Don’t call me DOM

When one wants to use JavaScript to add language-specific content to a page (for instance, for localization), the only cross-browser property available is navigator.language, which unfortunately represents the browser’s language, not the user’s preferred language — that browsers often make configurable.

This makes navigator.language pretty much inappropriate as a base for a solid localization effort.

While the browser sends the preferred language with each request to any server through the Accept-Language HTTP header, the client-side JavaScript engine doesn’t have access to the value of that header, and so cannot even try to parse it to determine the user’s preferred language.  Read more... (265 words, estimated 1:04 mins reading time)

Yesterday night, I was participating to a BarCamp in Sophia-Antipolis (where W3C European offices are located) on the “mobile Internet” theme.

Among the topics that were discussed, one theme popped up in several of the sessions I took part to: the differences between “native” mobile applications and mobile Web sites, in particular to answer the question that a number of people asked on which path they should choose for their content or service.  Read more... (1096 words, estimated 4:23 mins reading time)

I wrote a year ago an XSLT style sheet that can be handy in creating graphical timelines: it takes a simple XML file describing the said timeline, and turns it into an SVG image.

The XML file should look like:

<timeline>
  <start>2009-01-01</start>
  <end>2009-12-31</end>
  <line>
   <bar><start>2009-01</start><end>2009-05</end><name>Task A.1</name></bar>
   <bar><start>2009-07</start><end>2009-10</end><name>Task A.2</name></bar>

  </line>
  <line>
   <bar><start>2009-01</start><end>2009-08</end><name>Task B</name></bar>
  </line>

</timeline>

And turns it into an SVG timeline that looks like:

It could use some graphical enhancements, a better SVG markup, and many other improvements, but since I already had a couple of occasions to use it for my own purposes, I’m assuming it might serve as useful inspiration for others who would need something similar.