on the desktop and go to Properties. In there, set "Start in" to be something that makes sense - a "Projects" directory - or wherever you keep your code. Restart Vim.

Hey that wasn't so bad! We're moving forward... and feeling a bit light-headed (and after only 2 sips - Vim is fun!)

A Bigger Drink: Working With the File System

This is one thing I really like about Vim - you can manage files and directories rather easily right from within Vim. Now that you have Vim reopened in a directory that makes sense, let's do something fun.

First - let's confirm where we are: ":pwd". If you get stuck, ever, and can't enter commands and get lost - just hit ESCAPE. This will put you into normal mode where you can enter commands into Vim. You enter commands by pre-pending a colon - whenever you see ":" in front of something - I'm in normal mode and you should be to. It's a good habit to hit ESCAPE often to be sure of this.

Now let's create a directory 

:!mkdir my_project
If you feel like getting funky - and you have Rails installed: 
:!rails my_project

You should see the console pop up (if you're on windows) and some stuff happening - that's Vim executing some commands for you. Let's take a look at what happened: 

:edit .

You'll use this command a lot - when you want to see the files and directories in your working directory (or a subdirectory therein). Notice that you also have some handy commands at the very top

Take a second to read those commands - you can do a lot here. Deleting and Renaming are something you'll do quite often - so get to know those straight away. Already we've picked up a bit of speed over conventional editing - there's no mouse involved here! No right-click/add file, no file explorer to organize your project.

I know that a few people will want to tell me about NERDtree. I happen to like the built in file manager - but many people like the visuals of the NERDTree plugin. Investigate!

Now, let's drop into our project and start editing it. Move the cursor down to "my_project" and hit enter. This will open up the directory which is either empty - or filled with a Rails project depending on what you did. Now hit "c" - this will change our working directory to the current directory, and we're ready for more.

Round 2 - Editing Some Text

Well that one went down pretty easily didn't it! I know I know - it's hard to stop at just one :). Let's move on here and do a bit more - let's write some Ruby code.

To create a file - simply use ":edit" again - but this time enter the name of the file: 

:edit hello.rb
When you entered "." before you told Vim you wanted to edit the current directory - which you did! Well done. Now let's work some Ruby code.

The first thing you'll notice is that it's probably a bit hideous looking. If you're using the default settings - well it will be. Let's work the code for now, and I'll show you all kinds of magic in a bit (code-completion, snippets, highlighting, etc).

What you should see is an empty file, and your cursor should be a big block (which is a visual cue that you're in Normal mode):

In the status bar down below is the name of the file, to the right of it is where your cursor is in the file itself. Let's enter some code in here - to do this we need to change modes (more on modes in a minute) to INSERT mode. Do this by entering "i" - you should now see "-- INSERT --" in the status bar. If you don't, hit ESCAPE and "i" one more time. Now enter this: 

class Hello
  puts "hello there"
end
Hello.new

When you're done typing, a good habit to develop is to reflexively hit ESCAPE, putting you back into Normal mode. This has many benefits - such as when you say "oops!" and realize you need to change something - as you'll see in a minute.

To save this, you can do a number of things. You can do it the "Vim" way by telling Vim to write it to a file - ":w". You can also do it the "Windows" way by using Ctrl-s. If you're in MacVim you can use Command-S. Whichever one you like is up to you.

Now let's view our handy work: 

:!hello.rb

This command is going to execute our new file for us - the "!" hands the command off to the console. What you should see next is our groovy "hello there" demo:

Hey that was pretty fun! Vim's starting to go down a bit easier now - what the hell let's do it again! If you want to rerun the last command - enter ":" to put you on the command line, then up-arrow to bring up the last command.

This Stuff Is Strong! Getting Your Vim Editing Buzz On...

Now we have some text, we've seen how we can manage files and work the command line - but this isn't at all what Vim is good at. Let's take a look at some editing.

Before we do, however - I'd like to talk about something Yehuda mentioned in his post:

Carl convinced me to use vim for the first couple of days pretty much exactly as I use Texmate ... I installed NERDTree on MacVIM, grabbed the most common vim packages, and was off to the races... For the first day, I clunked around by using my mouse's scroll wheel, clicking and highlighting things, and spending most of my time in insert mode. It was slightly less productive than Textmate, but mostly in the range of what I'd expect switching to a new tool. In short, while I felt a bit out of sorts, I was able to get plenty of work done that first day.

That's right where we are - you've seen how to do basic things with Vim and also how to enter text. With a reasonable set of plugins - you'll be right where you were with TextMate in no time.

But we don't want to go home yet! We just ordered another round! And this one is going to be a ton of fun as we've realized we screwed up a bit when we first wrote out code. When do we not? Almost no one gets it right the first time - and this is where Vim shines.

We've also just received word from the client - they want something to say "goodbye" as well as hello - so let's get crackin!

Let's create the new file - a little faster this time (make sure to hit ESCAPE first): 

:edit goodbye.rb
i

and then our code... 

class Goodbye
  puts "goodbye to you!"
end
Goodbye.new

and save with Ctrl-s.

Now let's fix our screwup. The client noticed that we said "hello there" instead of a proper demo - which says "Hello World". We have to fix the casing and a word - so let's do it.

As with most things, there are many ways to accomplish this - and I'm sure in the comments below someone will offer something more efficient - which is great! I'll show the 3 or 4 things I'd try... would love to hear from others with respect to their tricks.

I need to go on a bit of a tangent, however, before we start editing. I keep telling you that I'll explain more about modes "in a bit" - well that bit is now, and I'll make it fast. Vim has a number of "modes" that it will go into, depending on what you need to do. If you need to enter text - you go into INSERT mode. This resets the keyboard and various command sets to augment insertion of text.

If you need to edit - which is what you do most of the time (make corrections, move stuff around, refactor) - you stay in NORMAL mode. If you need to select blocks of text - you go into VISUAL mode, and so on.

As you can imagine, there are various commands for doing this - but to keep it brief and simple: you can always get into NORMAL mode by hitting ESCAPE. From NORMAL you can go into INSERT by pressing "i". You can go into VISUAL mode from NORMAL mode by pressing "v" (SHIFT-v puts you into VISUAL LINE mode - which works on lines instead of characters).

OK - now that we grok modes a bit - we need to shift out of INSERT and into NORMAL - so hit ESCAPE. You're looking at goodbye.rb - but we need to get back to hello.rb! This is step one.

Navigation is pretty simple with Vim - it's one of the reasons people love it. I'll show you three ways to work this now...

  • type ":edit h" and hit TAB and then ENTER. This will tab-complete the filename, putting you back into hello.rb
  • type ":b h" and hit TAB and then ENTER. This works with the "buffer" - a place where all the documents you've opened are hanging out in memory.
  • type "CTRL-wv". This will open up a vertically-split window. "CTRL-ww" will move your cursor there, and ":b h" TAB/ENTER (as above) will open up hello.rb in the second window.

Programming Your Text

Many people have said this - in fact Dan Benjamin echoes it in the Peepcode screencast linked above - often times, when editing, it feels like your programming your code. For some people this is an extra mental step that's ridiculous - for others, who are used to it, it's as simple as... well coding in the first place.

The key to it is to plan your move. At first this is going to seem silly - but as you get used to it, you realize that the time it takes to recite the proper incantation and execute it is far less than the total time it takes to move your mouse, select your text and rewrite. And it only gets faster!

Let's fix the casing on "hello" first. We do this by using Vim's search ability - which is a simple forward slash "/": 

/h [ENTER] n
rH

The search here is case-insensitive so it will highlight all the h's it finds once you enter the pattern (a single "h") and hit enter. You can move between the results by hitting "n" - or "next". Shift-N will move you backward. You can replace text you're sitting on by using "r" - in this case we'll replace it with an "H".

Next, I need to change the word "there" to "World". I take a second, plan my move, and execute. I'll do it in one of three ways: 

2gg
3w
cw "World"

This is the longer way of doing it - but it's pretty quick nonetheless. "2gg" moves the cursor to the beginning of the text on the second line (if you can't see line numbers enter ":set number" to turn them on) - think "2 go go". "3w" moves you to the 3rd Word. "cw" is "Change Word" and it automatically puts you in INSERT mode - where you can enter "World".

A slightly less mechanical way would be: 

2gg
:s/there/World

Again - moving to the second line, but this time we're using ":s" which means "Substitute". This is followed by a regex pattern to match, and the replacement text.

Finally - the easiest way to do this would be to remove the need to go to the line - and just do a global replace. This can be problematic if the file is large - you could end up matching more than you like - I'll show you a way around that in a second: 

:%s/there/World

The only difference in this one command, versus the others, is the "%" wildcard, which tells Substitute to search over everything in the file.

Vision Is Getting Blurry

That last operation can be a bit destructive if we're not careful - so sometimes it's easier to match over a given range. To do this, we need to go into VISUAL mode - and we'll use a plugin to help us.

Matchit is installed by default with Vim and allows us to match the "natural" start and end of blocks of code - be it Ruby, HTML, XML, or whatever. To see this in action let's undo our last changes by pressing "u" (make sure to hit ESCAPE first to go back into NORMAL mode). You can also use CTRL-z/Cmd-z.

Head to the beginning of the method or class you want to change. You can do this by line number as above or, since the line we want is the first - use "gg" (Shift-G will take you to the bottom).

Now that we're here - enter VISUAL mode by using Shift-V and select the entire block (class or method - in our case it's a class) by hitting "%". Matchit will find "end" and select the block for you. If this isn't working for you - Matchit might not be installed (I've seen this with GVim). As an alternative you can enter "3gg" to go to line 3.

Now you can enter the same substitute command as above (without the "%") - and it will apply over the range.

I Need a Cab

I could go on - but this post is really long already. What I hope I have conveyed (aside from learning Vim is not unlike having your first beer) is that loving Vim builds on itself - and it does so with practice and reworking what you know.

Many people wonder why you would work so hard at a tool like this - and I'd like to end on that note:

  • Vim is everywhere. My main machine here is a Mac, running MacVim. I have a Windows 7 VM running GVim, and I have an Ubuntu VM running straight up Vim. I also have an Apache server up on Amazon with vi that I can use over SSH! Each (aside from my server) uses my same plugin/configuration set so I'm at home on any one of them, coding in an environment I know and love.
  • Vim is forever. The damn thing has been around since the dawn of time - and it will no doubt be around long after we're dust. The skills you pick up now will last you for many, many years - and you'll only get faster.
  • There's a plugin for that. Code formatting, automatic comments, Rails-specific navigation and generation. Unit testing with RSpec or Cucumber. Git and Github. Syntax highlighting and code completion (using CTRL-n - check it out it's awesome!), and Code snippets. All of this, and a whole lot more can be mixxed and matched to create an environment that's just right for you.
  • Help is Everywhere Aside from Emacs, you won't find an editor with a better help system - either through the builtin ":help" or online. It will be hard to get up to speed - but it won't be for lack of documentation.

Still Curious?

Great! I can't possibly fit everything into one post - my goal was to get your head into a good spot. The next thing to do is kick up the vimtutor (open a console and enter "vimtutor") - it will walk you through some basics.

Next, head over to Peepcode and watch both of their Vim screencasts. It's $18 well-spent as they're made to be watched over, and over, and over again.

Happy Vimming!



vim enter first mode text first mode text code file need directory normal command work pretty working commands change escape project insert modes world second windows goodbye visual ctrl open files shift used cursor sure word console hard write textmate class start gvim post plugin simple select puts macvim getting weird ruby love beer editor terminal create rails opened running aside installed normal mode hit escape working directory insert mode visual mode enter commands current directory enter text first day escape first hit tab status bar hit enter manage files code editor text entry dan benjamin ruby code code completion hit escape first ]]>Rob Conerys Blog
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You Won't Like It

If you haven't used Vim before and you're looking to learn it - it's kind of like a first taste of coffee. Or beer. It's bitter, not particularly sweet, and you get pretty damn tired of people talking about how much they love it rather quickly.

But then the buzz kicks in. The buzz of "hey - you know when you get used to it - you kind of like it... and HOLY SH** I can sling some text now!". That's what I read in Yehuda's post, at least.

See there - I did it again - even while writing about that very aspect that you (if you're new to Vim) will probably not like: me crowing about how much I like it. Sorry - let's start again.

No Really - You Won't Like It. Unless...

Here's how typical coversations go with friends who code Ruby in TextMate:

Them: "So I see you're getting into Vim. What do you like about it so much?"

Me: "Well - Vim's focus is on editing, not text entry and"

Them: "Huh? What does that even mean?"

Me: "That you spend more time editing than you do writing"

Them: "Oh. Well I'm pretty happy with TextMate. You should write a blog about Vim."

Me: "I have."

Them: "Well maybe write about what you like about it."

Me: "I have"

Them: "Hmm - well I didn't get it. Maybe write a better one."

... which lands us at the feet of Yehuda's post. Vim is a hard thing to talk about - it's not terribly pretty, has a pretty hard-core "geek legacy", and is probably the most unwelcoming first experience you could want to have. Imagine trying to explain just how good Racer 5 IPA is (or better yet Deschutes Inversion IPA) to a person who's never tasted beer!

Yes, I just compared Vim to beer. In fact I've done it twice. I know that for the Vim-curious users out there this is going to sound strange - but it's the mindset I'm going to get into today - so let's get to it.

Sit back while I open up the tab - I have a frosty pint of Vim comin your way...

Vim Smells Weird

It's not like any text editor you've used. It's not like TextMate, it's not an IDE. It looks like the terminal (or console if you're on windows) and indeed - typing "vim" into the terminal will launch it - right inside the terminal!

The best description I've heard with regards to Vim is from Dan Benjamin in the Peepcode "Smash into Vim" screencast:

"It's precise: you'll feel like a text surgeon"

I remember hearing that and thinking "what a weird thing to say" - but it's where I think I'd like to focus first.

Text Surgery

Most programmers understand that the bulk of coding an application comes after the application is first written. Debugging, refactoring, adding new functionality - this is the bulk of our work. This is what Vim is all about.

Vim's focus is on editing - and the mode you work in (I'll talk more about modes in a minute) most of the time is Normal mode. In this mode you don't enter text - but you can deftly edit it.

With the exception of Emacs - just about every code editor out there (including IDEs) focuses on text entry. The editing of the text is lumped into the entering of the text.

Vim turns this entire concept around - the entry of the text is set aside for when you need to do it - editing it comes first. I'm sure this sounds weird - let's dive into some examples. I'll be using GVim on windows - everything will work using MacVim as well if you're on a Mac.

Your First Drag of Vim

To say that Vim is not very welcoming is a bit of an understatement:

When windows devs see this - well let's just say it's the last impression they have of Vim. What to do next is just not apparent, the tildes, old-skool icons, and blocky Lucida Console font send most people running for their familiar IDEs.

Assuming you're still reading - let's try another sip and see what happens.

Another Sip - Not as Bad as The First

This is where it becomes apparent that we're not working in a typical code editor. There's no "project drawer" - no indication of other files, let alone where the hell you are.

Yet Vim works (sort of) with the concept of a "project" if you want it to. When you first open Vim, you'll be in a "Working Directory" - the "root" if you will in which all commands will run (like making directories, files and so on - more on that in a bit). If you've opened GVim using the icon on your desktop - you'll be in C:\Windows\system32. To verify this - enter ":pwd" (Present Working Directory) - the status window will tell you where you are.

Yah - weird. That's OK we can change that really quickly. It's worth noting here that Vim doesn't want to be opened with an icon; it's built to be opened from a terminal by entering "gvim" (or "mvim" if you're on a Mac). Doing it this way will auto-set your working directory to the current directory.

First - let's change the default startup. System32 is a bit ridiculous - right-click on the icon on the desktop and go to Properties. In there, set "Start in" to be something that makes sense - a "Projects" directory - or wherever you keep your code. Restart Vim.

Hey that wasn't so bad! We're moving forward... and feeling a bit light-headed (and after only 2 sips - Vim is fun!)

A Bigger Drink: Working With the File System

This is one thing I really like about Vim - you can manage files and directories rather easily right from within Vim. Now that you have Vim reopened in a directory that makes sense, let's do something fun.

First - let's confirm where we are: ":pwd". If you get stuck, ever, and can't enter commands and get lost - just hit ESCAPE. This will put you into normal mode where you can enter commands into Vim. You enter commands by pre-pending a colon - whenever you see ":" in front of something - I'm in normal mode and you should be to. It's a good habit to hit ESCAPE often to be sure of this.

Now let's create a directory 

:!mkdir my_project
If you feel like getting funky - and you have Rails installed: 
:!rails my_project

You should see the console pop up (if you're on windows) and some stuff happening - that's Vim executing some commands for you. Let's take a look at what happened: 

:edit .

You'll use this command a lot - when you want to see the files and directories in your working directory (or a subdirectory therein). Notice that you also have some handy commands at the very top

Take a second to read those commands - you can do a lot here. Deleting and Renaming are something you'll do quite often - so get to know those straight away. Already we've picked up a bit of speed over conventional editing - there's no mouse involved here! No right-click/add file, no file explorer to organize your project.

I know that a few people will want to tell me about NERDtree. I happen to like the built in file manager - but many people like the visuals of the NERDTree plugin. Investigate!

Now, let's drop into our project and start editing it. Move the cursor down to "my_project" and hit enter. This will open up the directory which is either empty - or filled with a Rails project depending on what you did. Now hit "c" - this will change our working directory to the current directory, and we're ready for more.

Round 2 - Editing Some Text

Well that one went down pretty easily didn't it! I know I know - it's hard to stop at just one :). Let's move on here and do a bit more - let's write some Ruby code.

To create a file - simply use ":edit" again - but this time enter the name of the file: 

:edit hello.rb
When you entered "." before you told Vim you wanted to edit the current directory - which you did! Well done. Now let's work some Ruby code.

The first thing you'll notice is that it's probably a bit hideous looking. If you're using the default settings - well it will be. Let's work the code for now, and I'll show you all kinds of magic in a bit (code-completion, snippets, highlighting, etc).

What you should see is an empty file, and your cursor should be a big block (which is a visual cue that you're in Normal mode):

In the status bar down below is the name of the file, to the right of it is where your cursor is in the file itself. Let's enter some code in here - to do this we need to change modes (more on modes in a minute) to INSERT mode. Do this by entering "i" - you should now see "-- INSERT --" in the status bar. If you don't, hit ESCAPE and "i" one more time. Now enter this: 

class Hello
  puts "hello there"
end
Hello.new

When you're done typing, a good habit to develop is to reflexively hit ESCAPE, putting you back into Normal mode. This has many benefits - such as when you say "oops!" and realize you need to change something - as you'll see in a minute.

To save this, you can do a number of things. You can do it the "Vim" way by telling Vim to write it to a file - ":w". You can also do it the "Windows" way by using Ctrl-s. If you're in MacVim you can use Command-S. Whichever one you like is up to you.

Now let's view our handy work: 

:!hello.rb

This command is going to execute our new file for us - the "!" hands the command off to the console. What you should see next is our groovy "hello there" demo:

Hey that was pretty fun! Vim's starting to go down a bit easier now - what the hell let's do it again! If you want to rerun the last command - enter ":" to put you on the command line, then up-arrow to bring up the last command.

This Stuff Is Strong! Getting Your Vim Editing Buzz On...

Now we have some text, we've seen how we can manage files and work the command line - but this isn't at all what Vim is good at. Let's take a look at some editing.

Before we do, however - I'd like to talk about something Yehuda mentioned in his post:

Carl convinced me to use vim for the first couple of days pretty much exactly as I use Texmate ... I installed NERDTree on MacVIM, grabbed the most common vim packages, and was off to the races... For the first day, I clunked around by using my mouse's scroll wheel, clicking and highlighting things, and spending most of my time in insert mode. It was slightly less productive than Textmate, but mostly in the range of what I'd expect switching to a new tool. In short, while I felt a bit out of sorts, I was able to get plenty of work done that first day.

That's right where we are - you've seen how to do basic things with Vim and also how to enter text. With a reasonable set of plugins - you'll be right where you were with TextMate in no time.

But we don't want to go home yet! We just ordered another round! And this one is going to be a ton of fun as we've realized we screwed up a bit when we first wrote out code. When do we not? Almost no one gets it right the first time - and this is where Vim shines.

We've also just received word from the client - they want something to say "goodbye" as well as hello - so let's get crackin!

Let's create the new file - a little faster this time (make sure to hit ESCAPE first): 

:edit goodbye.rb
i

and then our code... 

class Goodbye
  puts "goodbye to you!"
end
Goodbye.new

and save with Ctrl-s.

Now let's fix our screwup. The client noticed that we said "hello there" instead of a proper demo - which says "Hello World". We have to fix the casing and a word - so let's do it.

As with most things, there are many ways to accomplish this - and I'm sure in the comments below someone will offer something more efficient - which is great! I'll show the 3 or 4 things I'd try... would love to hear from others with respect to their tricks.

I need to go on a bit of a tangent, however, before we start editing. I keep telling you that I'll explain more about modes "in a bit" - well that bit is now, and I'll make it fast. Vim has a number of "modes" that it will go into, depending on what you need to do. If you need to enter text - you go into INSERT mode. This resets the keyboard and various command sets to augment insertion of text.

If you need to edit - which is what you do most of the time (make corrections, move stuff around, refactor) - you stay in NORMAL mode. If you need to select blocks of text - you go into VISUAL mode, and so on.

As you can imagine, there are various commands for doing this - but to keep it brief and simple: you can always get into NORMAL mode by hitting ESCAPE. From NORMAL you can go into INSERT by pressing "i". You can go into VISUAL mode from NORMAL mode by pressing "v" (SHIFT-v puts you into VISUAL LINE mode - which works on lines instead of characters).

OK - now that we grok modes a bit - we need to shift out of INSERT and into NORMAL - so hit ESCAPE. You're looking at goodbye.rb - but we need to get back to hello.rb! This is step one.

Navigation is pretty simple with Vim - it's one of the reasons people love it. I'll show you three ways to work this now...

  • type ":edit h" and hit TAB and then ENTER. This will tab-complete the filename, putting you back into hello.rb
  • type ":b h" and hit TAB and then ENTER. This works with the "buffer" - a place where all the documents you've opened are hanging out in memory.
  • type "CTRL-wv". This will open up a vertically-split window. "CTRL-ww" will move your cursor there, and ":b h" TAB/ENTER (as above) will open up hello.rb in the second window.

Programming Your Text

Many people have said this - in fact Dan Benjamin echoes it in the Peepcode screencast linked above - often times, when editing, it feels like your programming your code. For some people this is an extra mental step that's ridiculous - for others, who are used to it, it's as simple as... well coding in the first place.

The key to it is to plan your move. At first this is going to seem silly - but as you get used to it, you realize that the time it takes to recite the proper incantation and execute it is far less than the total time it takes to move your mouse, select your text and rewrite. And it only gets faster!

Let's fix the casing on "hello" first. We do this by using Vim's search ability - which is a simple forward slash "/": 

/h [ENTER] n
rH

The search here is case-insensitive so it will highlight all the h's it finds once you enter the pattern (a single "h") and hit enter. You can move between the results by hitting "n" - or "next". Shift-N will move you backward. You can replace text you're sitting on by using "r" - in this case we'll replace it with an "H".

Next, I need to change the word "there" to "World". I take a second, plan my move, and execute. I'll do it in one of three ways: 

2gg
3w
cw "World"

This is the longer way of doing it - but it's pretty quick nonetheless. "2gg" moves the cursor to the beginning of the text on the second line (if you can't see line numbers enter ":set number" to turn them on) - think "2 go go". "3w" moves you to the 3rd Word. "cw" is "Change Word" and it automatically puts you in INSERT mode - where you can enter "World".

A slightly less mechanical way would be: 

2gg
:s/there/World

Again - moving to the second line, but this time we're using ":s" which means "Substitute". This is followed by a regex pattern to match, and the replacement text.

Finally - the easiest way to do this would be to remove the need to go to the line - and just do a global replace. This can be problematic if the file is large - you could end up matching more than you like - I'll show you a way around that in a second: 

:%s/there/World

The only difference in this one command, versus the others, is the "%" wildcard, which tells Substitute to search over everything in the file.

Vision Is Getting Blurry

That last operation can be a bit destructive if we're not careful - so sometimes it's easier to match over a given range. To do this, we need to go into VISUAL mode - and we'll use a plugin to help us.

Matchit is installed by default with Vim and allows us to match the "natural" start and end of blocks of code - be it Ruby, HTML, XML, or whatever. To see this in action let's undo our last changes by pressing "u" (make sure to hit ESCAPE first to go back into NORMAL mode). You can also use CTRL-z/Cmd-z.

Head to the beginning of the method or class you want to change. You can do this by line number as above or, since the line we want is the first - use "gg" (Shift-G will take you to the bottom).

Now that we're here - enter VISUAL mode by using Shift-V and select the entire block (class or method - in our case it's a class) by hitting "%". Matchit will find "end" and select the block for you. If this isn't working for you - Matchit might not be installed (I've seen this with GVim). As an alternative you can enter "3gg" to go to line 3.

Now you can enter the same substitute command as above (without the "%") - and it will apply over the range.

I Need a Cab

I could go on - but this post is really long already. What I hope I have conveyed (aside from learning Vim is not unlike having your first beer) is that loving Vim builds on itself - and it does so with practice and reworking what you know.

Many people wonder why you would work so hard at a tool like this - and I'd like to end on that note:

  • Vim is everywhere. My main machine here is a Mac, running MacVim. I have a Windows 7 VM running GVim, and I have an Ubuntu VM running straight up Vim. I also have an Apache server up on Amazon with vi that I can use over SSH! Each (aside from my server) uses my same plugin/configuration set so I'm at home on any one of them, coding in an environment I know and love.
  • Vim is forever. The damn thing has been around since the dawn of time - and it will no doubt be around long after we're dust. The skills you pick up now will last you for many, many years - and you'll only get faster.
  • There's a plugin for that. Code formatting, automatic comments, Rails-specific navigation and generation. Unit testing with RSpec or Cucumber. Git and Github. Syntax highlighting and code completion (using CTRL-n - check it out it's awesome!), and Code snippets. All of this, and a whole lot more can be mixxed and matched to create an environment that's just right for you.
  • Help is Everywhere Aside from Emacs, you won't find an editor with a better help system - either through the builtin ":help" or online. It will be hard to get up to speed - but it won't be for lack of documentation.

Still Curious?

Great! I can't possibly fit everything into one post - my goal was to get your head into a good spot. The next thing to do is kick up the vimtutor (open a console and enter "vimtutor") - it will walk you through some basics.

Next, head over to Peepcode and watch both of their Vim screencasts. It's $18 well-spent as they're made to be watched over, and over, and over again.

Happy Vimming!



vim enter first mode text first mode text code file need directory normal command work pretty working commands change escape project insert modes world second windows goodbye visual ctrl open files shift used cursor sure word console hard write textmate class start gvim post plugin simple select puts macvim getting weird ruby love beer editor terminal create rails opened running aside installed normal mode hit escape working directory insert mode visual mode enter commands current directory enter text first day escape first hit tab status bar hit enter manage files code editor text entry dan benjamin ruby code code completion hit escape first ]]> Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:30:44 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,9 Tell White House Correspondents Assoc.: Don't Reward Fox "News" With Helen Thomas' WH Press Pool Seat http://crooksandliars.com/nicole-belle/tell-white-house-correspondents-assoc Shared item Crooks and Liars
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See that empty seat front and center? That was Helen Thomas' official seat in the White House press pool, the only such designation in the press room. It was given to her in honor of her 57 years of covering presidential press conferences.

In the wake of her resignation, three news services are vying to take Thomas' seat: Fox News Channel, Bloomberg and NPR.

But let's be honest: giving Fox News Channel--the same outlet that elevated Breitbart's ACORN and Sherrod scandals to national prominence, that continues to push the NBPP non-story, that employs that inciter of insanity, Glenn Beck--the seat is a slap in the face to any American who actually cares about news.

Credo Action is asking progressives to contact the White House Correspondents Association and ask them to not award Fox News Helen Thomas' seat. From an email sent to members:

We need help.

There's a new front where we can chip away at the perceived legitimacy of FOX as a news organization.

The White House Correspondents Association is scheduled to decide in a Monday meeting which news outlet will get the White House press briefing room front row seat vacated recently by Helen Thomas. (we're trying to confirm reports that this meeting has been moved up a day to Sunday. more on that when we get better info.)

Three organizations are vying for this seat: FOX, NPR and Bloomberg News. [..]

We need your help. CREDO launched a campaign yesterday morning to call attention to this and already 140,000 people have signed our petition. We are faxing and working on petition deliveries to the board members and executive director of the organization in advance of their meeting. The petition is here: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/fox_or_npr/

"Joe the Voter" at OpEd News has a boilerplate letter that you may want to use to send in your name:

White House Correspondents' Association
600 New Hampshire Avenue, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-7453 (v)
202-266-7454 (f )
Julia Whiston, Executive Director.

Do not give Helen Thomas' seat to FOX !

They are NOT news...they are a politically motivated racist organization who lie, distort and deceive viewers to promote a specific political agenda. They have FCC complaints filed against them for using their "news" status contrary to federal rules against bias and distortion in the news. The recent scandals where Fox assisted in slander and personal attacks against blacks such as Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones and Acorn all indicate their inability to present news using accepted and honorable journalistic standards.

Putting FOX in that chair would be a black mark on your organization as it would amount to an acceptance of their extreme distortions as being the equal of your other distinguished members.

Respectfully,
[ Add your name and fax or email from their web site http://www.whca.net/contact.htm ]




news fox seat house thomas news seat house thomas press helen organization correspondents white house helen thomas house correspondents fox news correspondents association thomas seat executive director 202 266 press pool news channel house press seat fox white house correspondents house correspondents association helen thomas seat fox news channel white house press ]]>Crooks and Liars
First shared by - ScottS
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

See that empty seat front and center? That was Helen Thomas' official seat in the White House press pool, the only such designation in the press room. It was given to her in honor of her 57 years of covering presidential press conferences.

In the wake of her resignation, three news services are vying to take Thomas' seat: Fox News Channel, Bloomberg and NPR.

But let's be honest: giving Fox News Channel--the same outlet that elevated Breitbart's ACORN and Sherrod scandals to national prominence, that continues to push the NBPP non-story, that employs that inciter of insanity, Glenn Beck--the seat is a slap in the face to any American who actually cares about news.

Credo Action is asking progressives to contact the White House Correspondents Association and ask them to not award Fox News Helen Thomas' seat. From an email sent to members:

We need help.

There's a new front where we can chip away at the perceived legitimacy of FOX as a news organization.

The White House Correspondents Association is scheduled to decide in a Monday meeting which news outlet will get the White House press briefing room front row seat vacated recently by Helen Thomas. (we're trying to confirm reports that this meeting has been moved up a day to Sunday. more on that when we get better info.)

Three organizations are vying for this seat: FOX, NPR and Bloomberg News. [..]

We need your help. CREDO launched a campaign yesterday morning to call attention to this and already 140,000 people have signed our petition. We are faxing and working on petition deliveries to the board members and executive director of the organization in advance of their meeting. The petition is here: http://www.credoaction.com/campaign/fox_or_npr/

"Joe the Voter" at OpEd News has a boilerplate letter that you may want to use to send in your name:

White House Correspondents' Association
600 New Hampshire Avenue, Suite 800
Washington, DC 20037
202-266-7453 (v)
202-266-7454 (f )
Julia Whiston, Executive Director.

Do not give Helen Thomas' seat to FOX !

They are NOT news...they are a politically motivated racist organization who lie, distort and deceive viewers to promote a specific political agenda. They have FCC complaints filed against them for using their "news" status contrary to federal rules against bias and distortion in the news. The recent scandals where Fox assisted in slander and personal attacks against blacks such as Shirley Sherrod, Van Jones and Acorn all indicate their inability to present news using accepted and honorable journalistic standards.

Putting FOX in that chair would be a black mark on your organization as it would amount to an acceptance of their extreme distortions as being the equal of your other distinguished members.

Respectfully,
[ Add your name and fax or email from their web site http://www.whca.net/contact.htm ]




news fox seat house thomas news seat house thomas press helen organization correspondents white house helen thomas house correspondents fox news correspondents association thomas seat executive director 202 266 press pool news channel house press seat fox white house correspondents house correspondents association helen thomas seat fox news channel white house press ]]> Thu, 29 Jul 2010 20:51:42 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,10 7 Cutting Edge Web Design Trends (that Can Actually Improve SEO) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/0RSqER2kBQw/7-cutting-edge-web-design-trends Shared item SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
First shared by - Avi
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Posted by randfish

As the worlds of web design and SEO merge ever closer, we've been seeing design-specific elements produce a positive impact on SEO for the sites that employ them. It's terrific news for SEOs who love design and are capable of and passionate about making it part of their repertoire. It's also great for designers who find that as they evolved from Flash designs to machine-readable CSS and separated markup from content, they've earned more links and more organic search love.

In this post, I'll walk through examples of those design practices in use and describe how they can help improve your opportunity for organic search rankings and traffic.

#1 - Designing that Elicits & Conveys Emotion

A phenomenal article from Aarron Walter of Mailchimp on ThinkVitamin - Emotional Interface Design: The Gateway to Passionate Users - deeply explores the trend of designers using their talents to imprint emotion on users. Personally, I love this practice, and professionally, I see it as incredibly valuable for SEO, too.

Rather than simply providing a user with information, these sites attempt to convey a sense of the companies, products and services they represent in a tangible way.

For McMiller's Sweets, below, the website expresses the brand's humor, whimsy and obsession with their product. I only wish I could buy online - there'd be a few boxes headed for the SEOmoz offices right now.

Box.net, an enterprise-focused software company, aims to achieve an air of simplicity and a feeling of the ease that comes from using a basic, consumer application but targeted at a business audience. Their redesign has me convinced - it's light and airy, it's up in the clouds (perhaps a double-meaning since they host in "the cloud") and it even calls out the "sexiness" of the application.

When users are emotionally invested in the websites they visit, they're more likely to:

  • Link
  • Share
  • Contribute Content
  • Participate
  • Remain Loyal
  • Invest in the Experience
  • Browse more Pages

All of these have either first or second-order impacts on SEO in a positive way.

#2 - The Scroll-Triggered Call-to-Action

Sometimes, you don't want to overwhelm content with calls-to-action... At least, not until you're fairly certain your visitor has finished reading. That's where the brilliance of the scroll-triggered call-to-action comes in.

Browse any article on the New York Times website and you'll see this behavior in action, driving you to read the next article in the series only after you've reached the bottom of the current piece:

It's great for boosting page views, but also drives more awareness of those pieces, improving links and driving up visibility for previously less-well-publicized works. My guess is that clicks are quite high.

In the next example, the OKCupid Blog leverages precisely the same tactic:

This use case might be even more brilliant. After wrapping up a remarkable article about what statistics tell us not to do in online dating, my first instinct is to share the piece with some single friends. OKCupid's flawlessly timed, dropdown overlay synchs with this internal compulsion and makes it easy to tweet, like, stumble or buzz away.

Scrolling + triggers = more browsing, more awareness and more sharing (and I think the potential applications for SEO are far greater in quantity than just what's been shared above).

#3 - User Badges

If your users are passionate about your site and their experience or participation, why not make it easy to share?

For years, sites have been offering users the virtual incentives of points, badges and status to encourage greater participation. Andrew Follet from Concept Feedback authored a brilliant piece analyzing this precise behavior and exposing some terrific examples.

We've noticed an interesting behavior as it relates to user badges as well, and it's spurred me to whiteboard the following chart numerous times for those who have online communities considering SEO:

The lesson? Make great communities, encourage participation and reward your users with badges that will make their sites look good. It's the online equivalent of giving out high quality, well designed t-shirts - fans won't just wear them to bed; they'll actually show off your brand.

#4 - The Animated HTML Multiheader

I wrote about the multiheader a long time ago, and the evolution of design has made them tremendously more compelling and useful since then. Case-in-point, Unbounce, who has 5 different messages/features on their homepage all accessible to engines and all part of a single multiheader. I've screencaptured them elegantly "swooshing" in and out of the headline position:

The advantage is two-fold - more content on the homepage that's accessible to search engines (thanks to clever CSS/HTML usage) and everyone who links to any one version is concentrating the link juice singularly on the home page. In some cases, that could cause problems, but in others, it's a great opportunity to leverage design to focus the links you acquire where you need them most.

BTW - Speaking of Unbounce, If you have yet to read Oli Gardner's 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program, you're seriously missing out.

#5 - Sexy, Embeddable Infographics

Infographic linkbait is certainly all the rage these days, and I think it's a well-justified trend. The brilliant part is that you benefit by producing the infographic and other bloggers benefit by sharing it and attracting views, attention and links of their own. So long as the embed works seemlessly and the infographic is compelling, you're off to the link acquisition races.

Some examples I enjoyed came from Smashing Magazine, who put together this piece on programming (and the how-to behind it's creation):

And this smart contribution from Visual Economics:

As with badges, the "beauty rule" applies - the sexier your infographic (and the most interesting/useful/compelling the content), the higher adoption will be.

#6 - Designing Around Illustration (with CSS)

It used to be that I'd see a website built around illustrations and artistry and shake my head in sadness, knowing that the beauty of the UI was unlikely to be experienced by anyone except those coming via type-in. Today, with the amazing progress of CSS, sites like Carbon Made can have their design cake and eat their SEO, too.

Google's "text only" cache shows every word you can see in the screenshot - we've come a long way indeed. And, darn it if that design doesn't make me want to just climb a mountain and jump off a cliff into an octopus-filled lake below... errr.. make an online portfolio (yeah, that's the one!)

For another look, check out Ruby on Rails developers, Pioneers:

Pretty, accessible and indexable, what more could an SEO ask?

#7 - Creative Content Formats Unleashed

Sometimes, you visit a site that stands out from everything else you've seen on the web in the past. Historically, many of those sites have also been tragically obscured from search engines. Nowadays, a new breed is emerging, showing off massive creativity, brilliance in design innovation and a compelling combination of link-worthiness and search-accessibility.

A few of my favorite recent stumbles into this realm include:

Above: Grain and Gram Gentleman's Journal

Above: Sanctuary T Shop (who knew a small e-commerce shop could be this pretty?)

Above: Heart Directed (a great place to find more remarkable creative formats, though lacking the machine readable content to be an SEO example itself)

It's a great time to be on the web, thinking about SEO, design and the brilliant things that can happen when they overlap strategically. Here's to hoping that more of us who invest in organic search traffic will bolster that task with the power amazing design can bring. It's not just more links - it's greater engagement and a higher liklihood that sharing of all kinds will occur. However the search engines evolve, you can be sure this is the type of behavior they'll seek to reward.

p.s. If design inspires you, I'd recommend checking out Drawar and Six Revisions list of 10 Fresh Galleries for Inspiration


Do you like this post? Yes No



design seo search users sites design search links users content sites online badges compelling infographic engines action behavior piece brilliant search engines organic search machine readable user badges scroll triggered web design ]]>SEOmoz Daily SEO Blog
First shared by - Avi
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1

Posted by randfish

As the worlds of web design and SEO merge ever closer, we've been seeing design-specific elements produce a positive impact on SEO for the sites that employ them. It's terrific news for SEOs who love design and are capable of and passionate about making it part of their repertoire. It's also great for designers who find that as they evolved from Flash designs to machine-readable CSS and separated markup from content, they've earned more links and more organic search love.

In this post, I'll walk through examples of those design practices in use and describe how they can help improve your opportunity for organic search rankings and traffic.

#1 - Designing that Elicits & Conveys Emotion

A phenomenal article from Aarron Walter of Mailchimp on ThinkVitamin - Emotional Interface Design: The Gateway to Passionate Users - deeply explores the trend of designers using their talents to imprint emotion on users. Personally, I love this practice, and professionally, I see it as incredibly valuable for SEO, too.

Rather than simply providing a user with information, these sites attempt to convey a sense of the companies, products and services they represent in a tangible way.

For McMiller's Sweets, below, the website expresses the brand's humor, whimsy and obsession with their product. I only wish I could buy online - there'd be a few boxes headed for the SEOmoz offices right now.

Box.net, an enterprise-focused software company, aims to achieve an air of simplicity and a feeling of the ease that comes from using a basic, consumer application but targeted at a business audience. Their redesign has me convinced - it's light and airy, it's up in the clouds (perhaps a double-meaning since they host in "the cloud") and it even calls out the "sexiness" of the application.

When users are emotionally invested in the websites they visit, they're more likely to:

  • Link
  • Share
  • Contribute Content
  • Participate
  • Remain Loyal
  • Invest in the Experience
  • Browse more Pages

All of these have either first or second-order impacts on SEO in a positive way.

#2 - The Scroll-Triggered Call-to-Action

Sometimes, you don't want to overwhelm content with calls-to-action... At least, not until you're fairly certain your visitor has finished reading. That's where the brilliance of the scroll-triggered call-to-action comes in.

Browse any article on the New York Times website and you'll see this behavior in action, driving you to read the next article in the series only after you've reached the bottom of the current piece:

It's great for boosting page views, but also drives more awareness of those pieces, improving links and driving up visibility for previously less-well-publicized works. My guess is that clicks are quite high.

In the next example, the OKCupid Blog leverages precisely the same tactic:

This use case might be even more brilliant. After wrapping up a remarkable article about what statistics tell us not to do in online dating, my first instinct is to share the piece with some single friends. OKCupid's flawlessly timed, dropdown overlay synchs with this internal compulsion and makes it easy to tweet, like, stumble or buzz away.

Scrolling + triggers = more browsing, more awareness and more sharing (and I think the potential applications for SEO are far greater in quantity than just what's been shared above).

#3 - User Badges

If your users are passionate about your site and their experience or participation, why not make it easy to share?

For years, sites have been offering users the virtual incentives of points, badges and status to encourage greater participation. Andrew Follet from Concept Feedback authored a brilliant piece analyzing this precise behavior and exposing some terrific examples.

We've noticed an interesting behavior as it relates to user badges as well, and it's spurred me to whiteboard the following chart numerous times for those who have online communities considering SEO:

The lesson? Make great communities, encourage participation and reward your users with badges that will make their sites look good. It's the online equivalent of giving out high quality, well designed t-shirts - fans won't just wear them to bed; they'll actually show off your brand.

#4 - The Animated HTML Multiheader

I wrote about the multiheader a long time ago, and the evolution of design has made them tremendously more compelling and useful since then. Case-in-point, Unbounce, who has 5 different messages/features on their homepage all accessible to engines and all part of a single multiheader. I've screencaptured them elegantly "swooshing" in and out of the headline position:

The advantage is two-fold - more content on the homepage that's accessible to search engines (thanks to clever CSS/HTML usage) and everyone who links to any one version is concentrating the link juice singularly on the home page. In some cases, that could cause problems, but in others, it's a great opportunity to leverage design to focus the links you acquire where you need them most.

BTW - Speaking of Unbounce, If you have yet to read Oli Gardner's 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program, you're seriously missing out.

#5 - Sexy, Embeddable Infographics

Infographic linkbait is certainly all the rage these days, and I think it's a well-justified trend. The brilliant part is that you benefit by producing the infographic and other bloggers benefit by sharing it and attracting views, attention and links of their own. So long as the embed works seemlessly and the infographic is compelling, you're off to the link acquisition races.

Some examples I enjoyed came from Smashing Magazine, who put together this piece on programming (and the how-to behind it's creation):

And this smart contribution from Visual Economics:

As with badges, the "beauty rule" applies - the sexier your infographic (and the most interesting/useful/compelling the content), the higher adoption will be.

#6 - Designing Around Illustration (with CSS)

It used to be that I'd see a website built around illustrations and artistry and shake my head in sadness, knowing that the beauty of the UI was unlikely to be experienced by anyone except those coming via type-in. Today, with the amazing progress of CSS, sites like Carbon Made can have their design cake and eat their SEO, too.

Google's "text only" cache shows every word you can see in the screenshot - we've come a long way indeed. And, darn it if that design doesn't make me want to just climb a mountain and jump off a cliff into an octopus-filled lake below... errr.. make an online portfolio (yeah, that's the one!)

For another look, check out Ruby on Rails developers, Pioneers:

Pretty, accessible and indexable, what more could an SEO ask?

#7 - Creative Content Formats Unleashed

Sometimes, you visit a site that stands out from everything else you've seen on the web in the past. Historically, many of those sites have also been tragically obscured from search engines. Nowadays, a new breed is emerging, showing off massive creativity, brilliance in design innovation and a compelling combination of link-worthiness and search-accessibility.

A few of my favorite recent stumbles into this realm include:

Above: Grain and Gram Gentleman's Journal

Above: Sanctuary T Shop (who knew a small e-commerce shop could be this pretty?)

Above: Heart Directed (a great place to find more remarkable creative formats, though lacking the machine readable content to be an SEO example itself)

It's a great time to be on the web, thinking about SEO, design and the brilliant things that can happen when they overlap strategically. Here's to hoping that more of us who invest in organic search traffic will bolster that task with the power amazing design can bring. It's not just more links - it's greater engagement and a higher liklihood that sharing of all kinds will occur. However the search engines evolve, you can be sure this is the type of behavior they'll seek to reward.

p.s. If design inspires you, I'd recommend checking out Drawar and Six Revisions list of 10 Fresh Galleries for Inspiration


Do you like this post? Yes No



design seo search users sites design search links users content sites online badges compelling infographic engines action behavior piece brilliant search engines organic search machine readable user badges scroll triggered web design ]]> Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:45:29 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,11 Google Makes Custom Web Typography Ridiculously Easy http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/RKbNXJX4Jyc/ Shared item Mashable!
First shared by - RaynerApe
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1


Google has once again given an excellent new tool to designers and developers (and even CSS-savvy common folk) who long for better, more diverse typefaces on the web: a cool Font Previewer that makes adding a new font to your site as simple as copy/pasting a few lines of code.

Back in May, Google rolled out its Font Directory and the Google Fonts API. The idea was that these tools would make it simpler for designers and devs to embed a wider range of fonts in their sites and applications.

The previewer takes a few steps out of that process by giving you an idea of how a given typeface will look on your site; letting you adjust the font size and weight; letting you tinker with the leading, kerning and tracking; generating a number of drop shadows if you require them; and generating the code you need to make the magic happen.

It's pretty hot. Here's what it looks like:

If you click Toggle controls, you can see what the typeface looks like sans-grid, sans-controls on a plain white screen.

Once you're done tinkering, you'll see a dynamically generated code sample beneath the preview area. Your code will look something like this:


Then, just copy and paste the stylesheet link and the CSS into your pages. That's it; you're done, and your site has a lovely, interesting new font. We tried it out ourselves, and it worked even better than expected.

All the fonts in Google's library are open source. Previously, Google's Font API could be integrated into websites using HTML or a JavaScript WebFont Loader that the company co-developed with Typekit.

Give the Font Previewer a try, and let us know what you think in the comments. We're particularly interested to see if any of our readers can find bugs in this new tool.

More About: font API, font previewer, fonts, Google, web fonts, web typography

For more Dev & Design coverage:




font google fonts code new font google fonts previewer code font previewer font api ]]>Mashable!
First shared by - RaynerApe
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 1


Google has once again given an excellent new tool to designers and developers (and even CSS-savvy common folk) who long for better, more diverse typefaces on the web: a cool Font Previewer that makes adding a new font to your site as simple as copy/pasting a few lines of code.

Back in May, Google rolled out its Font Directory and the Google Fonts API. The idea was that these tools would make it simpler for designers and devs to embed a wider range of fonts in their sites and applications.

The previewer takes a few steps out of that process by giving you an idea of how a given typeface will look on your site; letting you adjust the font size and weight; letting you tinker with the leading, kerning and tracking; generating a number of drop shadows if you require them; and generating the code you need to make the magic happen.

It's pretty hot. Here's what it looks like:

If you click Toggle controls, you can see what the typeface looks like sans-grid, sans-controls on a plain white screen.

Once you're done tinkering, you'll see a dynamically generated code sample beneath the preview area. Your code will look something like this:


Then, just copy and paste the stylesheet link and the CSS into your pages. That's it; you're done, and your site has a lovely, interesting new font. We tried it out ourselves, and it worked even better than expected.

All the fonts in Google's library are open source. Previously, Google's Font API could be integrated into websites using HTML or a JavaScript WebFont Loader that the company co-developed with Typekit.

Give the Font Previewer a try, and let us know what you think in the comments. We're particularly interested to see if any of our readers can find bugs in this new tool.

More About: font API, font previewer, fonts, Google, web fonts, web typography

For more Dev & Design coverage:




font google fonts code new font google fonts previewer code font previewer font api ]]> Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:36:19 -0400 30:00 tag:filome.com,12 Google Makes Custom Web Typography Ridiculously Easy http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/RKbNXJX4Jyc/ Shared item Mashable!
First shared by - RaynerApe
syndication+ 0 | Search 1 | Shares 2


Google has once again given an excellent new tool to designers and developers (and even CSS-savvy common folk) who long for better, more diverse typefaces on the web: a cool Font Previewer that makes adding a new font to your site as simple as copy/pasting a few lines of code.

Back in May, Google rolled out its Font Directory and the Google Fonts API. The idea was that these tools would make it simpler for designers and devs to embed a wider range of fonts in their sites and applications.

The previewer takes a few steps out of that process by giving you an idea of how a given typeface will look on your site; letting you adjust the font size and weight; letting you tinker with the leading, kerning and tracking; generating a number of drop shadows if you require them; and generating the code you need to make the magic happen.

It's pretty hot. Here's what it looks like:

If you click Toggle controls, you can see what the typeface looks like sans-grid, sans-controls on a plain white screen.

Once you're done tinkering, you'll see a dynamically generated code sample beneath the preview area. Your code will look something like this: