In one of our projects, we encountered a challenge to create the ability to upload multiple files from one browser window. Basically, a user will click on a “browse” button. The explorer window will popup. He/she can then select multiple files by pressing the “ctrl” or “shift” keys. Upon pressing OK, these files will be automatically updated. The challenge that we were facing was that most browser dialogs when it is triggered using the regular <input type=”file”> only allows ONE file to be selected.

So, we tried to do some research and we found that most of the solutions used Java Applet or some kind of programs that require installations. This was not the solution we were looking for. We wanted a solution that allowed that could be integrated without requiring the user to install any application.

And, then, we stumbled upon the SWFUpload.org. SWFUpload is “a small JavaScript/Flash library to get the best of both worlds. It features the great upload capabilities of Flash and the accessibility and ease of HTML/CSS [including upload multiple files at once by ctrl/shift-selecting in dialog]”. The great thing about this is that it has so many robust features including JavaScript callback, graceful degradation, and progress bar functionalities. Try out the demo here.

While Flash might require installation to the browser by the user, Flash is much more commonly used / integrated into browsers. Thus, our tunnel to find the solution has finally found the light at the end.

The power of JavaScript and DOM Scripting has certainly made the behavior of a web very much dynamic and easy to implement.

One of the examples that benefit from this technology is in creating an alternating color rows table (so called striped table). Alternating color rows are very helpful in differentiating each row in a table. Therefore, it certainly helps in the presentation of your information in a table.

With a little bit of JavaScript, you can easily create one or more striped tables by simply embedding a class into your table tag.

Please see our example on alternating color rows table and its brief tutorial.

I remember the first carousel ride that I took when I was a small kid. It was totally fun! I would not stop riding on it.

Amazingly, the web has this carousel like widget, too. Fabio Zendhi Nagao has created this widget, iCarousel, using javascript and html that complies to the web standard. When I visited his site and saw the demo (Mac lovers, you should see this demo), I just fell in love with its interactivity.

Therefore, I did an implementation of this iCarousel widget into our portfolio. So, check it out!

But, please do not play too long, mommy is going to be angry! :p