Squaring The Circle

The late Steve Jobs did not allow Flash on the iPhone-pod-pad because it reduces reliability and leads to sub-standard apps. A coder from Apple told me that coding a magnifying glass applet was impossible without either Flash or the CSS3 radius property. Or you were stuck with a rectangular zoom frame. Naturallemente, I had to prove her wrong. At first it felt like squaring the circle, than I did. Think about that for a while. I’ll wait…
By overlaying a number of rectangles it is possible to make a crow-stepped circle. Use a lot of rectangles to dissolve the crow steps or cover them with a rim. The proof of concept was simple enough. An old G3 Mac showed it could do ten overlays without “stuttering.” So I coded a quick and dirty one that calculated the maximum diameter (and its corresponding ten rectangle’s dimensions) for a given rim thickness. Than I made a WordPress plugin called Glass, to use here. If you like my style, you like my plugin, why don’t you make me known it? Use some fine Glass on your site.


  1. David says:

    It is a very nice effect

    I have also used it on my “revolution slider” I have created a grid gallery with a video in the middle- and then your plugin on the images in the grid

    and it still works- fantastic

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