I explored building a progressively enhanced sharing web component using Shadow DOM. My focus was on URL visibility and manipulation within web apps, even when they behave like native applications. The component is designed to be customizable and work across browsers, with or without JavaScript, by leveraging existing elements like anchor tags. It uses a Twitter intent as a fallback sharing mechanism when Web Components aren't supported. I'm excited about the potential of web components, even without widespread custom element support.
Custom URL schemes for launching apps have limitations: single app handling, one-way data flow, lack of fallback, and limited mobile support. A better approach is needed, one that offers user choice, developer fallback, diverse data transport, web app registration, and online/offline functionality. Android's 'intent:' URL syntax offers a good starting point, abstracting service discovery and supporting fallback URLs. I propose exploring a new 'action:' scheme or 'web+action' to bridge web and native apps, providing a unified service resolution and registration system for a richer, more integrated user experience.
Sharing content between web and apps is difficult due to platform incompatibility. Android's intent system offers a potential solution, but it lacks portability. This post explores a workaround for sharing actions, using a server-side redirect to handle intent URLs for Android users while providing a fallback to a web service like Twitter for other platforms. This approach allows cross-platform functionality while leveraging Android's intent system when available.
I've created LeviRoutes, a client-side JavaScript routing framework inspired by Rails. It's simple, fast, and focuses solely on handling URL changes. LeviRoutes works with HTML5 History APIs, hashchange events, and even gracefully degrades for older browsers. It supports named parameters like "/:category" for dynamic routing, allowing you to treat the URL as a controller input. Check it out on GitHub!
Many visitors are trying to access the AJAX Tagger via the non-functional AJAXTag23 test page. I need to update the link, directing them to the correct URL: http://www.kinlan.co.uk/AjaxExperiments/AjaxTag2 (AJAXTag2).
This post explores how to access and iterate through a user's Internet Explorer Favorites in C#. I've included C# code that retrieves the Favorites directory and recursively iterates through its folders and files. The code also parses the .URL files to extract the actual URLs. Currently, the code doesn't retrieve the friendly name displayed in the Favorites menu (e.g., "Microsoft" instead of "www.microsoft.com"), but I'm looking into using IShellLink for this and would appreciate any insights.
