Add Shortcode with Add Media Button

This code snippet really helped me today and since the post doesn’t have commenting enabled, I wanted to say thanks here! Working on building a WordPress plugin that generates shortcodes and wanted an interface for the user to create their own with a wizard of sorts, so using a media button, shortcode and thickbox all together wasn’t very documented anywhere that I could find until I came across this one and I was happy to be able to lift what I needed from this snippet and see my code working like a charm now. The plugin I’m working on is for the Greenhouse Recruiting site and pulls in a job board onto your site via their API. The shortcode wizard will be included in a release soon so you can see it in action.

add shortcode to a page or post without remembering the shortcode itself… choose the shortcode parameters and then have it automatically place itself in the editor

via Add Shortcode with Add Media Button.

Packery Preview, from Metafizzy & descended from Masonry

David Desandro / metafizzy, maker of masonry and isotope of which I’m a big fan and user of has been busy with a new project called Packery.

Packery, looks to be a child of Masonry. As you would expect it seems to be pushing things much further and addressing a few pain points of masonry. He’s boasting in this blog post that it will optionally support grid layouts, and give you the option to go grid-less for a more haphazard looking layout. It will allow filling holes and adding elements on the fly, but most impressively… We’ll have drag and drop support (including touch support and multitouch support)! You drag an item around the grid (or non grid) and watch live as elements reposition to embrace the newly placed item! Very cool and I can’t wait to play with it.

Read up on the Packery preview from Desandro on his Metafizzy Blog.

Working out a Math Problem | BIT-101

I love how math creeps into design, programming and other problem solving.

I had some fun playing with Keith’s code (as usual). I’m always impressed with how he’ll see a problem and eventually at least figure out how to solve it using math/trig/physics. It’s a breath of fresh air and it almost makes me wish I was a math teacher and I could whip the example out whenever a student says ‘how is math useful’. I use it and even enjoy using math in my work to solve problems and it what bits I paid attention to in school still really help me.

Anyways, Keith was trying to figure out how to have a ring of a certain number of exactly touching circles around one central circle of a predetermined size. Sounds like a perfect bonus question from trig, right?
Here’s his post: Working out a Math Problem | BIT-101. And then his follow-up post where he gets to what I was expecting in some nice renderings showing how he’s using this simple pattern to make some really interesting designs.

I commented that I liked his problem solving procedure and was interested to see it animated! I love how math creeps into design like this. So I toyed a bit with animating the form. Check out my jsbin at http://jsbin.com/icahul/132/edit.

Tweening Lib comes to Javascript!

I'm very excited to share the news that the tween library from GreenSock (hands down the best tweening library I used in flash) is not ported for use in javascript! This will be great! I missed that simple syntax from as3 when animating javascript, and now I can have my cake and eat it too.

Embedded Link

» GreenSock tweening comes to JavaScript
Great news for those who are looking to get into JS animation. GreenSock, the creator of excellent libraries like TweenLite and TweenMax, has just released their new animation platform and it includes…

Snow via Javascript & Canvas – Tis the Season

After playing with the settings in my experiments I found a few settings I liked and wanted to develop further. The first was snow! An added bonus I was able to work on a project just for the holidays and used much of this code in it! I looked around the web and saw a couple interesting examples of snow, but nothing that stood out to me. I used couple images and pulled them into the canvas in place of the dot (choosing one of 3 flake graphics), and learned how to apply a rotation to that graphic from somewhere online (I think stackoverflow, but now I can’t find it again to link it. The physics settings are hardcoded now and the update function doesn’t check the dot y position against the top of the page, since the snow should all be moving down with the gravity, it could be moved up with it’s floating, but I just wanted it to come down on it’s own. Then to get the rotation we need to save the context state, more to the flake center, rotate it and then move back to the canvas origin, draw the image and restore context. This process sounded complicated and took a bit to get things in the right order and the whole time I was scared it would be too processor intense for a good amount of snowflakes, it seems to do just fine! interactive physics animations via javascript & canvas | snow application example: check it out!

[cc lang=”javascript”]
$(function () {
var canvas, context, width, height, x, y, radius = 25, clickX, clickY, drag = false;
var total_dots = 150;
var fps = 24;

canvas = $(“#canvas”)[0];
context = canvas.getContext(“2d”);
var dots = new Array();
var drag_i = -1;
var gravity = .05;
var friction = .98;
var bounce = -.96;
var wrap = true;
var float = true;

var imgs = new Array();
var img1 = new Image();
var img2 = new Image();
var img3 = new Image();
img1.src = “snowflake_1.png”;
img2.src = “snowflake_2.png”;
img3.src = “snowflake_3.png”;
imgs[0] = img1;
imgs[1] = img2;
imgs[2] = img3;
var this_dot = {};
for (var i=0; i < total_dots; i++){ createDot(); } function createDot(x, y, r, vx, vy){ var this_dot = { x: typeof(x) != 'undefined' ? x : Math.random()*canvas.width, y: typeof(y) != 'undefined' ? y : Math.random()*-canvas.height, radius: typeof(r) != 'undefined' ? r : 25, scale: Math.floor(10 + (1+50-10)*Math.random()), vx: typeof(vx) != 'undefined' ? vx : Math.random()*3-1, vy: typeof(vy) != 'undefined' ? vy : Math.random()*3, //this will pick a digit 1, 2 or 3 and set it as the src value, this could also be a Math.floor(Math.random()*3)+1 to really be random src: (dots.length % 3) + 1, r: 0, vr: 0 }; dots.push(this_dot); } draw(); $("#canvas").mousedown(function (event) { createDot(event.pageX - this.offsetLeft-25, event.pageY - this.offsetTop-25); }); $("#canvas").mouseup(function (event) { drag = false; drag_i = -1; }); function update(){ for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ if (drag_i != i){ var this_dot = dots[i]; if (float){ this_dot.vx += Math.random() - .5; this_dot.vy += Math.random() - .5; this_dot.vr += Math.random()*.01 - .005; } this_dot.vx *= friction; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * friction + gravity; this_dot.x += this_dot.vx; this_dot.y += this_dot.vy; this_dot.r += this_dot.vr; if (this_dot.x > canvas.width + this_dot.radius){
this_dot.x -= canvas.width + this_dot.radius*2;
this_dot.vr = 0;
}
else if(this_dot.x < 0 - this_dot.radius){ this_dot.x += canvas.width + this_dot.radius*2; this_dot.vr = 0; } if (this_dot.y > canvas.height + this_dot.radius){
this_dot.y -= canvas.height + this_dot.radius*2;
this_dot.vr = 0;
}

}
}
}
function draw() {
context.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height);
for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ var src = img1; if (dots[i].src == 1){ } else if (dots[i].src == 2){ src = img2; } else { src = img3; } context.save(); context.translate(dots[i].x+dots[i].scale/2, dots[i].y+dots[i].scale/2); context.rotate(dots[i].r); context.translate(-dots[i].x-dots[i].scale/2, -dots[i].y-dots[i].scale/2); context.drawImage(src, dots[i].x, dots[i].y, dots[i].scale, dots[i].scale); context.restore(); } } setInterval(function() { update(); draw(); }, 1000/fps); }); [/cc]Follow the whole Interactive Physics Animations via Javascript & Canvas series.

Microsoft Touch Mouse and The Art of Touch | Giveaway

Microsoft has a new line of TouchMouse. They have a campaign to cooinside with it called the Art of Touch and have invited a few artists to participate and more to drive interest with free shwag! Basically that boils down to me having a [amazon_link id=”B004HYGU18″ target=”_blank” ]Microsoft Touch Mouse[/amazon_link] to give away! So go play with the app and link a comment to your art. I’ll randomly select someone for the award as a christmas present! Be sure to comment with an email address you’ll reply to.

[amazon_image id=”B004HYGU18″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Microsoft Touch Mouse[/amazon_image]

I played with the drawing app, and while it’s not totally generative, it does add a sense of randomness to it. It’s fun in that it tried to incorporate a few different styles of artists, including one of my favorites, Erik Natzke. Here’s what Erik had to say:

Along with the custom brush that I designed for them, there are an assortment of brush styles they’ve designed to help hone in on your artistic flair that you can share, print & even compete to win some prizes. The link below will allow you to vote on the one I just made. I’m curious what other people will make.

And here’s what I came up with in a couple minutes:

Comment below with a link to your art to be entered to win a new [amazon_link id=”B004HYGU18″ target=”_blank” ]Microsoft Touch Mouse[/amazon_link] this Christmas.

Interactive Physics Animations Javascript Canvas 17

I’m really enjoying giving a control panel of sorts to the end user and letting them control the physics rules of their canvas. Let’s add more motion to it by applying a jitter to the velocity of each dot. This is similar to earlier, when we first started animating by applying a random number to the coordinates, but now we’ll apply a (smaller) random number to the velocity. This will be much smoother and will give a sense of real life to the dots. Straight lines and trajectories is always theoretical and hypothetical, but to make things look more real, sometimes we have to break the clean, straight lines. This will be another checkbox to control the float. I’m really enjoying the fact that the more properties we add to our controls we get exponentially more possible configurations. Perhaps we should even give a slider to control the strength of gravity…
interactive physics animations via javascript & canvas | 17.

[cc lang=”javascript”]
$(function () {
var canvas, context, width, height, x, y, radius = 25, clickX, clickY, drag = false;
var total_dots = 10;
var fps = 24;

canvas = $(“#canvas”)[0];
context = canvas.getContext(“2d”);
var dots = new Array();
var drag_i = -1;
var gravity = 0;
var friction = .98;
var bounce = -.96;
var wrap = false;
var float = true;

var this_dot = {};
for (var i=0; i < total_dots; i++){ createDot(); } function createDot(x, y, r, vx, vy){ var this_dot = { x: typeof(x) != 'undefined' ? x : Math.random()*canvas.width, y: typeof(y) != 'undefined' ? y : Math.random()*canvas.height, radius: typeof(r) != 'undefined' ? r : Math.random()*20+10, vx: typeof(vx) != 'undefined' ? vx : Math.random()*30-10, vy: typeof(vy) != 'undefined' ? vy : Math.random()*30-10 }; dots.push(this_dot); } draw(); $("#canvas").mousedown(function (event) { var dx, dy, dist; for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ dx = event.pageX - this.offsetLeft - dots[i].x; dy = event.pageY - this.offsetTop - dots[i].y; dist = Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy); if(dist < radius) { drag = true; drag_i = i clickX = dx; clickY = dy; continue; } } //none clicked if (!drag) { createDot(event.pageX - this.offsetLeft, event.pageY - this.offsetTop); } }); $("#canvas").mouseup(function (event) { drag = false; drag_i = -1; }); $("#canvas").mousemove(function (event) { if(drag) { dots[drag_i].old_x = dots[drag_i].x; dots[drag_i].old_y = dots[drag_i].y; dots[drag_i].x = event.pageX - this.offsetLeft - clickX; dots[drag_i].y = event.pageY - this.offsetTop - clickY; dots[drag_i].vx = dots[drag_i].x - dots[drag_i].old_x; dots[drag_i].vy = dots[drag_i].y - dots[drag_i].old_y; draw(); } }); function update(){ for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ if (drag_i != i){ var this_dot = dots[i]; if (float){ this_dot.vx += Math.random() - .5; this_dot.vy += Math.random() - .5; } this_dot.vx *= friction; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * friction + gravity; this_dot.x += this_dot.vx; this_dot.y += this_dot.vy; if (wrap){ if (this_dot.x > canvas.width + this_dot.radius){
this_dot.x -= canvas.width + this_dot.radius*2;
}
else if(this_dot.x < 0 - this_dot.radius){ this_dot.x += canvas.width + this_dot.radius*2; } if (this_dot.y > canvas.height + this_dot.radius){
this_dot.y -= canvas.height + this_dot.radius*2;
}
else if(this_dot.y < 0 - this_dot.radius){ this_dot.y += canvas.height + this_dot.radius*2; } } else if (!wrap) { if (this_dot.x > canvas.width – this_dot.radius){
this_dot.x = canvas.width – this_dot.radius;
this_dot.vx = this_dot.vx * bounce;
}
else if(this_dot.x < 0 + this_dot.radius){ this_dot.x = this_dot.radius; this_dot.vx = this_dot.vx * bounce; } if (this_dot.y > canvas.height – this_dot.radius){
this_dot.y = canvas.height – this_dot.radius;
this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * bounce;
}
else if(this_dot.y < 0 + this_dot.radius){ this_dot.y = this_dot.radius; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * bounce; } } } } } function draw() { context.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height); for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ context.beginPath(); context.arc(dots[i].x, dots[i].y, dots[i].radius, 0, Math.PI * 2, false); context.fill(); context.closePath(); } } setInterval(function() { update(); draw(); }, 1000/fps);$("#gravity").click(function(){ if($("#gravity").is(':checked')){ gravity = 2; } else{ gravity = 0; } }); $("#wrap").click(function(){ if($("#wrap").is(':checked')){ wrap = true; } else{ wrap = false; } }); $("#float").click(function(){ if($("#float").is(':checked')){ float = true; } else{ float = false; } }); }); [/cc]Follow the whole Interactive Physics Animations via Javascript & Canvas series.

Interactive Physics Animations Javascript Canvas 16

I always want to give the end user (at least some) control of how they view and interact with data. Earlier we gave users control over gravity. Here let’s give them control over the canvas edges. Rather than having our dots bounce on the edges of the canvas, lets have them wrap across to the other side. Like in the asteroids game the ship can fly to the edge of the screen and see space wrap them back to the other side. We’ll set this up as a control exposed to the user much like gravity. Let’s call it wrap and use a boolean value to store the setting. We’ll need to add another block of conditionals for this case where we have the set already with the bouncing. I took some care with the values so that the dots leave the canvas before they make the hyper-jump to the other side. Otherwise you’d see the magic. interactive physics animations via javascript & canvas | 16.

[cc lang=”javascript”]
$(function () {
var canvas, context, width, height, x, y, radius = 25, clickX, clickY, drag = false;
var total_dots = 10;
var fps = 24;

canvas = $(“#canvas”)[0];
context = canvas.getContext(“2d”);
var dots = new Array();
var drag_i = -1;
var gravity = 0;
var friction = .98;
var bounce = -.96;
var wrap = true;

var this_dot = {};
for (var i=0; i < total_dots; i++){ createDot(); } function createDot(x, y, r, vx, vy){ var this_dot = { x: typeof(x) != 'undefined' ? x : Math.random()*canvas.width, y: typeof(y) != 'undefined' ? y : Math.random()*canvas.height, radius: typeof(r) != 'undefined' ? r : Math.random()*20+10, vx: typeof(vx) != 'undefined' ? vx : Math.random()*30-10, vy: typeof(vy) != 'undefined' ? vy : Math.random()*30-10 }; dots.push(this_dot); } draw(); $("#canvas").mousedown(function (event) { var dx, dy, dist; for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ dx = event.pageX - this.offsetLeft - dots[i].x; dy = event.pageY - this.offsetTop - dots[i].y; dist = Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy); if(dist < radius) { drag = true; drag_i = i clickX = dx; clickY = dy; continue; } } //none clicked if (!drag) { createDot(event.pageX - this.offsetLeft, event.pageY - this.offsetTop); } }); $("#canvas").mouseup(function (event) { drag = false; drag_i = -1; }); $("#canvas").mousemove(function (event) { if(drag) { dots[drag_i].old_x = dots[drag_i].x; dots[drag_i].old_y = dots[drag_i].y; dots[drag_i].x = event.pageX - this.offsetLeft - clickX; dots[drag_i].y = event.pageY - this.offsetTop - clickY; dots[drag_i].vx = dots[drag_i].x - dots[drag_i].old_x; dots[drag_i].vy = dots[drag_i].y - dots[drag_i].old_y; draw(); } }); function update(){ for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ if (drag_i != i){ var this_dot = dots[i]; this_dot.vx *= friction; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * friction + gravity; this_dot.x += this_dot.vx; this_dot.y += this_dot.vy; if (wrap){ if (this_dot.x > canvas.width + this_dot.radius){
this_dot.x -= canvas.width + this_dot.radius*2;
}
else if(this_dot.x < 0 - this_dot.radius){ this_dot.x += canvas.width + this_dot.radius*2; } if (this_dot.y > canvas.height + this_dot.radius){
this_dot.y -= canvas.height + this_dot.radius*2;
}
else if(this_dot.y < 0 - this_dot.radius){ this_dot.y += canvas.height + this_dot.radius*2; } } else if (!wrap) { if (this_dot.x > canvas.width – this_dot.radius){
this_dot.x = canvas.width – this_dot.radius;
this_dot.vx = this_dot.vx * bounce;
}
else if(this_dot.x < 0 + this_dot.radius){ this_dot.x = this_dot.radius; this_dot.vx = this_dot.vx * bounce; } if (this_dot.y > canvas.height – this_dot.radius){
this_dot.y = canvas.height – this_dot.radius;
this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * bounce;
}
else if(this_dot.y < 0 + this_dot.radius){ this_dot.y = this_dot.radius; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * bounce; } } } } } function draw() { context.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height); for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ context.beginPath(); context.arc(dots[i].x, dots[i].y, dots[i].radius, 0, Math.PI * 2, false); context.fill(); context.closePath(); } } setInterval(function() { update(); draw(); }, 1000/fps);$("#gravity").click(function(){ if($("#gravity").is(':checked')){ gravity = 2; } else{ gravity = 0; } }); $("#wrap").click(function(){ if($("#wrap").is(':checked')){ wrap = true; } else{ wrap = false; } }); }); [/cc]Follow the whole Interactive Physics Animations via Javascript & Canvas series.

Interactive Physics Animations Javascript Canvas 15

Earlier we worked on making all the dots draggable, but what’s better than simply dragging dots? Let’s set up a way to throw the dots! Now as we drag it we record the positions and use that to calculate a new velocity. Then when a dot is dropped, it will have a trajectory to follow that matches the path and speed it was dragged. This iteration only looks at the current frame and the previous frame, but a better solution may be to average the previous few positions to get a better feel. I’ve noticed that (with a mouse especially) people tend to stop dragging just before they mouseup, so this kills any velocity the dot receives during the drag. Enjoy throwing the dots around the canvas! interactive physics animations via javascript & canvas | 15.

[cc lang=”javascript”]
$(function () {
var canvas, context, width, height, x, y, radius = 25, clickX, clickY, drag = false;
var total_dots = 10;
var fps = 24;

canvas = $(“#canvas”)[0];
context = canvas.getContext(“2d”);
var dots = new Array();
var drag_i = -1;
var gravity = 2;
var friction = .98;
var bounce = -.96;

var this_dot = {};
for (var i=0; i < total_dots; i++){ createDot(); } function createDot(x, y, r, vx, vy){ var this_dot = { x: typeof(x) != 'undefined' ? x : Math.random()*canvas.width, y: typeof(y) != 'undefined' ? y : Math.random()*canvas.height, radius: typeof(r) != 'undefined' ? r : Math.random()*20+10, vx: typeof(vx) != 'undefined' ? vx : Math.random()*30-10, vy: typeof(vy) != 'undefined' ? vy : Math.random()*30-10 }; dots.push(this_dot); } draw(); $("#canvas").mousedown(function (event) { var dx, dy, dist; for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ dx = event.pageX - this.offsetLeft - dots[i].x; dy = event.pageY - this.offsetTop - dots[i].y; dist = Math.sqrt(dx * dx + dy * dy); if(dist < radius) { drag = true; drag_i = i clickX = dx; clickY = dy; continue; } } //none clicked if (!drag) { createDot(event.pageX - this.offsetLeft, event.pageY - this.offsetTop); } }); $("#canvas").mouseup(function (event) { drag = false; drag_i = -1; }); $("#canvas").mousemove(function (event) { if(drag) { dots[drag_i].old_x = dots[drag_i].x; dots[drag_i].old_y = dots[drag_i].y; dots[drag_i].x = event.pageX - this.offsetLeft - clickX; dots[drag_i].y = event.pageY - this.offsetTop - clickY; dots[drag_i].vx = dots[drag_i].x - dots[drag_i].old_x; dots[drag_i].vy = dots[drag_i].y - dots[drag_i].old_y; draw(); } }); function update(){ for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ if (drag_i != i){ var this_dot = dots[i]; this_dot.vx *= friction; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * friction + gravity; this_dot.x += this_dot.vx; this_dot.y += this_dot.vy; if (this_dot.x > canvas.width – this_dot.radius){
this_dot.x = canvas.width – this_dot.radius;
this_dot.vx = this_dot.vx * bounce;
}
else if(this_dot.x < 0 + this_dot.radius){ this_dot.x = this_dot.radius; this_dot.vx = this_dot.vx * bounce; } if (this_dot.y > canvas.height – this_dot.radius){
this_dot.y = canvas.height – this_dot.radius;
this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * bounce;
}
else if(this_dot.y < 0 + this_dot.radius){ this_dot.y = this_dot.radius; this_dot.vy = this_dot.vy * bounce; } } } } function draw() { context.clearRect(0, 0, canvas.width, canvas.height); for (var i=0; i < dots.length; i++){ context.beginPath(); context.arc(dots[i].x, dots[i].y, dots[i].radius, 0, Math.PI * 2, false); context.fill(); context.closePath(); } } setInterval(function() { update(); draw(); }, 1000/fps);$("#gravity").click(function(){ if($("#gravity").is(':checked')){ gravity = 2; } else{ gravity = 0; } }); }); [/cc]Follow the whole Interactive Physics Animations via Javascript & Canvas series.