Eric Martin - The blog, projects and photography of Eric Martin

After buying and reading Cody Lindley's jQuery Enlightenment last year, I was so impressed with it that I asked Cody if he'd be willing to provide me with some discount codes to share on my blog. Expecting 25% off coupons or something similar, I was very surprised when he generously gave me 3 coupons for free copies of his popular book.

My Review

I don't usually buy technical books; I'm more of a hands-on learner and the books that I've purchased in the past just collect dust. It's one of the reasons why I'm so impressed with jQuery Enlightenment. Besides being an eBook (and therefore can't collect dust), Cody has structured the book in a way that makes it perfect to have as a learning tool as well as a reference.

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I'd like to introduce SimpleModal Login, a modal Ajax login for WordPress which utilizes jQuery and the SimpleModal jQuery plugin.

SimpleModal Login handles logging into WordPress but does not handle user registration or the forgot password functions.

SimpleModal Login also supports themes, something I'm planning on adding to the SimpleModal Contact Form plugin as well.

If you have any feedback or issues, please let me know!

Download Project Page

In the SimpleModal 1.3.2 release I re-introduced an issue in IE7 with determining the container dimensions.

Thanks to all who reported the issue, it has been fixed and 1.3.3 has been released.

If you're curious about the specifics, in IE7, $(element).width() (and height()) return a value that includes the padding and/or margin of the element. All other browsers return the actual height/width. This was throwing off the logic for determining how to size the container.

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SimpleModal 1.3.2 is now available for download.

In case you are wondering, 1.3.1 was used in the demos but never officially released. The demos have been updated as well.

A number a container dimension fixes were added as well as a new option, autoPosition, which can be used to turn off auto positioning of the container upon creation and window re-size. I also shortened many internal variables to help reduce file-size. Hopefully it doesn't hurt the readability.

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Since I'm not planning on carving another WordPress pumpkin this year, I thought I'd create some desktop wallpapers of the pumpkin I carved last year for WordPress fans to show their holiday spirit.

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Having used jQuery and WordPress together on a number of plugins and themes, I thought I'd share some tips that I have learned. The following are 5 clear, concise, and relevant tips that you should know when using jQuery in your WordPress Theme or Plugin.

1. Use wp_enqueue_script()

The traditional way to include jQuery in an HTML page is with the script tag. When working with WordPress, you should *never* do this. To avoid conflicts and other potential problems, you'll want to load jQuery using the following code:

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After releasing the pagination function for WordPress code, I decided to make it easier to use by creating an official WordPress Plugin.

So, I'd like to introduce WP-Paginate, a simple and flexible pagination plugin which provides users with better navigation for your WordPress site.

If you have any feedback or issues, please let me know!

Download Project Page

The September 2009 issue of JSMag is now available and I'm happy to announce that one of my photos was selected for the cover.

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