Simple change to core myspace code, Significantly simplifies page customization.
More Classes.
It was that simple, and it took myspace years to figure it out.
[note: (added July 11 2007)
More new classes. More of my old code is obsoleted. Not a problem. The classes are a good thing, they make customizing easier for the many, which is more important than the egos of the few.]
Those who wrote codes for the various "profile pimping" sites figured it out (or stole the code from someone else who had figured it out).
The geeks who hang out in the customizing forums figured it out.
High school kids figured it out.
Many of us came up with myspace customizing code, which involved first creating a custom class, and then using that class to manipulate the items on the page.
Creating custom classes often involved sticking messy code in the various data input points, which closed layers of open tables, opened a class, then re-opened the closed tables.
Some times this involved closing tables, after the table headers had been created, and then re-creating the headers after creating the desired class.
At times this involved opening divs which we would never have an opportunity to close (counting on the div to automatically close when the containing table closed).
I doubt this code would ever pass a reasonable code verification check. But it worked (at least on most browsers :-).
In cases where we could not create a class, because there was no point to input code where the class was need; customization often involved addressing an element based on how many tables deep the element was. This often meant the change effected more than the desired page element, and more code was then needed to reverse the undesired side effects.
None of this was technically complex, but it was all very tedious for those of us who had to work around the existing core code.
However, for myspace, all it took was a few very simple, very low risk (if any risk) changes to the core code.
So what took them so long?
What finally motivated myspace to make this needed change?
Was it the malicious hackers. Those who were so intent on bombarding myspace with spam advertisements, that they hacked into various "pimp your myspace sites" and put their garbage into the code, so they could take over pages and send out spam message after spam message?
(Those letter verification things, that I hate, really would have cut down on a whole lot of this).
Was it that some of these sites were actually making revenue off of their advertising, and myspace wanted that revenue for themselves?
So myspace decided to write their own code generator.
Did it take the creation of their own code generator to realize the significant value added by a few simple classes.
So little code, so low risk, and so useful.
While I love the new classes, and consider them a significant improvement; I am NOT at all impressed with the new myspace code generator. But if it took their own generator, to give them the incentive to add more classes, then I am glad they wrote one. The code generator is archaic in design and functionality.
Myspace has all the power to make their code generator the easiest one to use, but so far they have failed to take advantage of this power.
Now I am asking myself what to do with the obsolete myspace codes I have posted on a few of my blogs.
I can remove it all.
I can update it to use the new classes (meaning far less code to do simple things).
[I decided to modify my code, and I am about half done.]
The first change to the new class names happened some time tonight.
They corrected their spelling, I had to again change my code.
Now instead of
.intrestsAndDetails (which I kept typing wrong anyway)
They have
.interestsAndDetails
Really they should separate these two, which is no higher a risk, and no more work, than correcting the spelling. (It is a class name, it doesn't have to be spelled like the words of the stuff it represents).
It was that simple, and it took myspace years to figure it out.
[note: (added July 11 2007)
More new classes. More of my old code is obsoleted. Not a problem. The classes are a good thing, they make customizing easier for the many, which is more important than the egos of the few.]
Those who wrote codes for the various "profile pimping" sites figured it out (or stole the code from someone else who had figured it out).
The geeks who hang out in the customizing forums figured it out.
High school kids figured it out.
Many of us came up with myspace customizing code, which involved first creating a custom class, and then using that class to manipulate the items on the page.
Creating custom classes often involved sticking messy code in the various data input points, which closed layers of open tables, opened a class, then re-opened the closed tables.
Some times this involved closing tables, after the table headers had been created, and then re-creating the headers after creating the desired class.
At times this involved opening divs which we would never have an opportunity to close (counting on the div to automatically close when the containing table closed).
I doubt this code would ever pass a reasonable code verification check. But it worked (at least on most browsers :-).
In cases where we could not create a class, because there was no point to input code where the class was need; customization often involved addressing an element based on how many tables deep the element was. This often meant the change effected more than the desired page element, and more code was then needed to reverse the undesired side effects.
None of this was technically complex, but it was all very tedious for those of us who had to work around the existing core code.
However, for myspace, all it took was a few very simple, very low risk (if any risk) changes to the core code.
So what took them so long?
What finally motivated myspace to make this needed change?
Was it the malicious hackers. Those who were so intent on bombarding myspace with spam advertisements, that they hacked into various "pimp your myspace sites" and put their garbage into the code, so they could take over pages and send out spam message after spam message?
(Those letter verification things, that I hate, really would have cut down on a whole lot of this).
Was it that some of these sites were actually making revenue off of their advertising, and myspace wanted that revenue for themselves?
So myspace decided to write their own code generator.
Did it take the creation of their own code generator to realize the significant value added by a few simple classes.
So little code, so low risk, and so useful.
While I love the new classes, and consider them a significant improvement; I am NOT at all impressed with the new myspace code generator. But if it took their own generator, to give them the incentive to add more classes, then I am glad they wrote one. The code generator is archaic in design and functionality.
Myspace has all the power to make their code generator the easiest one to use, but so far they have failed to take advantage of this power.
Now I am asking myself what to do with the obsolete myspace codes I have posted on a few of my blogs.
I can remove it all.
I can update it to use the new classes (meaning far less code to do simple things).
[I decided to modify my code, and I am about half done.]
The first change to the new class names happened some time tonight.
They corrected their spelling, I had to again change my code.
Now instead of
.intrestsAndDetails (which I kept typing wrong anyway)
They have
.interestsAndDetails
Really they should separate these two, which is no higher a risk, and no more work, than correcting the spelling. (It is a class name, it doesn't have to be spelled like the words of the stuff it represents).
posted by uāāl!ā at Wednesday, May 16, 2007
1 Comments:
Thanks for your comments on my blog post on this subject. They were helpful. I hadn't realised that IE might render the scroll box differently.
And that comment about the "non css people" was only a joke, i didn't think anybody actually read my blog posts. Oops!
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