diy alternatives to lcd displays quotation

Editors" note, Aug. 14, 2018: Originally published July 2, 2017, this article has since been updated to include new DAKboard features and an open-source alternative to DAKboard, MagicMirror.

The ideal board for the job is the £9.30 or AU$14.96) for the board. To set up and connect the Raspberry Pi, you will need a short HDMI cable and a microSD card of at least 8GB.

The most important thing you need is an old monitor -- preferably a slim model with HDMI. Some computer monitors will work better than others. Specifically, those that have the connection ports facing downward instead of straight out from the back work much better.

You will also need an extension cable with at least two plugs at the end. Take note of whether your monitor"s power supply needs a two- or three-pronged plug and buy the appropriate extension cord.

Finally, you will need supplies to mount the Raspberry Pi, the monitor"s power supply, all the cables and the female end of the extension cord on the back of the monitor. I used two-sided mounting tape. And I used duct tape to keep the excess cord attached as tightly to the back of the monitor as possible.

Typically, there isn"t enough room to install a Raspberry Pi inside the original backplate -- unless you"re using a Pi Zero W. Even then, the excess cords and the power supply for the monitor won"t fit. The monitor will sit closer to the wall without the back cover, so it"s best to discard it.

Connect the Raspberry Pi to the HDMI port on the monitor and -- without plugging in the extension cord -- connect the power cables to both the Raspberry Pi and the monitor. Use this to figure out the best layout of all the parts to keep everything as slim as possible.

As for the picture-hanging wire, there were no decent places to connect on the Dell monitor I used, so I drilled one hole on either side of the rear bezel that held the back cover on. This is where you might have to get creative, since no two monitors are the same.

DAKboard is the web interface used to display all the information on the monitor. It can be set up from the Raspberry Pi or from a computer, phone or tablet.

Just go to dakboard.com and create an account. Then begin configuring the layout to your liking. There are five different screen configurations to choose from:Top/Bottom

Next, you must configure DAKboard to suit your needs. For instance, start by choosing your time zone, selecting either an analog or a digital clock. Select a date-and-time format.

For background options, you can choose between a host of different sources, such as Instagram, Google Photos, Dropbox, OneDrive, Bing, Flickr, etc. After that, you can connect up to two ICAL calendars for free, select between Yahoo and AccuWeather for the forecast source, add a single RSS feed for rotating headlines, and connect Todoist, Wunderlist or Microsoft To-Do as a task manager to display and add a custom message to the DAKboard.

By upgrading to DAKboard Premium, which starts at $4.95 per month (no specific info about international pricing and availability), you can unlock the ability to add additional calendars, set a Vimeo, YouTube video or website as the background, select

The idea is that, when powered on, the Raspberry Pi will automatically boot to your DAKboard. If you want to hang the monitor vertically instead of horizontally, you will also need to rotate the display.

First, power on the Raspberry Pi, open Terminal and type in sudo raspi-config. Once in the configuration tool:Go to Boot Options > Desktop Autologin Desktop GUI and press Enter.

Next, you will want to edit the config.txt file to rotate the screen 90 degrees. In Terminal, type sudo nano /boot/config.txt and press Enter. This opens the config file in the nano text editor. Add these lines to the end of the file (without the bullet points):# Display orientation. Landscape = 0, Portrait = 1

Finally, to force the screen to stay on and automatically boot with dakboard.com loaded in Chromium, type sudo nano ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart and press Enter. Inside nano, add these four lines (without the bullet points):@xset s off

Once the Raspberry Pi has fully rebooted, use a connected mouse and keyboard to log in to DAKboard. Click Login and enter your credentials. Your DAKboard should load with your previously configured settings. If you want to change anything, click the settings cog in the upper right corner of the display (move the cursor to make it appear).

Hang the monitor on the wall and you"ll have yourself a digital clock and calendar, the week"s forecast, important headlines and beautiful pictures on display all day.

If you would prefer the monitor to turn on and off at different times to save power, DAKboard includes instructions on how to set that up with a script.

DAKboard is a great way to set up a Raspberry Pi display in a hurry. It"s easy and user-friendly and it looks great. However, it has its limitations and encourages users to upgrade to Premium to unlock the best features.

That"s why MagicMirror is a fantastic alternative for those willing to get their hands dirty and spend a little more time and effort setting it up. MagicMirror is open-source and entirely free. It"s also installed with a single command and you can install modules for clock, calendar, weather, news, alerts and tons of third-party modules that include smart home integrations. You can even make your own modules if you"re so inclined.

Quotes are used to emphasize excerpts of text. Since users almost never read but scan we need to provide them with some focus anchors to fix their attention to the most important parts of our articles. Furthermore, quotes are always used for testimonials and sometimes for blog comments. They can be styled using graphics, CSS and a little bit of JavaScript. Sometimes, creative dynamic solutions can be applied as well.

This post presents creative examples and best practices for design of pull quotes. We’ve tried to identify some common solutions and interesting approaches you may want to use or develop further in your projects.

No. First of all: quote ≠ block quote ≠ pull quote. Pull quotes are short excerpts from the presented text. They are used to pull a text passage out of the reader’s flow and give it a more dominant position in the post or the article.

More after jump! Continue reading below ↓Meet designing for mobile with proven, universal, human-centric guidelines. 400 pages, jam-packed with in-depth user research and best practices.Jump to table of contents ↬

Just like a pull quote blockquote (actually block quotations) are also set off from the main text as a distinct paragraph or block. However, they refer to some external citation which isn’t already mentioned in the article. Block quotations are usually placed within the reader’s flow.

According to HTML specifications, there are three elements which are supposed to semantically mark up quotations, namely

, and . Although all intended to markup quotes, they should be used in different contexts. So when should you use what? HTML Dog provides a nice and compact overview of these elements:

q is a small quotation. The content of this element is an in-line quote. Modern browsers know how to interpret which is why you can style quotations using this HTML-elements via CSS. Example:

Modern browsers support this way of styling. Of course, Internet Explorer (even in its 8th version) doesn’t support it although it knows pretty well. In particular, since some problems with encoding of quotes can appear sometimes it’s useful to provide numeric values (see below).

According to standards you can even specify the appearance of quotation marks depending on the browser’s language of the user. This is how a W3C-example looks like::lang(fr) > Q { quotes: ‘« ’ ‘ »’ }

As lovely as they may be, pull quotes have inherent problems in the way they are placed in the middle of HTML content. To a visual, CSSenabled browser all might seem hunky-dory, but to those browsers that are not CSS-abled and fall back on the plain HTML or to screen readers for visually impaired users, the pull quotes will appear slap bang in the middle of the main content. A quote suddenly appearing between two paragraphs is clearly out of place and will confusingly break the flow.

If you are using pull-quotes, it is wise to provide a little extra information for users who would stumble on this problem. In the XHTMLyou can provide a message, hidden from view with CSS that reads something like “Start of pull-quote” before the quote and then “endquote” after it.You could even have a link similar to the “skip navigation” link, which would offer the user the ability to skip the pull-quote and continue to the main content.

Summing up: for large quotes use blockquote, for small quotes use q and for references to another sources cite should be used. In practice, usually only blockquote and q are used.

Quotes, braces, lines, dialogue boxes, balloons — there are some paths a designer can take to create a beautiful and memorable quote. Design solutions vary in colors, forms, and sizes. Different techniques produce different result: However, it is important that it is clear to the visitors that the quote is a quote. Otherwise, it becomes easy to keep track on the content.

Take a look at the example above. 99designs uses a block quotation to emphasize what the site is about. However, the text put in the quotes actually isn’t a quotation. We do not know why quotation mark is used in this case. We do know, though, that they shouldn’t be used in this context.

Actually we know it from print where quotes-neighbours are supposed to emphasize some important message or interview excerpts. Pull quotes are placed not within, but next to the content. Such quotes are usually short and don’t provide any additional information as they can also be found in the article. In Web the technique is seen rather rarely, but it has a charm of its own and — if used properly and for the right purposes — may strongly support the content. To clearly separate the “neighbours” from the main content designers often use lines or a large amount of whitespace.

It is important to understand that in such cases pull quotes break the usual content flow which may make it harder for the readers to actually follow the argumentation of the article. In some cases it is more effective to avoid quotes (e.g. if a complex matter is described) while in other cases quotes can quicken and simplify the understanding (e.g. the main statement in the interview).

Often quotations are used and designed not inside an article, but as a standalone design element which is given the dominant position in the design. This is often the case in testimonials where companies present quotes from their customers and clients to confirm the quality they actually promise. In such cases quotations are usually big, bold and clearly visible.

In books and scientific documents citations are often provided with a footnote reference to the original document. In the Web, where references are commonly just linked to, this technique has never managed to become popular, however footnotes aren’t difficult to achieve with pure CSS.

For instance, if you’d like to cite an excerpt from a book, instead of providing the corresponding title and page number you can simply refer to a footnote below the article. Thus, you can avoid overloading your article with too many references. Footnotes, hence, can make it easier for your readers to read your article and provide details “on-demand” — only when they are needed.

Take a look at the following example. Naz Hamid uses both a blockquote (label 2 in the image above) and a footnote in his articles. The reference to the footnote and the footnote itself are interconnected: visitors can click on the reference and jump to the footnote. And in the footnote the “return”-icon allows the user to jump from the footnote to the place in the article where it is referred to. The author uses the footnotes to provide a personal remark on what has been mentioned in the article (labels 1 and 2).

With footnotes you can offer your visitors some traditional, classic layout feeling without overwhelming them with long references to citations you provide.

Look at the “Escaping Boundaries” section (fourth from the top). Pull-quotes are an example of a design element that presents an opportunity to break out of your established visual flow.

String lights make everything a little better. So try using them to display the people and places that add a little light to your life. If you get a little creative with how you string them up, you"ll have multiple ways to display photos from just this one idea. (Pro tip: If you want diagonal prints like the example, rotate your images 45 degrees on your phone editor before printing.)

You don’t need a frame to hang it on the wall in an elevated way. A print hanger gives you all the sophistication of a frame plus unique minimalist appeal that can make the space. Just pick a large photo print that you love and slip it into the hanger.

Add a bit of string and tape to turn that fallen branch you found on your hike into unique decor. It’s the perfect way to bring in a natural element amongst your other photo display ideas. (Note: You can also use a hole puncher to string through holes in your prints... your call!)

If you’re looking for a simple solution to a clean look, consider binder clips your new best friend. Find clips with a metallic finish to get a better look and match other decor you might have in your space.

Need new ways to display photos on a table or desk? Easel does it. A small easel can be the perfect alternative to a tabletop frame and makes it simple to swap photos. Just place a stack of your favorite prints on the ledge and change the feature print periodically.

Your walls will thank you for this one. Skip the nail holes for colorful borders by using washi tape to create makeshift frames. By leaving a little space between the prints and tape, you can give it a gallery effect and keep your prints from getting damaged. (This is where the poster tape comes in.)

Have a lot of prints to display? The more photos, the better the grid! We recommend using a ruler to space out your prints to keep your grid clean and consistent. Not to say you can’t also experiment with angles and spacing a bit to produce a more creative photo display. Just make sure you use poster tape so that you don’t damage your wall or prints.

Fencing makes the perfect blank canvas for a unique photo display. Plus, with a little bit of spray paint, you can customize to create an upscale look. A little gold goes a long way! (Pro tip: We used simple fencing from the hardware store to create the display in the photo.)

A Wooden Photo Ledge is a sturdy solution for unique photo display, and still simple to secure to a wall. Don"t want to hang it up? Placing it on the mantle works just as well. Either way, mixing and matching different print sizes can keep things from becoming too uniform. (Hint: Use multiple ledges like the photo above to make the most of your wall.)

Don’t throw out that old wooden ladder sitting in the garage — it’s your ticket to a multi-tier photo display. Tying a string across each rung will give you a line to hang photos. Or, you can choose to punch holes in your prints and tie each photo to the rung. For a little variation, alternate between photos and other items on different rungs.

Have a small space on a mantel or shelf that’s perfect for a print? Use a photo block stand to make it happen with minimal effort. It’s subtle, sleek, lets you easily switch out photos, and gives more stability than standing prints up against other items. Plus, you can put it just about anywhere. (Bonus: Ours is made from reclaimed Colorado black walnut.)

We’re saying no to the stigma against tape. When used the right way, it’s a simple, tasteful shortcut to getting those prints up on the wall. You can use accent tape to add a little color or parchment tape to keep things classic.

Change things up a bit with a welcome twist on the classic tabletop frame. This display box lets you stand your photos up on any surface and store additional prints for easy rotation. Keep a stack of your favorite prints inside the back slot and swap the feature photo out as often as you’d like. (Pro tip: It also makes the perfect bookend.)

Whether it’s a holiday meal or a wedding rehearsal, prints make the perfect table place setting to let your favorite people know exactly where to go. Because a special occasion calls for that little something extra to make guests feel right at home.

These creative ways to display photos without frames are just a start. We"d love to see how you use any of them in your space. Don"t forget to tag us on instagram (@artifactuprising) with your own spin.

Rather than plug your Raspberry Pi into a TV, or connect via SSH (or remote desktop connections via VNC or RDP), you might have opted to purchase a Raspberry Pi touchscreen display.

Straightforward to set up, the touchscreen display has so many possibilities. But if you"ve left yours gathering dust in a drawer, there"s no way you"re going to experience the full benefits of such a useful piece of kit.

The alternative is to get it out of the drawer, hook your touchscreen display to your Raspberry Pi, and reformat the microSD card. It"s time to work on a new project -- one of these ideas should pique your interest.

Let"s start with perhaps the most obvious option. The official Raspberry Pi touchscreen display is seven inches diagonal, making it an ideal size for a photo frame. For the best results, you"ll need a wireless connection (Ethernet cables look unsightly on a mantelpiece) as well as a Raspberry Pi-compatible battery pack.

Several options are available to create a Raspberry Pi photo frame, mostly using Python code. You might opt to script your own, pulling images from a pre-populated directory. Alternatively, take a look at our guide to making your own photo frame with beautiful images and inspiring quotes. It pulls content from two Reddit channels -- images from /r/EarthPorn and quotes from /r/ShowerThoughts -- and mixes them together.

Rather than wait for the 24th century, why not bring the slick user interface found in Star Trek: The Next Generation to your Raspberry Pi today? While you won"t be able to drive a dilithium crystal powered warp drive with it, you can certainly control your smart home.

In the example above, Belkin WeMo switches and a Nest thermostat are manipulated via the Raspberry Pi, touchscreen display, and the InControlHA system with Wemo and Nest plugins. ST:TNG magic comes from an implementation of the Library Computer Access and Retrieval System (LCARS) seen in 1980s/1990s Star Trek. Coder Toby Kurien has developed an LCARS user interface for the Pi that has uses beyond home automation.

Building a carputer has long been the holy grail of technology DIYers, and the Raspberry Pi makes it far more achievable than ever before. But for the carputer to really take shape, it needs a display -- and what better than a touchscreen interface?

Ideal for entertainment, as a satnav, monitoring your car"s performance via the OBD-II interface, and even for reverse parking, a carputer can considerably improve your driving experience. Often, though, the focus is on entertainment.

Setting up a Raspberry Pi carputer also requires a user interface, suitable power supply, as well as working connections to any additional hardware you employ. (This might include a mobile dongle and GPS for satnav, for instance.)

Now here is a unique use for the Pi and its touchscreen display. A compact, bench-based tool for controlling hardware on your bench (or kitchen or desk), this is a build with several purposes. It"s designed to help you get your home automation projects off the ground, but also includes support for a webcam to help you record your progress.

The idea here is simple. With just a Raspberry Pi, a webcam, and a touchscreen display -- plus a thermal printer -- you can build a versatile photo booth!

Various projects of this kind have sprung up. While the versions displayed above uses a thermal printer outputting a low-res image, you might prefer to employ a standard color photo printer. The wait will be longer, but the results better!

Projects along these lines can also benefit from better use of the touchscreen. Perhaps you could improve on this, and introduce some interesting photo effects that can be tweaked via the touchscreen prior to printing?

How about a smart mirror for your Raspberry Pi touchscreen display project? This is basically a mirror that not only shows your reflection, but also useful information. For instance, latest news and weather updates.

Naturally, a larger display would deliver the best results, but if you"re looking to get started with a smart mirror project, or develop your own from scratch, a Raspberry Pi combined with a touchscreen display is an excellent place to start.

Many existing projects are underway, and we took the time to compile six of them into a single list for your perusal. Use this as inspiration, a starting point, or just use someone else"s code to build your own information-serving smart mirror.

Want to pump some banging "toons" out of your Raspberry Pi? We"ve looked at some internet radio projects in the past, but adding in a touchscreen display changes things considerably. For a start, it"s a lot easier to find the station you want to listen to!

This example uses a much smaller Adafruit touchscreen display for the Raspberry Pi. You can get suitable results from any compatible touchscreen, however.

Alternatively, you might prefer the option to integrate your Raspberry Pi with your home audio setup. The build outlined below uses RuneAudio, a Bluetooth speaker, and your preferred audio HAT or shield.

Requiring the ProtoCentral HealthyPi HAT (a HAT is an expansion board for the Raspberry Pi) and the Windows-only Atmel software, this project results in a portable device to measure yours (or a patient"s) health.

With probes and electrodes attached, you"ll be able to observe and record thanks to visualization software on the Pi. Whether this is a system that can be adopted by the medical profession remains to be seen. We suspect it could turn out to be very useful in developing nations, or in the heart of infectious outbreaks.

We were impressed by this project over at Hackster.io, but note that there are many alternatives. Often these rely on compact LCD displays rather than the touchscreen solution.

Many home automation systems have been developed for, or ported to, the Raspberry Pi -- enough for their own list. Not all of these feature a touchscreen display, however.

One that does is the Makezine project below, that hooks up a Raspberry Pi running OpenHAB, an open source home automation system that can interface with hundreds of smart home products. Our own guide shows how you can use it to control some smart lighting. OpenHAB comes with several user interfaces. However, if they"re not your cup of tea, an LCARS UI theme is available.

Another great build, and the one we"re finishing on, is a Raspberry Pi-powered tablet computer. The idea is simple: place the Pi, the touchscreen display, and a rechargeable battery pack into a suitable case (more than likely 3D printed). You might opt to change the operating system; Raspbian Jessie with PIXEL (nor the previous desktop) isn"t really suitable as a touch-friendly interface. Happily, there are versions of Android available for the Raspberry Pi.

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One of the most impactful things that publishers can do to make their content more accessible to people with disabilities is to add alternative text, or alt-text, to images on their websites and other digital content they produce. Alt-text, which usually consists of anything from a few words to a couple of sentences that describe an image, is a written substitute for visually seeing those images. A person reading a website (or tweet, or newsletter) cannot normally see the alt-text attached to images, but assistive technologies such as screen readers​​—which people who have low vision or who are blind use to consume digital content—read alt-text aloud, enabling users to more fully understand what is being communicated on the page. As Hannah Wise writes at the Reynolds Journalism Institute, alt-text is part of journalism.

The main reason for a publication to use alt-text is that it makes content more accessible to people with certain visual or cognitive disabilities. Alt-text also displays in cases where a user has blocked images or where images fail to load. Search engines also index alternative text, so its use has relevance for SEO considerations.

The guidance materials on this page are adapted from the alt-text guidelines used at The Open Notebook. (Please see below for links to sources used in developing these guidelines. For more detailed guidance, we particularly recommend the “Alt Decision Tree” produced by the Web Accessibility Initiative.)

Some images do not need any alt-text. Most notably, alt-text is usually not necessary for purely decorative images that don’t add any information to a page or in which the alt-text would be redundant with surrounding text (for example, in the image caption or nearby text). This might include, for example, stock images that don’t carry any meaningful information but merely make the page more visually appealing. Similarly, alt-text is usually not necessary for decorative icons, line separators, or other images that merely create visual ambiance and don’t carry any informational value.

Finally, it’s also easy to add alt-text to social media posts for which you are manually attaching images. (It’s not necessary to add alt-text in social media posts where the images are being pulled automatically from the linked site.) For example, on Twitter, add alt-text using the “image description” field. On Facebook, click on “edit” when you add the image, then select “Alternative text.” (Facebook also suggests default alt-text, but this is often not suitable.)

Be succinct. Roughly speaking, alt-text should be one to two sentences—around the length of a tweet, or less, if possible. Fewer than 125 characters is the ideal, but not always possible. Remember that the entire contents of your alt-text will be read aloud by a screen reader, so don’t bog down your audience with overly wordy alt-text.

Include only the most relevant visual details. It’s not practical to include every visual detail in a photo or illustration. Use your judgment to decide which details to include.

Don’t write “Photo of…” or “Image of…” at the beginning of your alt-text. Users already know that an image is being described, so this text adds needless verbiage. (At The Open Notebook, we do write “Illustration of…,” “Map of…” or similar, where applicable, to make clear that the image is not a photo.)

For infographics, charts, and maps: Focus on what is of highest informational value. Rely on surrounding text and captions to provide further information.

For images that serve as links to another page (such as a logo that points to an organization’s website, or a thumbnail image that links out to the full document): Explain what happens when the user clicks the image. (e.g., “The Knight Foundation,” or “Marked-up document.”)

Be intentional and consistent in decisions about whether to provide physical descriptions of people such as their race, age, hair color or style, weight, style of dress, or other aspects of general appearance. (The question of whether to include such descriptions in alt-text is not fully settled within image-description and audio-description circles. Some argue that images of people should include physical characteristics such as age, race, hair color, style of dress, and so on, as these provide detail about what is shown. Others believe physical descriptions are not a priority, given the demand for succinctness. We encourage every newsroom to study and weigh these questions for itself. Any such descriptions should be used for all people, not just some.)

Below are examples of some common journalistic contexts in which the decision about whether and how to use alt-text arises. These examples are not exhaustive. For a more thorough discussion, see the resources below.

For a simple headshot in which the caption includes the person’s name and in which the photo includes no informative contextual information, alt-text is not necessary because it would be redundant with the caption.

It’s not always necessary to provide either captions or alt-text for images (such as stock photographs or illustrations) whose purpose is decorative. However, if the image content reflects a concept that is meaningful to the story, and/or if it is the lead image in a story,alt-text can enrich users’ experience.

Photos that are more substantially informative should include alt-text. It’s rarely possible to describe every visual element of an image, so pick those elements that are most important in the context of the story.

Impart as much information about the content of infographics, charts, and maps as practically possible. Don’t just explain what the graphic is about; describe key aspects of the information within. In many cases, it is not possible to fully describe the information provided in a chart or figure; focus on what is of highest informational value. Rely on surrounding text and captions to provide further information.

The alt-text should be the name of the organization/website. Many experts argue that it is not necessary to add words such as “logo,” “website,” or “home page,” as people using screen readers will assume that a linked image whose alt-text is the name of an organization or website is pointing to a home page. It is also not necessary to say “link to…” because screen readers already announce to users that they are on a link.

(Editors’ Note: Many thanks to writer and editor Kerry Kijewski, a person with lived experience using a screen reader, for serving as a paid consultant in the early development of these guidelines.Any errors or omissions remain the responsibility ofThe Open Notebook.)

In this tutorial, I’ll explain how to set up an LCD on an Arduino and show you all the different ways you can program it. I’ll show you how to print text, scroll text, make custom characters, blink text, and position text. They’re great for any project that outputs data, and they can make your project a lot more interesting and interactive.

The display I’m using is a 16×2 LCD display that I bought for about $5. You may be wondering why it’s called a 16×2 LCD. The part 16×2 means that the LCD has 2 lines, and can display 16 characters per line. Therefore, a 16×2 LCD screen can display up to 32 characters at once. It is possible to display more than 32 characters with scrolling though.

The code in this article is written for LCD’s that use the standard Hitachi HD44780 driver. If your LCD has 16 pins, then it probably has the Hitachi HD44780 driver. These displays can be wired in either 4 bit mode or 8 bit mode. Wiring the LCD in 4 bit mode is usually preferred since it uses four less wires than 8 bit mode. In practice, there isn’t a noticeable difference in performance between the two modes. In this tutorial, I’ll connect the LCD in 4 bit mode.

BONUS: I made a quick start guide for this tutorial that you can download and go back to later if you can’t set this up right now. It covers all of the steps, diagrams, and code you need to get started.

Here’s a diagram of the pins on the LCD I’m using. The connections from each pin to the Arduino will be the same, but your pins might be arranged differently on the LCD. Be sure to check the datasheet or look for labels on your particular LCD:

Also, you might need to solder a 16 pin header to your LCD before connecting it to a breadboard. Follow the diagram below to wire the LCD to your Arduino:

The resistor in the diagram above sets the backlight brightness. A typical value is 220 Ohms, but other values will work too. Smaller resistors will make the backlight brighter.

All of the code below uses the LiquidCrystal library that comes pre-installed with the Arduino IDE. A library is a set of functions that can be easily added to a program in an abbreviated format.

In order to use a library, it needs be included in the program. Line 1 in the code below does this with the command #include . When you include a library in a program, all of the code in the library gets uploaded to the Arduino along with the code for your program.

Now we’re ready to get into the programming! I’ll go over more interesting things you can do in a moment, but for now lets just run a simple test program. This program will print “hello, world!” to the screen. Enter this code into the Arduino IDE and upload it to the board:

There are 19 different functions in the LiquidCrystal library available for us to use. These functions do things like change the position of the text, move text across the screen, or make the display turn on or off. What follows is a short description of each function, and how to use it in a program.

TheLiquidCrystal() function sets the pins the Arduino uses to connect to the LCD. You can use any of the Arduino’s digital pins to control the LCD. Just put the Arduino pin numbers inside the parentheses in this order:

This function sets the dimensions of the LCD. It needs to be placed before any other LiquidCrystal function in the void setup() section of the program. The number of rows and columns are specified as lcd.begin(columns, rows). For a 16×2 LCD, you would use lcd.begin(16, 2), and for a 20×4 LCD you would use lcd.begin(20, 4).

This function clears any text or data already displayed on the LCD. If you use lcd.clear() with lcd.print() and the delay() function in the void loop() section, you can make a simple blinking text program:

Similar, but more useful than lcd.home() is lcd.setCursor(). This function places the cursor (and any printed text) at any position on the screen. It can be used in the void setup() or void loop() section of your program.

The cursor position is defined with lcd.setCursor(column, row). The column and row coordinates start from zero (0-15 and 0-1 respectively). For example, using lcd.setCursor(2, 1) in the void setup() section of the “hello, world!” program above prints “hello, world!” to the lower line and shifts it to the right two spaces:

You can use this function to write different types of data to the LCD, for example the reading from a temperature sensor, or the coordinates from a GPS module. You can also use it to print custom characters that you create yourself (more on this below). Use lcd.write() in the void setup() or void loop() section of your program.

The function lcd.noCursor() turns the cursor off. lcd.cursor() and lcd.noCursor() can be used together in the void loop() section to make a blinking cursor similar to what you see in many text input fields:

Cursors can be placed anywhere on the screen with the lcd.setCursor() function. This code places a blinking cursor directly below the exclamation point in “hello, world!”:

This function creates a block style cursor that blinks on and off at approximately 500 milliseconds per cycle. Use it in the void loop() section. The function lcd.noBlink() disables the blinking block cursor.

This function turns on any text or cursors that have been printed to the LCD screen. The function lcd.noDisplay() turns off any text or cursors printed to the LCD, without clearing it from the LCD’s memory.

These two functions can be used together in the void loop() section to create a blinking text effect. This code will make the “hello, world!” text blink on and off:

This function takes anything printed to the LCD and moves it to the left. It should be used in the void loop() section with a delay command following it. The function will move the text 40 spaces to the left before it loops back to the first character. This code moves the “hello, world!” text to the left, at a rate of one second per character:

This function takes a string of text and scrolls it from right to left in increments of the character count of the string. For example, if you have a string of text that is 3 characters long, it will shift the text 3 spaces to the left with each step:

Like the lcd.scrollDisplay() functions, the text can be up to 40 characters in length before repeating. At first glance, this function seems less useful than the lcd.scrollDisplay() functions, but it can be very useful for creating animations with custom characters.

lcd.noAutoscroll() turns the lcd.autoscroll() function off. Use this function before or after lcd.autoscroll() in the void loop() section to create sequences of scrolling text or animations.

This function sets the direction that text is printed to the screen. The default mode is from left to right using the command lcd.leftToRight(), but you may find some cases where it’s useful to output text in the reverse direction:

This code prints the “hello, world!” text as “!dlrow ,olleh”. Unless you specify the placement of the cursor with lcd.setCursor(), the text will print from the (0, 1) position and only the first character of the string will be visible.

This command allows you to create your own custom characters. Each character of a 16×2 LCD has a 5 pixel width and an 8 pixel height. Up to 8 different custom characters can be defined in a single program. To design your own characters, you’ll need to make a binary matrix of your custom character from an LCD character generator or map it yourself. This code creates a degree symbol (°):

If you found this article useful, subscribe via email to get notified when we publish of new posts! And as always, if you are having trouble with anything, just leave a comment and I’ll try to help you out.

This tutorial is intended for beginners who want to learn how to create a simple web application using JavaScript. It will help you understand the interaction between JavaScript and an HTML document, and how they work together to display things on the web browser for people to see.

If you have absolutely zero experience in HTML and JavaScript, no worries. I will walk you through every single line of code, and explain everything in detail. By the time you reach the end of this lesson, you should have a much better understanding of how JavaScript works with with HTML to make web pages interactive.

In this project, we’ll build a random quote generator that displays a random quote to the user every time they press a button. To get started, you’ll need three essential things that are almost always used for every web project:a web browser

For this tutorial I will be using the Google Chrome web browser, the Sublime Text 3 Editor, and of course, my own desire to build and teach. You can use whatever tools you feel comfortable with.

If you’re confused as to how each part of the HTML code serves its purpose, then I will explain it to you here. If you know exactly what each element does and why it’s there, then you may skip to the next section to continue.

Then, we created a

element with an id attribute set to “quoteDisplay”. A

element works as a divider for HTML documents.

elements help organize content within a web page. Theid attribute works as an identifier so that JavaScript can easily grab and manipulate it. In this case, we will use JavaScript to grab the element with the id“quoteDisplay” to place quotes within the

element.

After that, we create a element with an onclick attribute with “newQuote()” passed in as a parameter. The element as you guessed, is a button that will do something when you click on it. The onclickattribute is used to set a function to the button, so that every time you click on the button, it will run the function that was passed into the ’s onclick attribute.

We need to figure out what we want, and when we want it. For this project, we want quotes! When do we want it? We want it now! Oh, erm… I mean we want it whenever the user presses the button.

Thanks Jaden! Yes! Quotes are made up of letters, which make up words. In the programming world, words are classified as strings, therefore, our quotes will need to be strings!

Since we know that we will have multiple quotes, and each one will be picked out randomly, the best choice would be to store multiple strings within an array.

If you didn’t already know, elements within an array are retrieved by calling its array index number. The technical details are out of this tutorial’s scope, but in simple terms, each element within an array is represented by a whole number in chronological order. The first element of an array has an index number of 0, every element after that goes up by one.

In order to retrieve a random quote from an array, we now know that we need to produce a random number every time the user clicks on the button. Then, we would use that random number to retrieve a quote from the array and place that quote onto the HTML document, which in turn, would display the quote on the browser to the user.

That’s it! We solved how to create a Random Quote Generator by logically thinking in code! Here’s a summary of the logic that we’ve come up with for our project:Quotes are multiple strings that need to be stored in an array.

You’re going to spend a lot of time coding in this career (or hobby). But my point is that you’re going to spend even more of that time thinking about programming logic and how to solve problems. Programming is not about hacking 100 words per minute for 20 minutes on the keyboard. That’s not going to happen.

I Googled “Best Quotes” and copied the first 10 from a website, thenplaced them in an array separated by commas. Make sure you place your quotes in single or double quotation marks. If your quote consists of apostrophes, single or double quotes, you may need to use backslashes to escape these characters so that JavaScript will know that the symbols are part of the string, and not the coding syntax.

Now we need to create our newQuote() function that I mentioned earlier in the HTML section of this tutorial. For our newQuote() function, we need to generate a random whole number that ranges from 0 to the length of our quotes array. I will explain further below.

First, we call the Math.floor() function. The Math.floor() function takes in a parameter and rounds the number downward to the nearest integer. For example, if we call Math.floor(5.7) it will return 5.

Second, we will pass in Math.random() as a parameter into Math.floor(). The Math.random() function will generate a random decimal number between 0 and 1.

If we console log our randomNumber at this state, it will always return 0. This is because Math.random() will always be a decimal between 0 and 1 such as 0.4, 0.721, 0.98, and so on. Because we pass Math.random() into Math.floor() as a parameter, Math.floor() is always rounding down to the nearest decimal, therefore, every decimal between 0 and 1 will always revert back to 0.

So what’s the point of doing this? Well, to create our array index numbers, we need whole numbers, but we need random whole numbers. To generate random whole numbers and break away from only returning 0, we will need to take our random decimal and multiply it by a whole number.

If we console log randomNumber, the results will be anywhere between 1 and 19. Now I could use this current state of randomNumber to pull out a quote from the quotes array, but it will only work if the array index number exist within the array, otherwise, an error will be thrown.

Using document.getElementById() we can pass in any string and JavaScript will look through our HTML document and retrieve it for use to do whatever we want with it. We will pass in ‘quoteDisplay’ as a parameter to retrieve the HTML element with the id of “quoteDisplay”.

If you’ve reached this part of the tutorial, you’ve completed the project! Congratulations! You are practically done building the Random Quote Generator.

Press the button, and it should display a random quote to your screen. Press the button as many times as you like. Each time, a new quote should replace current one on screen.

You’re probably thinking that this Random Quote Generator looks very boring, and no one would probably use it. And you’re absolutely right. This project looks quite plain, and it’s up to you to change that.

At the beginning of this tutorial we created a style.css file that we didn’t use. CSSis used to make web pages pretty and colorful. It is up to you to add to the CSS file for styling if you want.

You can search for some CSS tutorials for some additional guidance. Let your imagination run wild, and make this project yours! Do whatever you want! Coding is magic and you’re a wizard, Harry!

If you’re curious to see how much a project can change with CSS and a few more lines of JavaScript code, check out my own version of this Random Quote Generator that I titled “Epiphany Clock”here.

If you enjoyed this tutorial please click the heart button and share it! Feel free to leave any comments, questions, or feedback. Thank you and happy coding!

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Images and graphics make content more pleasant and easier to understand for many people, in particular, those with cognitive and/or learning disabilities. They serve as cues for people with visual impairments, including people with low vision, to orient themselves in the content.

Adding an image or a graphic to your content without using proper or empty alternative attributes (alt tags), can be extremely frustrating for people with visual impairments navigating your site through assistive technologies. Images alternatives add valuable information for low vision or blind screen reader users. Image alternatives also benefit people who have poor or unstable internet, some cognitive disabilities and it can also improve the SEO of a website.

Screen readers automatically announce an image as an image. So an alternative text “Image of an apple” would be read aloud by a screen reader as “image, Image of an apple”.

Informative images are any images that add to the context of a page. If the content of a page would suffer if an image was removed, then that image is informative and therefore needs an alt text.

The alt text needs to describe the image as concisely as possible. As a rule of thumb: avoid writing text alternatives longer than 100 characters. Having long alt text will result in a poor user experience for those using screen readers. If the image requires a lengthier description, it is better to describe the image in the content and provide a shorter alt text.

To write a good alt text consider the context of the image. Which additional content is it supporting? Which details are important in the image? The alt text should match the tone of voice of the accompanying content.

Contrary to popular belief, alt text does not need to be an objective description, it can convey nuances, details, and emotions if they are relevant to the user experience.

For example, if the image below of King Henry VIII of England were used in an article about the history of the Royal family of England, a decent alt text could simply describe the image as “alt=”King Henry VIII of England.”. To create a more rich experience the alt text could be “King Henry VIII of England looking stern and wearing lavish royal clothing.”.

Decorative images are images that serve no specific purpose, meaning that they are not meant to convey any meaning or important information. In this case, it is best practice to use what is called the NULL alt text or empty alt text.

Note that the alt attribute is still present, even though it is empty. When a screen reader comes across null alt text, it will completely skip over the image, without announcing its presence. If no alt attribute is present, the screen reader will read the file name for the image instead, which can be a major distraction to those using screen-reading technology.

According to WCAG, images of text are not allowed. If you cannot avoid images of text, its best to have the exact same text in the alt attribute.For example, for the alt text of this non-linked image you could use the words in the image itself:

Functional images are used to initiate actions rather than to convey information. They are used in buttons, links, and other interactive elements. The text alternative for the image should convey the action that will be initiated (the purpose of the image) rather than a description of the image.Missing or empty alt values create significant problems for screen reader users because functional images are essential to the functionality of the content. Screen readers will typically announce the image file name, the image URL, or the URL for the link destination, which is unlikely to help users understand the action that will be initiated by the image.

Glass substrate with ITO electrodes. The shapes of these electrodes will determine the shapes that will appear when the LCD is switched ON. Vertical ridges etched on the surface are smooth.

A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers. Liquid crystals do not emit light directlybacklight or reflector to produce images in color or monochrome.seven-segment displays, as in a digital clock, are all good examples of devices with these displays. They use the same basic technology, except that arbitrary images are made from a matrix of small pixels, while other displays have larger elements. LCDs can either be normally on (positive) or off (negative), depending on the polarizer arrangement. For example, a character positive LCD with a backlight will have black lettering on a background that is the color of the backlight, and a character negative LCD will have a black background with the letters being of the same color as the backlight. Optical filters are added to white on blue LCDs to give them their characteristic appearance.

LCDs are used in a wide range of applications, including LCD televisions, computer monitors, instrument panels, aircraft cockpit displays, and indoor and outdoor signage. Small LCD screens are common in LCD projectors and portable consumer devices such as digital cameras, watches, digital clocks, calculators, and mobile telephones, including smartphones. LCD screens are also used on consumer electronics products such as DVD players, video game devices and clocks. LCD screens have replaced heavy, bulky cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays in nearly all applications. LCD screens are available in a wider range of screen sizes than CRT and plasma displays, with LCD screens available in sizes ranging from tiny digital watches to very large television receivers. LCDs are slowly being replaced by OLEDs, which can be easily made into different shapes, and have a lower response time, wider color gamut, virtually infinite color contrast and viewing angles, lower weight for a given display size and a slimmer profile (because OLEDs use a single glass or plastic panel whereas LCDs use two glass panels; the thickness of the panels increases with size but the increase is more noticeable on LCDs) and potentially lower power consumption (as the display is only "on" where needed and there is no backlight). OLEDs, however, are more expensive for a given display size due to the very expensive electroluminescent materials or phosphors that they use. Also due to the use of phosphors, OLEDs suffer from screen burn-in and there is currently no way to recycle OLED displays, whereas LCD panels can be recycled, although the technology required to recycle LCDs is not yet widespread. Attempts to maintain the competitiveness of LCDs are quantum dot displays, marketed as SUHD, QLED or Triluminos, which are displays with blue LED backlighting and a Quantum-dot enhancement film (QDEF) that converts part of the blue light into red and green, offering similar performance to an OLED display at a lower price, but the quantum dot layer that gives these displays their characteristics can not yet be recycled.

Since LCD screens do not use phosphors, they rarely suffer image burn-in when a static image is displayed on a screen for a long time, e.g., the table frame for an airline flight schedule on an indoor sign. LCDs are, however, susceptible to image persistence.battery-powered electronic equipment more efficiently than a CRT can be. By 2008, annual sales of televisions with LCD screens exceeded sales of CRT units worldwide, and the CRT became obsolete for most purposes.

Each pixel of an LCD typically consists of a layer of molecules aligned between two transparent electrodes, often made of Indium-Tin oxide (ITO) and two polarizing filters (parallel and perpendicular polarizers), the axes of transmission of which are (in most of the cases) perpendicular to each other. Without the liquid crystal between the polarizing filters, light passing through the first filter would be blocked by the second (crossed) polarizer. Before an electric field is applied, the orientation of the liquid-crystal molecules is determined by the alignment at the surfaces of electrodes. In a twisted nematic (TN) device, the surface alignment directions at the two electrodes are perpendicular to each other, and so the molecules arrange themselves in a helical structure, or twist. This induces the rotation of the polarization of the incident light, and the device appears gray. If the applied voltage is large enough, the liquid crystal molecules in the center of the layer are almost completely untwisted and the polarization of the incident light is not rotated as it passes through the liquid crystal layer. This light will then be mainly polarized perpendicular to the second filter, and thus be blocked and the pixel will appear black. By controlling the voltage applied across the liquid crystal layer in each pixel, light can be allowed to pass through in varying amounts thus constituting different levels of gray.

The chemical formula of the liquid crystals used in LCDs may vary. Formulas may be patented.Sharp Corporation. The patent that covered that specific mixture expired.

Most color LCD systems use the same technique, with color filters used to generate red, green, and blue subpixels. The LCD color filters are made with a photolithography process on large glass sheets that are later glued with other glass sheets containing a TFT array, spacers and liquid crystal, creating several color LCDs that are then cut from one another and laminated with polarizer sheets. Red, green, blue and black photoresists (resists) are used. All resists contain a finely ground powdered pigment, with particles being just 40 nanometers across. The black resist is the first to be applied; this will create a black grid (known in the industry as a black matrix) that will separate red, green and blue subpixels from one another, increasing contrast ratios and preventing light from leaking from one subpixel onto other surrounding subpixels.Super-twisted nematic LCD, where the variable twist between tighter-spaced plates causes a varying double refraction birefringence, thus changing the hue.

LCD in a Texas Instruments calculator with top polarizer removed from device and placed on top, such that the top and bottom polarizers are perpendicular. As a result, the colors are inverted.

The optical effect of a TN device in the voltage-on state is far less dependent on variations in the device thickness than that in the voltage-off state. Because of this, TN displays with low information content and no backlighting are usually operated between crossed polarizers such that they appear bright with no voltage (the eye is much more sensitive to variations in the dark state than the bright state). As most of 2010-era LCDs are used in television sets, monitors and smartphones, they have high-resolution matrix arrays of pixels to display arbitrary images using backlighting with a dark background. When no image is displayed, different arrangements are used. For this purpose, TN LCDs are operated between parallel polarizers, whereas IPS LCDs feature crossed polarizers. In many applications IPS LCDs have replaced TN LCDs, particularly in smartphones. Both the liquid crystal material and the alignment layer material contain ionic compounds. If an electric field of one particular polarity is applied for a long period of time, this ionic material is attracted to the surfaces and degrades the device performance. This is avoided either by applying an alternating current or by reversing the polarity of the electric field as the device is addressed (the response of the liquid crystal layer is identical, regardless of the polarity of the applied field).

Displays for a small number of individual digits or fixed symbols (as in digital watches and pocket calculators) can be implemented with independent electrodes for each segment.alphanumeric or variable graphics displays are usually implemented with pixels arranged as a matrix consisting of electrically connected rows on one side of the LC layer and columns on the other side, which makes it possible to address each pixel at the intersections. The general method of matrix addressing consists of sequentially addressing one side of the matrix, for example by selecting the rows one-by-one and applying the picture information on the other side at the columns row-by-row. For details on the various matrix addressing schemes see passive-matrix and active-matrix addressed LCDs.

LCDs, along with OLED displays, are manufactured in cleanrooms borrowing techniques from semiconductor manufacturing and using large sheets of glass whose size has increased over time. Several displays are manufactured at the same time, and then cut from the sheet of glass, also known as the mother glass or LCD glass substrate. The increase in size allows more displays or larger displays to be made, just like with increasing wafer sizes in semiconductor manufacturing. The glass sizes are as follows:

Until Gen 8, manufacturers would not agree on a single mother glass size and as a result, different manufacturers would use slightly different glass sizes for the same generation. Some manufacturers have adopted Gen 8.6 mother glass sheets which are only slightly larger than Gen 8.5, allowing for more 50 and 58 inch LCDs to be made per mother glass, specially 58 inch LCDs, in which case 6 can be produced on a Gen 8.6 mother glass vs only 3 on a Gen 8.5 mother glass, significantly reducing waste.AGC Inc., Corning Inc., and Nippon Electric Glass.

The origins and the complex history of liquid-crystal displays from the perspective of an insider during the early days were described by Joseph A. Castellano in Liquid Gold: The Story of Liquid Crystal Displays and the Creation of an Industry.IEEE History Center.Peter J. Wild, can be found at the Engineering and Technology History Wiki.

In 1888,Friedrich Reinitzer (1858–1927) discovered the liquid crystalline nature of cholesterol extracted from carrots (that is, two melting points and generation of colors) and published his findings at a meeting of the Vienna Chemical Society on May 3, 1888 (F. Reinitzer: Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Cholesterins, Monatshefte für Chemie (Wien) 9, 421–441 (1888)).Otto Lehmann published his work "Flüssige Kristalle" (Liquid Crystals). In 1911, Charles Mauguin first experimented with liquid crystals confined between plates in thin layers.

In 1922, Georges Friedel described the structure and properties of liquid crystals and classified them in three types (nematics, smectics and cholesterics). In 1927, Vsevolod Frederiks devised the electrically switched light valve, called the Fréedericksz transition, the essential effect of all LCD technology. In 1936, the Marconi Wireless Telegraph company patented the first practical application of the technology, "The Liquid Crystal Light Valve". In 1962, the first major English language publication Molecular Structure and Properties of Liquid Crystals was published by Dr. George W. Gray.RCA found that liquid crystals had some interesting electro-optic characteristics and he realized an electro-optical effect by generating stripe-patterns in a thin layer of liquid crystal material by the application of a voltage. This effect is based on an electro-hydrodynamic instability forming what are now called "Williams domains" inside the liquid crystal.

The MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor) was invented by Mohamed M. Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959, and presented in 1960.Paul K. Weimer a

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