Technology

Supported Browsers and Platforms

Off on a Tangent is designed for a viewport width of at least 360dp. It should work properly in most modern browsers on most modern platforms. If you have any trouble using the site with any of the browsers listed below, please let me know!

Browsers

The most recent version of each of the browsers listed below is fully supported:

• Apple Safari
• Google Chrome
• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera

Operating Systems

The above-listed browsers are tested (when available) on the latest versions of the following operating systems:

• Apple iOS, iPad OS, and MacOS
• Google Android and Chrome OS
• Linux Mint
• Microsoft Windows

Core and Libraries

• WordPress—the core of this site is built on WordPress, an open source (GNU-GPL 2.0) blogging and content management system, including the following plugins:
  • Ads.txt Manager by 10up
  • Akismet Anti-Spam by Automattic
  • Broken Link Checker by WPMU DEV
  • Disable Comments by WPDeveloper
  • Site Kit by Google by Google
  • Jetpack by Automattic
  • Regenerate Thumbnails by Alex Mills (Viper007Bond)
  • Search Exclude by Roman Pronskiy
  • Simple Social Icons by StudioPress
  • Off on a Tangent by Scott Bradford
  • Yoast SEO by Team Yoast
  • WP Crontrol by John Blackbourn & crontributors
• _s (underscores)—The Off on a Tangent WordPress theme is based upon the open-source (GNU-GPL 2.0) _s (underscores) starter theme.
• This site also makes use of the following libraries:
  • jQuery—Much of the custom JavaScript code that makes this site work the way it works is built upon the open source (GNU-GPL 2.0/MIT License) jQuery JavaScript library.
  • Bootstrap—The responsive layout and most user interface elements are built upon the open source (MIT License) Bootstrap framework.
  • Font Awesome—Icons and some other style elements are provided by the free (SIL OFL 1.1/CC BY 4.0) Font Awesome icon set.
  • SmartMenus—Menu functions are built upon the open source (MIT License) SmartMenus jQuery plugin with the Bootstrap add-on.
  • Colorbox—Image and gallery pop-ups are built upon the open-source (MIT License) Colorbox jQuery plugin.
  • jVectorMap—Electoral and others maps are built upon the open source (GNU-GPL 3.0) jVectorMap library.

Underpinnings

• DreamHost—Hosting and domain registration services by DreamHost.
• Apache HTTP Server—The web server software that underpins both my development and production environments is the open source (Apache License) Apache HTTP Server.
• PHP—The scripting language that powers WordPress and WordPress plugins, as well as my custom application code, is the open source (PHP License) PHP Hypertext Preprocessor.
• Oracle MySQL—The database technology that powers WordPress is the open source (GNU-GPL 2.0) Oracle MySQL server.

Design and Development

• Adobe Creative Cloud—Graphics and design work for Off on a Tangent happens in the various proprietary Adobe creative applications, including Photoshop, Illustrator, and many others (depending on the specific task).
• Git Version Control—I maintain my code-bases in Git, an open source (GNU-GPL 2.0) version control system. It keeps all my code in line and makes sure I can roll-back my occasional catastrophic errors.
• Google Chrome—While developing this site, I do most of my initial development testing in Google’s Chrome web browser, which is based on the open source (BSD License) Chromium browser.
• JetBrains PhpStorm—I do most of my coding in HTML, JavaScript, and PHP in JetBrains PhpStorm, a well-regarded proprietary integrated development environment based on JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA.
• Mantis Bug Tracker—I track bugs, development goals, and more using the open source (GNU-GPL 2.0) Mantis Bug Tracker system, which I also use to track my other development projects.

Standardization and Evaluation

• HyperText Markup Language (HTML)
  • Standard: WHATWG HTML Living Standard
  • Evaluation: Nu HTML Checker
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
  • Standard: W3C CSS Snapshot 2018
  • Evaluation: W3C CSS Validator
  • Linting: CSS Lint
• ECMAScript (JavaScript)
  •  Standard: ECMA-262 ECMAScript 2020 (11th Edition)
  •  Linting: JSHint
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
  • Standard: W3C Extensible Markup Language 1.0 (5th Edition)
  • Evaluation: XML Validation
• JSON Data Interchange Syntax
  • Standards: ECMA-404 JSON Data Interchange Syntax (2nd Edition)
  • Linting: JSONLint
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
  • Standard: W3C WCAG 2.0
  • Evaluation: University of Illinois Functional Accessibility Evaluator

Minification

• Google Closure Compiler—JavaScript code on Off on a Tangent is compiled using the open source (Apache License) Google Closure Compiler.
• Ken Silverman’s PNGOUT—PNG images used in the site templates and elsewhere are compressed using Ken Siverman’s excellent PNGOUT utility.
• Yahoo! YUI Compressor—CSS style sheets are minified using the open source (BSD License) YUI Compressor. The tool can also compress JavaScript, but I prefer Closure for that.

Browser Screenshot Gallery

(returning soon)