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Month: February 2009

Javascript: innerHTML, Select menu and Internet Explorer

February 12, 2009
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I’ve just had cause to pull in the contents of a SELECT menu using Javascript to help build up a webpage on the fly using the DOM. I had to do it this was a there were potentially 4,000 items for a select html menu (and so the user had to narrow it down by pre-selecting another menu) and then pulling the list of items from the server. The were also some optgroups in there (making using JSON or XML that bit harder) and there could, potentially, be some formatting information. Oh – and there could be 1 or 100 of these menus on the webpage.

The way I initally worked it, and which worked in Firefox, was to use:
document.getElementById(‘menuname’).innerHTML=fetchedHTML;
(menuname being the id of the Domscripting gave me a clue and I eventually finished up with:
document.getElementById(‘menuname’).parentNode.innerHTML = ‘‘;
(i.e. recreating the entire select menu from scratch). It’s not nice, but it works!

Influential Twitterer

February 8, 2009
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It appears I’m as important as my ego has been telling me. I’ve been on Twitter less than 48 hours and already famous well-known people such as Robert Scoble, Martin Belam (aka Currybet), Chris Prillio, Danny Choo, The Planet (the web server company), Isabel Wang, Neil Turner, Katy Bairstow and even His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has joined my army of minions and are following and listening to my every word.

If all those famous names are following me, I’m obviously very important and you should be following me too (/me does mesmerising hand-waving movements).

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Does God really exist? It’ll be down to the Advertising Standards Authority to decide…

February 6, 2009
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As you may be aware, the British Humanist Association’s “There is probably no God” bus advert campaign was reported to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority for being “offensive and denigratory to people of faith” and “challenged whether the ad was misleading because the advertiser would not be able to substantiate its claim that God “probably” does not exist” (see the ASA’s update where they said it was “not in breach of the advertising code” and “the ad was an expression of the advertiser’s opinion”) in the BHA’s “There’s probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life” bus adverts.

I now wonder if the ASA will receive, and take action, against the Russian Orthodox Church, the Christian Party and Trinitarian Bible Society for stating “There definitely is a God”, “There definitely is a God; so join the Christian Party and enjoy your life.” and “There IS a God, BELIEVE. Don’t worry and enjoy your life.” in their own bus adverts. Source: BBC News and Daily Mail.

I just hope that all of those three organisations can, with their statement of fact (“definitely is a god” and “There IS a God”), can substantiate the existence of God to the Advertising Standards board – and the fact that their advertisement would be offensive and denigratory to people of other faiths and those who do not believe in the existence of God.

Paypal Express Checkout and Recurring Payments

February 4, 2009
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Are you, like me, using Paypal Express Checkout for integration into your shopping cart/ecommerce site?
Are you, like me, utilising the Paypal Subscriptions (Recurring Payments) options to set up future payments?
Are you, like me, getting a blank page when you are trying to setup a Recurring payment (maybe using the PHP NVP kit) after clicking “Agree and Pay” on the “Review your payment” page of the Paypal sandbox or live site)?

If so, the problem may be because you are sending an “AMT” (Amount) of 0 to Paypal: I did this because I didn’t want to actually take any money now…

It appears this is a long standing issue with the SetExpressCheckout section and RecurringPayments on Paypal and to avoid the blank white page, you’ll need to just send a nominal amount (such as 0.01) for Paypal to process “now”. However, Paypal does charge you a 20p transaction fee on the live system, so you may need to adjust your entire Paypal Express Checkout integration.