Technology

Supported Browsers & Platforms

Off on a Tangent is designed for a viewport width of at least 320dp.

Desktop and laptop browsers are tested using Apple MacOS 10.15, Google Chrome OS 78, Haiku R1/beta1, Microsoft Windows 10 (1909), and Xubuntu Linux 19.10. Tablet browsers are tested using Apple iPad OS 13.1, Google Android 10.0, Google Chrome OS 78, and Microsoft Windows 10 (1909). Smartphone browsers are tested using Apple iOS 13.1 and Google Android 10.0. Limited support (lo-fi) browsers are tested in the above listed desktop and laptop operating systems and FreeDOS 1.2.

The most recent version of each of the browsers listed below are officially supported. If you have any trouble using the site in a supported browser, please let me know! In addition, the site should work properly in almost any recent Blink, EdgeHTML, Gecko, or Webkit-based browser.

Desktop Browsers

Chrome (Chrome, Linux, Mac, Windows)
Edge (Windows)
Firefox (Linux, Mac, Windows)
Safari (Mac)
WebPositive (Haiku)

Tablet Browsers

Chrome (Android, Chrome, iPad OS, Windows)
Edge (Windows)
Firefox (Android, iPad OS, Windows)
Safari (iPad OS)

Smartphone Browsers

Chrome (Android, iOS)
Edge (Android, iOS)
Firefox (Android, iOS)
Safari (iOS)

Lo-Fi Browsers
(it works, but it’s not pretty!)

Arachne (DOS)
Links (DOS, Haiku, Linux, Mac, Windows)
Lynx (DOS, Haiku, Linux, Mac, 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:
- Akismet Anti-Spam by Automattic
- Broken Link Checker by Janis Elsts, Vladimir Prelovac, Janne Aalto
- CryptX by Ralf Weber
- Disable Comments by Samir Shah
- Jetpack by WordPress.com by Automattic
- Mail From by Andrew Hamilton
- Search Exclude by Roman Pronskiy
- Simple Social Icons by StudioPress
- Off on a Tangent by Scott Bradford
- TinyMCE Advanced by Andrew Ozz
- WordPress phpinfo() by Chris Flannagan
- Yoast SEO by Team Yoast
- WP Crontrol by John Blackbourn & crontributors
- WP Render Blogroll Links by Tanin Ehrami
_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 Hypertext Preprocessor—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 2017
- Evaluation: W3C CSS Validator
- Linting: CSS Lint
ECMAScript (JavaScript)
- Standard: ECMA-262 ECMAScript 2018 (9th Edition)
- Linting: JSHint
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.