Focused Image Cropping with smartcrop.js
Images tend to make any page more engaging, especially when done right. The problem is that automating image creation and sizing can be a very difficult task, especially when the image is uploaded by a user -- who knows what format, size, and resolution the image will be. Hell, who knows if they're actually sending you an image for that matter (though validating that they've uploaded an image isn't too difficult).
I recently found out about smartcrop.js, a brilliant JavaScript utility which analyzes the contents of an image and finds the focal point (a face, for example) of any image. It's easy to use and does an outstanding job picking up on the important part of an image.
Check out a few images I put through the smartcrop.js testbed:




I wont bother showing the super simple code sample -- you can view that on the smartcrop.js repo. And be sure to play around on the testbed. I love recognizing developers for their feats and this is some incredible work by Jonas Wagner!
![9 Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos]()
As much as developers now loathe Flash, we're still playing a bit of catch up to natively duplicate the animation capabilities that Adobe's old technology provided us. Of course we have canvas, an awesome technology, one which I highlighted 9 mind-blowing demos. Another technology available...
![Introducing MooTools Templated]()
One major problem with creating UI components with the MooTools JavaScript framework is that there isn't a great way of allowing customization of template and ease of node creation. As of today, there are two ways of creating:
new Element Madness
The first way to create UI-driven...
![TextboxList for MooTools and jQuery by Guillermo Rauch]()
I'll be honest with you: I still haven't figured out if I like my MooTools teammate Guillermo Rauch. He's got a lot stacked up against him. He's from Argentina so I get IM'ed about 10 times a day about how great Lionel...
![Create Spinning Rays with CSS3 Animations & JavaScript]()
Thomas Fuchs, creator of script2 (scriptaculous' second iteration) and Zepto.js (mobile JavaScript framework), creates outstanding animated elements with JavaScript. He's a legend in his own right, and for good reason: his work has helped to inspire developers everywhere to drop Flash and opt...
Excellent find, thank you.