I need 15 images of size 1150px (width) by 550px (height). All these images would be for 15 different shoes that are available on amazon.
Steps would be to download product images from amazon and create 1 single image by combining these 3 or 4 images. You should show different colors available and preferable sole of the shoe.
Please see this sample image I created. http://imgur.com/FaEHRfQ
You don’t have to follow this style, It is just an example to help you get started.
I…
UK 10-year gilt extends post-Brexit drop below 0.8 per cent from 1.35 per cent
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When imperious Rolls-Royce introduced an “entry level” model over six years ago, the automotive aristocracy
Oil set for best quarter since 2009
Reading Time: 8 minutes
Alright, folks, this week we’re getting technical.
This post is geared toward Web Developers who’re working in conversion optimization, specifically those who are testing on AngularJS (or who are trying to test on AngularJS).
Angular, while allowing for more dynamic web applications, presents a problem for optimization on the development side.
It basically throws a wrench in the whole “I’m trying to show you a variation instead of the original webpage without you knowing it’s a variation”-thing for reasons I’ll get into in a minute.
At WiderFunnel, our Dev team has to tackle technical obstacles daily: many different clients means many different frameworks and tools to master.
Recently, the topic of How the heck do you test on Angular came up and Tom Davis, WiderFunnel Front End Developer, was like, “I can help with that.”
So here we go. Here are the tips, tricks, and workarounds we use to test on AngularJS.
Let’s start with the basics:
Angular acts as a Javascript extension to HTML, running in most cases on the client-side (through the browser). Because HTML isn’t a scripting language (it doesn’t run code), it’s limited. Angular allows for more functionality that HTML doesn’t have. It provides a framework to develop apps that are maintainable and extendable, while allowing for features such as single page navigation, rich content, and dynamic functionality.
Note: You can mimic Angular with plain Javascript, however, Angular provides a lot of functionality that a Developer would otherwise have to build themselves.
The real question here is why are JS front-end frameworks and libraries popular? Angular isn’t the only framework you can use, of course: there’s EmberJS, React.js, BackBone etc., and different Developers prefer different frameworks.
But frameworks, in general, are popular because they offer a means of providing a rich user experience that is both responsive and dynamic. Without Angular, a user clicks a button or submits a form on your site, the browser communicates with the server, and the server provides entirely new HTML content that then loads in the browser.
When you’re using Angular, however, a user clicks a button or submits a form and the browser is able to build that content itself, while simultaneously performing server tasks (like database submissions) in the background.
For example, let’s think about form validations.
No Angular:
A user submits a form to create an account on a site. The browser talks to the server and the server says, “There’s a problem. We can’t validate this form because this username already exists.” The server then has to serve up entirely new HTML content and the browser re-renders all of that new content.
This can lead to a laggy, cumbersome user experience, where changes only happen on full page reloads.
With Angular:
A user submits a form to create an account on a site. The browser talks to the server via JSON (a collection of data) and the server says, “There’s a problem. We can’t validate this form because this username already exists.” The browser has already loaded the necessary HTML (on the first load) and then simply fills in the blanks with the data it gets back from the server.
Disclaimer: If you don’t have a basic understanding of web development, the rest of this post may be tough to decipher. There is a Glossary at the end of this post, if you need a quick refresher on certain terms.
As mentioned above, Angular acts as an HTML extension. This means that the normal behaviors of the DOM* are being manipulated.
Angular manipulates the DOM using two-way data binding. This means that the content in the DOM is bound to a model. Take a look at the example below:
The class “ng-binding” indicates that the H1 element is bound to a model, in this case $scope.helloWorld. In Angular, model data is referred to in an object called $scope. Any changes to the input field value will change helloWorld in the $scope object. This value is then propagated down to the H1 text.
This means that, if you make any changes to the H1 element through jQuery or native JS, they will essentially be overridden by $scope. This is not good in a test environment: you cannot guarantee that your changes will show up when you intend them to, without breaking the original code.
Laymen’s terms: $scope.helloWorld is bound to the H1 tag, meaning if anything in the variable helloWorld changes, the H1 element will change and vice versa. That’s the power of Angular.
Typically, when you’re testing, you’re making changes to the DOM by injecting Javascript after all of the other content has already loaded.
A developer will wait until the page has loaded, hide the content, change elements in the background, and show everything to the user post-change. (Because the page is hidden while these changes are being made, the user is none-the-wiser.)
We’re trying to do this switcheroo without anyone seeing it.
– Thomas Davis, Front End Developer, WiderFunnel
In Angular apps, there’s no way to guarantee that all of the content has been rendered before that extra Javascript is injected. At this point, Angular has already initialized the app, meaning any code running after this is outside of Angular’s execution context. This makes it complicated to try to figure out when and how to run the changes that make up your test.
When you’re running a test, the changes that make up Variation A (or B or C) are loaded when the page loads. You can only manipulate what’s in the DOM already. If you can’t guarantee that the content is loaded, how do you ensure that your added Javascript runs at the right time and how do you do this without breaking the code and functionality?
Tom explained that, as a dev trying to do conversion optimization on an Angular application, you find yourself constantly trying to answer this question:
How can I make this change without directly affecting my (or my client’s) built-in functionality? In other words, how can I make sure I don’t break this app?
Angular makes for a complicated testing environment, but there are ways to test on Angular. Here are a few that we use at WiderFunnel (straight from Tom’s mouth to your eyeballs).
Note: In the examples below, we are working in the Inspector. This is just to prove that the changes are happening outside the context of the app and, therefore, an external script would be able to render the same results.
When you’re running a test on Angular, use CSS whenever possible to make styling changes.
CSS is simply a set of styling rules that the browser applies to matching elements. Styling will always be applied on repaints regardless of how the DOM is bound to Angular. Everytime something changes within the browser, the browser goes through its list of styling rules and reapplies them to the correct element.
Let’s say, in a variation, you want to hide a banner. You can find the element you want to hide and add a styling tag that has an attribute of display none. CSS will always apply this styling and that element will never be displayed.
Of course, you can’t rely on CSS all of the time. It isn’t a scripting language, so you can’t do logic. For instance, CSS can’t say “If [blank] is true, make the element color green. If [blank] is false, make the element color red.”
In other cases, you may want to try $apply.
We’ve established that Angular’s two-way data binding makes it difficult to develop consistent page changes outside of the context of Angular. Difficult…but not impossible.
Say you want to change the value of $scope.helloWorld. You need a way to tell Angular, “Hey, a value has changed – you need to propagate this change throughout the app.”
Angular checks $scope variables for changes whenever an event happens. An event attribute like ng-click or ng-model will force Angular to run the Digest Loop*, where a process called dirty checking* is used to update the whole of the app with any new values.
If you want to change the value of $scope.helloWorld and have it propagated throughout the app, you need to trick Angular into thinking an event has occurred.
But, how?
First step: You’ll need to access the model in the $scope object. You can do this simply by querying it in the DOM.
In this example, you’re looking at the $scope object containing all models available to the H1 element. You’re looking at the helloWorld variable exposed.
Once you have access to helloWorld, you can reassign it. But wait! You’ve probably noticed that the text hasn’t changed in the window… That’s because your code is running outside the context of Angular – Angular doesn’t know that a change has actually been made. You need to tell Angular to run the digest loop, which will apply the change within it’s context.
Fortunately, Angular comes equipped with an $apply function, that can force a $digest, as shown below.
This workaround is a little manual, but very important. If the source code changes a variable or calls a function bound to $scope, you’ll need to be able to detect this change in order to keep your test functional.
That’s where Angular’s $watch function comes in. You can use $watch to listen to $scope and provide a callback when changes happen.
In the example below, $watch is listening to $scope.helloWorld. If helloWorld changes, Angular will run a callback that provides the new value and the old value of helloWorld as parameters.
It’s important that you don’t default to writing jQuery when testing on Angular apps. Remember, you have access to all the functionality of Angular, so use it. For complex experiments, you can use custom directives to manage code structure and make it easy to debug.
To do this, you can implement an injector to apply components in the context of the app that you’re testing on. Here’s a simple example that will alert you if your helloWorld variable changes:
https://gist.github.com/wf-thomas-davis/6e44f78828fa3cf0480d32f3e0e5c17f.js
For more details on how to use an injector, click here.
-–
These are just a few of the tactics that the WiderFunnel Dev team uses to run successful conversion optimization on Angular apps. That said, we would love to hear from all of you about how you do CRO on Angular!
Do you use the same tactics described here? Do you know of other workarounds not mentioned here? How do you test successfully on Angular apps? Let us know in the comments!
DOM: The Document Object Model (DOM) is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML, and XML documents
$scope: Scope is an object that refers to the application model. It is an execution context for expressions. Scopes are arranged in hierarchical structure which mimic the DOM structure of the application. Scopes can watch expressions and propagate events.
$apply: Apply is used to execute an expression in Angular from outside of the Angular framework. (For example from browser DOM events, setTimeout, XHR or third party libraries).
JSON: (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition – December 1999
Two-way data binding: Data-binding in Angular apps is the automatic synchronization of data between the model and view components. The way that Angular implements data-binding allows you to treat the model as the single source of truth in your application.
Digest Loop: There is an internal cycle called $digest that runs through the application and executes watch expressions and compares the value returned with the previous value and if the values do not match then a listener is fired. This $digest cycle keeps looping until no more listeners are fired.
Dirty Checking: Dirty checking is a simple process that boils down to a very basic concept: It checks whether a value has changed that hasn’t yet been synchronized across the app
The post Tips and tactics for A/B testing on AngularJS apps appeared first on WiderFunnel Conversion Optimization.
I have the following code.
HTML:
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cell 2 details
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cell 3
cell 3 details
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| cell 2
cell 2 details
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cell 3
cell 3 details
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Code (markup):
How to effectively show/hide parts of table cells (and replace js onclick)? |
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billdehner8 