Wow, Scott, that's thorough!
The third method seems the most plausible. I've tried to implement it,
but the fact snippets don't appear in the 'factholder'. Safari tells
me there's an error loading the page, and I see that it's tried to
load the file "website/facts/undefined.html" (instead of "website/scr/
facts/FactA.html") ... so *that*s why the fact doesn't display.
How come the javascript governing which file-name to choose isn't
working? Also, does the path in the jQuery .load event have to be
relative to that javascript file, or the 'parent' html file?
- - - - -
Here's my code, just incase that helps...
// in 'facts.js' (url: website/scr/facts.js)
var facts = ["FactA", "FactB", "FactC"];
// in 'custom.js' (url: website/scr/custom.js)
$(document).ready(function() {
var fact = facts[Math.floor(facts.size * Math.random())];
$("#fact-box").load("facts/" + fact + ".html");
});
// HTML snippets in the directory: website/scr/facts/ (eg: "website/
scr/facts/FactA.html")
// in the 'parent' HTML page (url: website/default.htm)
<script src="scr/facts.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="scr/custom.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
....
<div id="fact-box">
</div>
Cheers.
~ Zarino
On Jun 27, 3:40 pm, Scott Sauyet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> zarino wrote:
> > Server-side coding would be nice, but it's not PHP-enabled, and I
> > think the only method would through ASP which I, frankly, haven't the
> > foggiest clue about! For the time it'll take to download the
> > relatively small number of 'facts', it shouldn't be a problem.
>
> Wasted bandwidth! Tsk, tsk! :-)
>
> For small amounts of data, it's certainly not a big deal. Then you are
> left with two straightforward techniques, and one trickier option.
>
> ----------
> The first one is relatively obnoxious unless you have access to *some*
> dynamic method on the server. (Do you have SSI available?) This would
> be to have the divs included on each page, but hidden with some
> combination of CSS and JS, then to use JS to display the randomly
> selected one.
>
> Pros: Leaves the HTML formating inside HTML
> Easy to implement
> Cons: Large maintenance issue unless you have some dynamic include
> Increased bandwidth
>
> ----------
> The second one is to do the HTML formating from Javascript. Download a
> JSON array with all your "facts", randomly, choose one, and format HTML
> from it to add to the DOM.
>
> Pros: Pretty easy to implement
> Centralized maintenance of your facts
> Cons: Less flexibility in HTML facts, as they're created by static code.
>
> ----------
> The trickier one involves AJAX: format each fact in its own HTML file,
> and maintain a simple JSON list of filenames. At load time, randomly
> select one element from the list, and AJAX it into the DOM.
>
> Pros: Leaves the HTML formating inside HTML
> Centralized maintenance of your facts
> Cons: More complex to implement
>
> This one is not that hard. If you would like your facts to have some
> simple flexibility in layout and design, I would recommend it. Here's
> some pseudo-code:
>
> // in facts.js:
> var facts = ["factA", "factB", "factC", "brandNewFact", "faceTheFacts"];
>
> // in a script included after facts.js:
> $(document).ready(function() {
> var fact = facts[Math.floor(facts.size * Math.random())];
> $("#factHolder").load("/path/to/fact/dir/" + fact + ".html");
>
> });
>
> Adding a new fact involves creating an HTML snippet in a file and
> updating the list in facts.js. You can delete one by simply updating
> facts.js.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -- Scott
>
> > I take it, using your code, Glen, I'd have a series of hidden divs and
> > then jQuery will randomly pick one and show it?
>
> > This, I presume, will require all of the divs to be duplicated in all
> > of the pages I want to have a random fact displaying on? Is there a
> > way to have the 'facts' centralised -- for example in the jQuery
> > 'custom.js' file or something -- so it's easy to add and remove new or
> > old facts?
>
> > Thanks for your imput. We've nearly cracked it! :-D
>
> > Zarino
>
> > On Jun 26, 11:07 pm, "Glen Lipka" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> I agree. I was stretching his original intent. :)
>
> >> Glen
>
> >> On 6/26/07, Scott Sauyet <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >>> Glen Lipka wrote:
> >>>> Scott, I can think of a couple reasons for this.
> >>>> Let's say you want to scroll some facts or quotes or customer
> >>> testamonials across the screen, but you also want to start at a random
> >>> one.
> >>>> That sort of thing. Or scrolling images.
> >>> Oh, I can see plenty of reasons for choosing a random element of a set,
> >>> but the OP said
> >>>> I'd like to create a repository of 'facts' and have jQuery serve up
> >>>> a different fact at random with each page-load.
> >>> which sounds more server-side to me. Not a big deal either way. As you
> >>> pointed out, it's easy enough to do in JQuery if that's what's needed.
> >>> -- Scott
