11 Word Monday Meme

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(About Meme Monday)

Jquery UI Draggable and Scrollbars

While working on a recent sprint on my task management software Kanban for Developers, I ran across an issue that took some time to track down. On the main screen of the application is a Kanban board with yellow boxes to represent tasks written on sticky notes on a white board. There are 5 different categories and the tasks can be dragged and dropped onto any of the categories. By default, categories are limited to only a small number of tasks to prevent users from being overwhelmed and so that the tasks will be displayed nicely on the board. However, users can edit the size of these categories and in the latest sprint, can double click on a task and it will expand to fit the text within the task. This can greatly increase the size the task category and look unsightly. Something needed to be done to reighn in the height of the task categories.

The simplest solution would be to add scrollbars via the CSS overflow property, but the appearance is less then desirable. Then I found a promising site with a list of 10 different scrollbar widgets.

While the site looked promising, there were some, like jScrollPane, which required too much setup and broke other parts of the application. Most of the other plugins would not work with the draggable plugin from jQuery UI. Once the draggable element reached the edge of the its parent container, the element disappeared behind the adjacent container. I encountered this behavior with jQuery scroll and Tiny Scrollbar. After trying a few different plugins, finally I was able to get the expected behvior out of the ShortScroll plugin.

Is Short Scroll the only choice for getting jQuery droppable and scrollbar plugibs to play nice with eachother? No, but if you encounter this issue with jQuery scrollbar and UI-Droppable elements, then you will probably have to switch your scrollbar plugin, as there does not appear to be a work around with many of these plugins.

Of course, this could change in a few months.

List of Ruby and Ruby on Rails Tutorials

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been working with Ruby and Rails to broaden my skills. While books are a great way to learn a new language, for Ruby and Rails, there are plenty of online tutorials to help you get started. Here's a partial list of Ruby and Ruby on Rails tutorials

Ruby
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby: While I'm a .Net guy, I do know that every Ruby developer needs to read Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby. Its pretty close to a law. I hear your Ruby code won't run unless you answer some Microprose-esque like questions about Why's Guide to Ruby. In all seriousness, it is an excellent read and very informative, if not somewhat unconventional in the realm of Computer Language books.

Ruby in 20 Minutes: This is from the official Ruby website, and as one would expect, is an excellent introduction into Ruby. While I didn't time myself, the lesson did move pretty quickly and was easy to understand.

Ruby from Other Languages: Again, this comes from the official Ruby website and offers a comprehensive look at how Ruby compares with other languages.

Learning Ruby:If you are looking for a more classical training in the Ruby language, then Learning Ruby from a University of Maryland website is the closest I've found online.


Ruby on Rails


Setting up Rails on Windows: While I haven't gone through the tutorial myself, this seems to be a pretty comprehensive tutorial on setting up Ruby on Rails for a Windows development environment.

Getting Started: This comes from the official Ruby on Rails website, and while it explains a great deal about the Ruby on Rails methodology, it also requires a working database setup and provides little guidance for the user if things go wrong.

Tutorials Point: This sites starts at the beginning of Ruby development and introduces the reader to concepts that the reader will use, but may take for granted. In all, this is one of the better tutorials on Rails.

Rad Rails Tutorial: This tutorial is geared towards the users who use Aptana's Rad Rails plugin for Eclipse and Subversion. While I prefer Mercurial, I was still able to do this tutorial by skipping over the portions regarding Subversion.

Ruby on Rails Tutorial (book): This is a fairly comprehensive book regarding Rails that is still being edited. As such, there may be mistakes. But, the book covers many more advanced topics then any other tutorial on this list.


While these tutorials will not turn anyone into a Ruby or Ruby on Rails guru over night, they do provide a starting point for the Developer. Ruby is a new technology, but like any new technology, time and effort must be put in to understand how to use.