Ask Felgall

If statements in JavaScript evaluate the condition test as a boolean value. That means that it is either true or it is false. Of course of you don’t start with a boolean value or perform a comparison in order to create a boolean value then the condition will not be a boolean. When this happens JavaScript will convert whatever the value actually is into either true or false. In this seventh JavaScript decision making tutorial we look at how JavaScript decides what values to convert to true and what values to convert to false.

Non-Boolean Results

JavaScript does comparisons using == and === and does assignments using =. When you are coding your if statements you might accidentally leave out an = converting your comparison into an assignment. You might then have a great deal of difficulty in locating why your code is not behaving as expected. In this sixth tutorial on JavaScript decision making we look at how you can rearrange the condition tests in some instances so that the code will generate a syntax error when you make a simple typo when typing your comparison rather than having the code still run but producing the wrong results. This will make it easier to find where you made the error.

Formatting an If Statement

If statements not only allow us to specify statements to be run if a condition is true. By adding an else clause we can also specify alternative statements to be run if the condition is false.

The ELSE Clause

Continuing on with the tutorials on how JavaScript handles decision making, this fourth tutorial introduces the first of the decision making commands - the if statement.

The IF statement

When you decide to place a thumbnail image in your web page, you usually will want that thumbnail to link to a full sized copy of the same image. One way to do this is by having the larger version open in a separate window. In this tutorial we look at how to code our page to do that so that it works either via the HTML or by using a JavaScript that will attempt to set the new window to an appropriate size for the image.

Creating a Thumbnail Image Link

Use of that major security hole of the internet more commonly known as Internet Explorer 6 has fallen since IE7 was released until now where the number of people using it is just below that of IE7 users (at least on my site where Firefox users make up about 35% with IE6 and 7 making up just over and just under 30% each). Thatis about to undergo a further significant change.

To celebrate the first birthday of IE7 Microsoft removed the genuine advantage test from IE7 so that anyone with Windows XP could install IE7 regardless of legitimacy and privacy concerns. On 12th February Microsoft are taking the next step with changing the status of IE7 from being an optional download to being an essential one. This means that anyone who has windows update set on automatic who hasn’t already upgraded to IE7 will be doing so automatically on that day.

The really surprising thing about this is that given the 600+ unplugable security holes in IE6 that Microsoft have taken until now to make the upgrade to IE7 an essential security update.

Obviously there are a few people still using IE6 because their computers are still running older versions of windows and for one reason or another they can’t upgrade to a better operating system - hopefully most of these people have got the message about IE6 being a security hole and are using Firefox or Opera instead. As far as anyone deliberately choosing not to install the upgrade to IE7 on 12th February in order to continue using IE6 all I can say is your computer is a disaster just waiting to happen (security wise) and once just about everyone is using a better browser the really weird quirks that make catering for IE6 a job and three quarters to code for will mean that many web sites will stop adding all the extra codes needed to get their pages to work properly in that antiquated browser and you will find that the pages on the internet that don’t work in really old browsers such as IE6 sarts to increase dramatically over the next year or two.

Another Paint Shop Pro tutorial, this one covers the best way to use Paint Shop Pro to create thumbnail versions of your images for inclusion in your web site (or anywhere else you need thumbnails for that matter). On rereading what I wrote in this tutorial I have realised that I have not necessarily been using the right option to create recent thumbnails and that I might have been able to create better quality thumbnails had I reread the tutorial earlier.

Creating a Thumbnail Image

Unlike Windows and Mac operating systems, Linux does not have a graphical interface built in. Instead there are a fairly large number of graphical interfaces that have been built to run on Linux and it is your choice as to which one (or more than one) they you have installed.

In this article I describe how the various layers in Linux for setting up a graphical interface all fit together. At the time the article was written there was no one interface that was significantly more popular than any other, now the most popular graphical interfaces are Gnome and KDE and most people run one or both of these with other interfaces being used only rarely and usually for specific reasons.

Selecting a Graphical Interface