Optimize your CSS files with Gulp.js – Part 1

When I was a novice CSS programmer, I wrote all my code in a single css file, just a style after the other. I knew that HTTP works better with a single big file instead of multiple little ones.

But  soon this file became very large and difficult to update, my system was not modular and scalable.

Then I read SMACSS and it changed the way I architect my CSS source code.

But the modularization of CSS yet caused the creation of multiple files, instead of a big one, with all its implications. So I began to search a tool to concatenate and optimize my files in a single one.

Welcome Gulp.js.

gulpjs

Continue reading Optimize your CSS files with Gulp.js – Part 1

Sending Push Notification with HTTP2 (and PHP)

pushesnotifhttp2

In order to send a push notification to an iOS device we must contact Apple servers and delegate them to do the work (go to this page to find more details on the entire process).

Some months ago Apple published a new  protocol that we can use to contact its servers. The previous protocol (the one we used for years) had in fact some problems.  In particular after sending a push, we had to wait at least 1 second for a (possible) Apple response. This is ok if we must send a limited number of pushes, but it is not acceptable when we need to send thousands of that (to send a push to 10.000 users we would wait almost 3 hours, spent almost entirely … waiting and idling!) .

Continue reading Sending Push Notification with HTTP2 (and PHP)

The Presenter: going modal (popover or fullscreen) on iOS7 and iOS8

When we develop universal apps, we sometimes need to present  modal view controllers (“dialogs”) to the user.

On the iPad the popover is very useful to this aim because the user does not loose the context while reading the content of the dialog or while filling some inputs inside it.

On the other side, the iPhone usually has not enough space to show a popover inside the parent (or “presenting”) view controller (however this is possible now in iOS8). So on the iPhone we may want to present the new view controller in a modal full screen mode.

Continue reading The Presenter: going modal (popover or fullscreen) on iOS7 and iOS8

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