How to fill shapes on HTML5 Canvas using EvenOdd winding rule with SVG
A little over a year ago, I wrote a short series of articles that talked about Canvas’ inability to fill shapes using the even-odd winding rule. Well, a lot has changed since then, so I wanted to...
View ArticleAdding Annotations to Web Content with Annotator.js
Annotator.js is an open-source (available on GitHub) JavaScript library created by the Open Knowledge Foundation that allows you to add annotations to web pages. Annotations can be personal (only seen...
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Image Optimisation: What PNGQuant is and why you should use it
What is PNGQuant? PNGQuant is a free to use, open source (available under a BSD-like license) command line utility and library for converting PNG files from 24/32-bit PNG images to 8-bit paletted PNG...
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Adding Fullscreen to WebApps using the JavaScript API
In addition to the standard (F11) full-screen modes in web browsers, there is now also a way to enable full screen using JavaScript, providing fullscreen functionality from within web apps. Browser...
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Beware JavaScript Layout Thrashing!
What is Layout Thrashing? Layout Thrashing is where a web browser has to reflow or repaint a web page many times before the page is ‘loaded’. In the days before JavaScript’s prevalence, websites were...
View ArticleImproving Image Output Performance in Java
A common complaint from Java developers when using ImageIO in Java is that it is both slow to write out images, and that the images it produces are not well optimised and have large file sizes. In this...
View Article6 Tips for Optimising SVG Files
SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) has seen a rapid increase in usage in recent years since being included in the HTML5 specification as web browsers improve support, and more websites take advantage of...
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4 Reasons why Converting PDF to Responsive EPUB is Impossible
As the developers of a PDF to HTML5 Conversion tool (BuildVu), one of the topics we are regularly asked about is converting PDF to EPUB. The main problem with this task is that PDF is a fixed-layout...
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Remote debugging iOS Safari on OS X, Windows and Linux
Recently, I have been working on improving mobile support in the content produced by our PDF to HTML5 converter. One problem that I have encountered is how to debug iOS Safari, particularly if you are...
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Using Trello as a tool to manage Sprints for Agile and Scrum
We are big fans of Trello at IDRSolutions and have several boards that we use for different purposes. One of the ways that we use Trello is to manage the release cycle (or sprint, for you agile folks)...
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What Chrome 45 dropping NPAPI Plug-in support means
What does it mean for you? With the recent news that Google has now killed off NPAPI plugins in Chrome 45, it has left many wondering exactly what NPAPI plugins are, and what impact this news will...
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Making a Simple Basecamp Chatbot with NodeJS
Creating a chatbot is a fun way to integrate external tool functionality within Basecamp. I recently created one to call the Bitbucket API, allowing us to configure branch permissions on repositories...
View ArticleHow to covert PDF files to SVG
Why convert PDF to SVG? People usually convert PDF files to SVG in order to display within web browsers on mobile, tablet and desktop. Like PDF, SVG is a vector image format that makes it a good...
View ArticleWhat is a Microservice?
If the term Microservice is new to you then chances are that you’re thinking the same thing that went through my mind when I first heard the term. “Oh great, yet another new technology that I need to...
View ArticleHow to enable GZIP Compression in Tomcat, Jetty, GlassFish and Payara
GZIP Compression is a widely supported method of reducing the file size of the content hosted by your Java Application Server. This reduces bandwidth usage and improves load times. We recommend...
View ArticleHow to Enable SVG Gzip Compression on Apache and NGINX
Gzip compression is a widely supported method of reducing the size of the content sent from a web server in order to improve the load time. Effectively all browsers support gzip compression (IE6+,...
View ArticleUnderstanding the PDF File Format
We have been working with PDF files since 1999 and developed complex software to display PDF files. We have learnt a lot about the PDF file format in that time and share our knowledge in the articles...
View ArticleHow to git mirror Bitbucket to GitHub with all branches
Recently, I needed to sync a Bitbucket repo to GitHub. I wanted to use a tool that only integrates with GitHub, but our repository lives on Bitbucket! I found other tutorials that mirrored the...
View ArticleHow to Embed PDF files in HTML Web Pages
There are several HTML tags that can be used to view PDF files in HTML. The <embed>, <object> and <iframe> tags can all display a PDF file inside a web app. Each behaves similarly,...
View ArticleHow to set up PDF to HTML5 conversion to the Cloud
One of the big themes of 2019 was running software in the Cloud using technologies such as Docker. The most commonly asked support question we received was how to set up and run our software on Cloud...
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