Enumerations in Java explained (using Pokémon as an example)

Enumerations explained (using Pokemon as an example)

What are enums anyway, and what are they used for? Well, just think of it as yet another tool in your handy Java toolbox of things you can consider using to improve your efficiency and organisation of your program.

In this article, we are going to explore what enums are, and how they can be used in Java, by considering a piece of Java code that uses enums to recreate the type effectiveness system found in Pokémon.

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Why doesn't vertical-align: middle work?

Why doesn’t vertical-align:middle work? How to vertically-centre elements in HTML and CSS

If you are new to working with CSS, you may find that the language comes with its fair share of quirks that can be frustrating, such as the text-align attribute not always working at horizontally-aligning your content. In a similar way to text-align, the vertical-align attribute doesn’t always work at aligning your content vertically. Take the following HTML code for example:

<div style="width:100%;height:140px;background:#ddd;text-align:center;vertical-align:middle;">
	<img src="http://placekitten.com/75/75"/>
</div>

Even with the vertical-align:middle style assigned to it, the image doesn’t align itself vertically! What’s going on? Here’s a quick breakdown of how to do it, with lots of examples, without having to do too much reading (great for if you’re rushing out a school assignment).

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Creating a Farming RPG (like Harvest Moon) in Unity — Part 9: Improving on the Inventory System

Creating a Farming RPG (like Harvest Moon) in Unity — Part 9: Improving on the Inventory System

Ever wanted to create a game like Harvest Moon in Unity? Check out Part 9 of our guide here, where we go through how to improve on our current Inventory system. You can also find Part 8 of our guide here, where we went through how to make crops that can be harvested multiple times.

A link to a package containing the project files up to Part 9 of this tutorial series can also be found at the end of this article, exclusive to Patreon supporters only.

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Importing CSV files into a MySQL table

Importing a CSV file into an SQL table

CSV stands for Comma-Separated Values, and CSV files are text files that look something like this:

example.csv

Username,Email,Address,Contact
johndoe,john@example.com,"71 Pickering Street, Singapore, Singapore",+65-91234567
janedoe,jane@website.com,"24 Raffles Lane, Singapore, Singapore",+65-81234567
marysmith,mary@smith.com,"83 Riveting Road, Singapore, Singapore",+65-97654321
bobsmith,bob@smith.com,"84 Riveting Road, Singapore, Singapore",+65-87654321

Essentially, the CSV file format is meant to represent tabular data. The above CSV file represents the following table:

UsernameEmailAddressContact
johndoejohn@example.com71 Pickering Street, Singapore, Singapore+65-91234567
janedoejane@website.com24 Raffles Lane, Singapore, Singapore+65-81234567
marysmith mary@smith.com 83 Riveting Road, Singapore, Singapore +65-97654321
bobsmith bob@smith.com 84 Riveting Road, Singapore, Singapore +65-87654321

Due to their tabular nature, data in a CSV file can very easily be imported into and stored in an SQL table. The commands to do that, however, are not very well-documented online.

If a CSV file does not open as a text file on your computer, that’s because your computer is opening the file with a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel. In such a case, to see the file as text, you will want to open these files on a text editing software such as Notepad.

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Creating a Farming RPG (like Harvest Moon) in Unity — Part 7: Growing and Harvesting Crops

Creating a Farming RPG (like Harvest Moon) in Unity — Part 7: Growing and Harvesting Crops

Ever wanted to create a game like Harvest Moon in Unity? Check out Part 7 of our guide here, where we go through how to grow and harvest crops. You can also find Part 6 of our guide here, where we went through how to create an in-game time management system.

A link to a package containing the project files up to Part 7 of this tutorial series can also be found at the end of this article, exclusive to Patreon supporters only.

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Remove the admin bar from the WordPress admin backend

Hiding the WordPress admin bar programmatically on the backend

Whenever you are logged in to WordPress, there is a black admin bar that shows up above every page. On front-end pages, you can call show_admin_bar(false) in one of your plugin or theme functions to remove it. Individual users can also hide the admin bar on their account’s profile page.

All of this, however, doesn’t work if you are on a backend page. No matter what you do, the admin bar will always show up in those circumstances, unless you remove the admin bar programmatically — this article is here to show you how, as well as why you would want to do such a thing.

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