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There are times when you need to create a basic HTML form that provides validation to end users. Without leveraging a framework or additional libraries, this can be easily achieved by using JavaScript directly. This article walks through the basic steps of creating a simple validated form using basic selectors and error handling. Our requirements are: For successful submission, all fields must be entered correctly within our validation rules If one or more error occurs, the form will not submit. Feedback provided to the user A correct form with no errors once submitted, will send an email to the recipient In real life we would most likely have a call to a web service or some other piece of code that would execute once a form was submitted with no errors. ...

In my last post I walked through the process of setting up a local instance of AppWorks 20.2 using the container image from OpenText. Any development work ideally should be managed in Version Control System (VCS). The preferred VCS for OpenText AppWorks is Subversion (SVN). It has been a long time since I used SVN so I needed to quickly bring myself up to speed. Thankfully there is a handy quick start guide at Apache that walks through the various SVN commands. Once you have SVN installed, the ‘svn help’ command also provides a nice breakdown of everything you would need to know to successfully navigate an SVN repository. Since I’m already using Docker for my AppWorks installation, it makes sense that I would also want to use this platform to run my SVN server. ...

The latest version of OpenText AppWorks Cloud Edition (CE) 20.2 was recently released and promises to improve “developer agility through simplification and improved visibility with a new List Designer, new Action Bar Designer and added support for full translation of layouts.” In addition this release comes available packaged in a Docker container, which makes it much easier to setup locally as a development environment or to simply try out the new features of this release. ...

I’ve always had an interest in learning Spanish. Over the years, I’ve dabbled with various language learning programs, however I never really stuck at them for long. I have probably spent more time researching language learning programs and techniques, than I have actually practiced the language. The United States Foreign Service Institute, or FSI, estimates that the Spanish language takes approximately 750 hours of study to build fluency. Unfortunately, FSI classes are reserved for Diplomats and involve dedicating 30 weeks of full-time study to reach the desired hours needed for mastery. My approach has involved a longer-term strategy involving daily practice and drills using multiple modes of learning, vocabulary building using spaced repetition, and immersion techniques. ...

This past September (2019) I decided I would make a commitment to making language learning a daily part of my life. As it so happened, my job also changed around this time, increasing my commute time and therefore bringing a new opportunity to use this time wisely. Since then, I have completed all five levels of Pimsleur Spanish and coupled my study with several other programs. My approach seems to be working at lease for me currently and my goal is to reach B1 proficiency by September 2020. This write up is to share my some of the success I’ve had with various language learning resources and communities that have informed and guided my studies. These are just my own opinions and experiences, I in no way claim to be an expert on language learning. ...

In programming, there are many ways to work with strings. A performant way to work with them is through the use of Regular expressions, also known as Regex. By using regular expressions, you can search for a substring within a string, replace a substring within a string, and extract information from that string. Regular expressions are supported in almost every language. There can be small differences, but the general concept is the same. Javascript is one of the few languages that has direct built-in support for regular expressions. ...

EcmaScript is the standardized scripting language that JavaScript and some other languages, like ActionScript implement. JavaScript was invented by Brendan Eich in 1995 and became an ECMA standard in 1997. ECMAScript 2015 is version 6 of the ECMA Script programming language therefore known as ES6. There are many new features in ES6 which are listed below. Block Scoping The lack of block scoping created confusion in ES5. A new keyword let works similarly to var but the variable it declares is block-scoped and exists within the current block only. ...

The way in which logical structure of a document is accessed and manipulated in HTML is known as Document Object Model or DOM. It is a programming interface for HTML. Whenever a document loads in the browser, a tree-like (or forest) structure is created. Methods provided by the DOM can be used to access and manipulate this tree programmatically. Why use DOM? The DOM is used to access and manipulate elements in an HTML document. But why do we need to use the DOM for this? Let’s understand this by use of an example. Let’s suppose we have an input field and a button next to it. When the button is clicked, whatever typed in the input field should appear below the input field. How can we do this with plain HTML? We need to dynamically access the value of the input field on the button click and then display the value below in a paragraph. We will implement this example, but first, we should discuss DOM methods that will be needed for accessing and manipulating elements. ...

If you’ve been doing any development in Angular, the chances are you have been using Visual Studio Code (VS Code) for your editor. If you haven’t been using Visual Studio Code, I highly recommend checking it out. There are a number of extensions that I have come to rely on that greatly simplify my development workflow listed below. I’ve included my favorite top ten with their descriptions and links below. To install them, simply start VS Code and open the command palette (Ctrl-Shift-P) Windows / Linux or (Cmd-Shift-P) Mac, and select Install Extension. Choose the extension name from the list and once installed reload/restart Visual Studio Code. Hopefully you will find these extensions as useful I do. ...

The last couple of lessons focused on arrays, and hopefully by now you will have come to see the value of using them in your code. Objects expand on the concept of arrays, except for a few differences, which provide greater control of the data stored. It is said, in Javascript, “Almost everything is objects”. Dates are always objects, Arrays are always objects, functions are always objects, and regular expressions are always objects. Primitive data types such as Numbers, Boolean and Strings are also objects when defined with the new keyword. ...