gitphp 0.2.9.1 :: tools.git/blame

2012-09-29 13:05:38

Maxious

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[HTML5 Boilerplate homepage](http://html5boilerplate.com) | [Documentation

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table of contents](README.md)

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# Extend and customise HTML5 Boilerplate

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Here is some useful advice for how you can make your project with HTML5

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Boilerplate even better. We don't want to include it all by default, as not

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everything fits with everyone's needs.

## DNS prefetching

In short, DNS Prefetching is a method of informing the browser of domain names

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referenced on a site so that the client can resolve the DNS for those hosts,

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cache them, and when it comes time to use them, have a faster turn around on

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the request.

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### Implicit prefetches

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There is a lot of prefetching done for you automatically by the browser. When

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the browser encounters an anchor in your html that does not share the same

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domain name as the current location the browser requests, from the client OS,

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the IP address for this new domain. The client first checks its cache and

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then, lacking a cached copy, makes a request from a DNS server. These requests

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happen in the background and are not meant to block the rendering of the

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page.

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The goal of this is that when the foreign IP address is finally needed it will

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already be in the client cache and will not block the loading of the foreign

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content. Less requests result in faster page load times. The perception of this

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is increased on a mobile platform where DNS latency can be greater.

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#### Disable implicit prefetching

```html

```

Even with X-DNS-Prefetch-Control meta tag (or http header) browsers will still

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prefetch any explicit dns-prefetch links.

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**_WARNING:_** THIS MAY MAKE YOUR SITE SLOWER IF YOU RELY ON RESOURCES FROM

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FOREIGN DOMAINS.

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### Explicit prefetches

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Typically the browser only scans the HTML for foreign domains. If you have

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resources that are outside of your HTML (a javascript request to a remote

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server or a CDN that hosts content that may not be present on every page of

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your site, for example) then you can queue up a domain name to be prefetched.

```html

```

You can use as many of these as you need, but it's best if they are all

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immediately after the [Meta

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Charset](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/HTML/Element/meta#attr-charset)

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element (which should go right at the top of the `head`), so the browser can

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act on them ASAP.

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#### Common Prefetch Links

Amazon S3:

```html

```

Google APIs:

```html

```

Microsoft Ajax Content Delivery Network:

```html

```

### Browser support for DNS prefetching

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Chrome, Firefox 3.5+, Safari 5+, Opera (Unknown), IE 9 (called "Pre-resolution"

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on blogs.msdn.com)

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### Further reading about DNS prefetching

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* https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Controlling_DNS_prefetching

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* http://dev.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/dns-prefetching

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* http://www.apple.com/safari/whats-new.html

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* http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/03/17/internet-explorer-9-network-performance-improvements.aspx

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* http://dayofjs.com/videos/22158462/web-browsers_alex-russel

## Search

### Direct search spiders to your sitemap

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[Learn how to make a sitemap](http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.php)

```html

```

### Hide pages from search engines

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According to Heather Champ, former community manager at Flickr, you should not

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allow search engines to index your "Contact Us" or "Complaints" page if you

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value your sanity. This is an HTML-centric way of achieving that.

```html

```

**_WARNING:_** DO NOT INCLUDE ON PAGES THAT SHOULD APPEAR IN SEARCH ENGINES.

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### Firefox and IE Search Plugins

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Sites with in-site search functionality should be strongly considered for a

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browser search plugin. A "search plugin" is an XML file which defines how your

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plugin behaves in the browser. [How to make a browser search

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plugin](http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&q=how+to+make+browser+search+plugin).

```html

```

## Internet Explorer

### Prompt users to switch to "Desktop Mode" in IE10 Metro

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IE10 does not support plugins, such as Flash, in Metro mode. If your site

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requires plugins, you can let users know that via the X-UA-Compatible meta

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element, which will prompt them to switch to Desktop Mode.

```html

```

Here's what it looks like alongside H5BP's default X-UA-Compatible values:

```html

```

You can find more information in [Microsoft's IEBlog post about prompting for

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plugin use in IE10 Metro

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Mode](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/01/31/web-sites-and-a-plug-in-free-web.aspx).

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### IE Pinned Sites (IE9+)

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Enabling your application for pinning will allow IE9 users to add it to their

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Windows Taskbar and Start Menu. This comes with a range of new tools that you

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can easily configure with the elements below. See more [documentation on IE9

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Pinned Sites](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg131029.aspx).

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### Name the Pinned Site for Windows

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Without this rule, Windows will use the page title as the name for your

application.

```html

```

### Give your Pinned Site a tooltip

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You know — a tooltip. A little textbox that appears when the user holds their

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mouse over your Pinned Site's icon.

```html

```

### Set a default page for your Pinned Site

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If the site should go to a specific URL when it is pinned (such as the

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homepage), enter it here. One idea is to send it to a special URL so you can

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track the number of pinned users, like so:

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`http://www.example.com/index.html?pinned=true`

```html

```

### Recolor IE's controls manually for a Pinned Site

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IE9+ will automatically use the overall color of your Pinned Site's favicon to

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shade its browser buttons. UNLESS you give it another color here. Only use

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named colors (`red`) or hex colors (`#ff0000`).

```html

```

### Manually set the window size of a Pinned Site

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If the site should open at a certain window size once pinned, you can specify

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the dimensions here. It only supports static pixel dimensions. 800x600

minimum.

```html

```

### Jump List "Tasks" for Pinned Sites

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Add Jump List Tasks that will appear when the Pinned Site's icon gets a

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right-click. Each Task goes to the specified URL, and gets its own mini icon

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(essentially a favicon, a 16x16 .ICO). You can add as many of these as you

need.

```html

```

### (Windows 8) High quality visuals for Pinned Sites

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Windows 8 adds the ability for you to provide a PNG tile image and specify the

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tile's background color. [Full details on the IE

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blog](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/06/08/high-quality-visuals-for-pinned-sites-in-windows-8.aspx).

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* Create a 144x144 image of your site icon, filling all of the canvas, and

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using a transparent background.

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* Save this image as a 32-bit PNG and optimize it without reducing

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colour-depth. It can be named whatever you want (e.g. `metro-tile.png`).

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* To reference the tile and its color, add the HTML `meta` elements described

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in the IE Blog post.

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### (Windows 8) Badges for Pinned Sites

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IE10 will poll an XML document for badge information to display on your app's

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tile in the Start screen. The user will be able to receive these badge updates

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even when your app isn't actively running. The badge's value can be a number,

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or one of a predefined list of glyphs.

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* [Tutorial on IEBlog with link to badge XML schema](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2012/04/03/pinned-sites-in-windows-8.aspx)

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* [Available badge values](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ie/br212849.aspx)

```html

```

### Suppress IE6 image toolbar

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Kill IE6's pop-up-on-mouseover toolbar for images that can interfere with

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certain designs and be pretty distracting in general.

```html

```

## Social Networks

### Facebook Open Graph data

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You can control the information that Facebook and others display when users

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share your site. Below are just the most basic data points you might need. For

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specific content types (including "website"), see [Facebook's built-in Open

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Graph content

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templates](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/objects/builtin/).

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Take full advantage of Facebook's support for complex data and activity by

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following the [Open Graph

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tutorial](https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/tutorial/).

```html

```

### Twitter Cards

Twitter provides a snippet specification that serves a similar purpose to Open

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Graph. In fact, Twitter will use Open Graph when Cards is not available. Note

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that, as of this writing, Twitter requires that app developers activate Cards

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on a per-domain basis. You can read more about the various snippet formats

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and application process in the [official Twitter Cards

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documentation](https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards).

```html

```

## URLs

### Canonical URL

Signal to search engines and others "Use this URL for this page!" Useful when

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parameters after a `#` or `?` is used to control the display state of a page.

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`http://www.example.com/cart.html?shopping-cart-open=true` can be indexed as

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the cleaner, more accurate `http://www.example.com/cart.html`.

```html

```

### Official shortlink

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Signal to the world "This is the shortened URL to use this page!" Poorly

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supported at this time. Learn more by reading the [article about shortlinks on

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the Microformats wiki](http://microformats.org/wiki/rel-shortlink).

```html

```

## News Feeds

### RSS

Have an RSS feed? Link to it here. Want to [learn how to write an RSS feed from

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scratch](http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification)?

```html

```

### Atom

Atom is similar to RSS, and you might prefer to use it instead of or in

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addition to it. [See what Atom's all

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about](http://www.atomenabled.org/developers/syndication/).

```html

```

### Pingbacks

Your server may be notified when another site links to yours. The href

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attribute should contain the location of your pingback service.

```html

```

* High-level explanation: http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#Pingbacks

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* Step-by-step example case: http://www.hixie.ch/specs/pingback/pingback-1.0#TOC5

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* PHP pingback service: http://blog.perplexedlabs.com/2009/07/15/xmlrpc-pingbacks-using-php/

## App Stores

### Install a Chrome Web Store app

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Users can install a Chrome app directly from your website, as long as the app

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and site have been associated via Google's Webmaster Tools. Read more on

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[Chrome Web Store's Inline Installation

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docs](https://developers.google.com/chrome/web-store/docs/inline_installation).

```html

```

### Smart App Banners in iOS 6 Safari

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Stop bothering everyone with gross modals advertising your entry in the App Store.

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This bit of code will unintrusively allow the user the option to download your iOS

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app, or open it with some data about the user's current state on the website.

```html

```

## Google Analytics augments

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### More tracking settings

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The [optimized Google Analytics

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snippet](http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/async-analytics-snippet) included with

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HTML5 Boilerplate includes something like this:

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```js

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var _gaq = [['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X'], ['_trackPageview']];

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```

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In case you need more settings, just extend the array literal instead of

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[`.push()`ing to the

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array](http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/async-analytics-snippet#dont-push-it)

afterwards:

```js

var _gaq = [['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X'], ['_trackPageview'], ['_setAllowAnchor', true]];

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```

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### Anonymize IP addresses

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In some countries, no personal data may be transferred outside jurisdictions

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that do not have similarly strict laws (i.e. from Germany to outside the EU).

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Thus a webmaster using the Google Analytics script may have to ensure that no

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personal (trackable) data is transferred to the US. You can do that with [the

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`_gat.anonymizeIp`

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option](http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/gaJS/gaJSApi_gat.html#_gat._anonymizeIp).

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In use it looks like this:

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```js

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var _gaq = [['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X'], ['_gat._anonymizeIp'], ['_trackPageview']];

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```

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### Track jQuery AJAX requests in Google Analytics

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An article by @JangoSteve explains how to [track jQuery AJAX requests in Google

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Analytics](http://www.alfajango.com/blog/track-jquery-ajax-requests-in-google-analytics/).

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Add this to `plugins.js`:

```js

/*

* Log all jQuery AJAX requests to Google Analytics

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* See: http://www.alfajango.com/blog/track-jquery-ajax-requests-in-google-analytics/

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*/

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if (typeof _gaq !== "undefined" && _gaq !== null) {

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$(document).ajaxSend(function(event, xhr, settings){

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_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', settings.url]);

});

}

```

### Track JavaScript errors in Google Analytics

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Add this function after `_gaq` is defined:

```js

(function(window){

var undefined,

link = function (href) {

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var a = window.document.createElement('a');

a.href = href;

return a;

};

window.onerror = function (message, file, row) {

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var host = link(file).hostname;

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_gaq.push([

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'_trackEvent',

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(host == window.location.hostname || host == undefined || host == '' ? '' : 'external ') + 'error',

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message, file + ' LINE: ' + row, undefined, undefined, true

]);

};

}(window));

```

### Track page scroll

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Add this function after `_gaq` is defined:

```js

$(function(){

var isDuplicateScrollEvent,

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scrollTimeStart = new Date,

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$window = $(window),

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$document = $(document),

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scrollPercent;

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$window.scroll(function() {

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scrollPercent = Math.round(100 * ($window.height() + $window.scrollTop())/$document.height());

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if (scrollPercent > 90 && !isDuplicateScrollEvent) { //page scrolled to 90%

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isDuplicateScrollEvent = 1;

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_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'scroll',

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'Window: ' + $window.height() + 'px; Document: ' + $document.height() + 'px; Time: ' + Math.round((new Date - scrollTimeStart )/1000,1) + 's',

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undefined, undefined, true

]);

}

});

});

```

## Miscellaneous

* Use [HTML5

polyfills](https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/wiki/HTML5-Cross-browser-Polyfills).

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* Use [Microformats](http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page) (via

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[microdata](http://microformats.org/wiki/microdata)) for optimum search

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results

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[visibility](http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/05/introducing-rich-snippets.html).

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* If you're building a web app you may want [native style momentum scrolling in

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iOS5](http://johanbrook.com/browsers/native-momentum-scrolling-ios-5/) using

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`-webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch`.

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* Avoid development/stage websites "leaking" into SERPs (search engine results

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page) by [implementing X-Robots-tag

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headers](https://github.com/h5bp/html5-boilerplate/issues/804).

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* Screen readers currently have less-than-stellar support for HTML5 but the JS

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script [accessifyhtml5.js](https://github.com/yatil/accessifyhtml5.js) can

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help increase accessibility by adding ARIA roles to HTML5 elements.

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*Many thanks to [Brian Blakely](https://github.com/brianblakely) for

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contributing much of this information.*

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