23Systems » design

WordPress Developer’s Toolbox

Dan Zappone — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:13:34 +0000

Smashing Magazine has a very lengthy article they published recently called WordPress Developer’s Toolbox and it’s pretty impressive as well as exhaustive. I’m probably going to pull all the resources apart and sling them into a set of toolbox pages with additional information as I can provide here. I’d really like to see the thing pulled apart and repurposed as a PDF but it’s a lot of resources.

FLIR for WordPress

Dan Zappone — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:42:21 +0000

Not long ago I ran across some a set of scripts (JavaScript/PHP) called Facelift which is an alternative to sIFR and I thought this needs WordPress plugin to make it easy for people to use with WordPress.

So I downloaded it and created a plugin from it. Since then – Sunday – it’s proven extremely popular.

A lot of people seem to be having some issues with it and I think the bulk of them come down to two things:

First you need to have the GD Graphics Library built into your PHP installation. This is probably the main contributor to the problem. The second issue is probably not having your cache folder for the plugin be writable. I’ll be glad to help anyone – within reason – get these issues resolved.

I am pretty much constantly trying to work on this plugin to get it up to version 1.0.0 – it currently sits at 0.5.5 and as such is functional but incomplete.

You can get it from Facelift Image Replacement and you can get support at Mawhorter.net Forums or via commenting on the plugin page.

10 Ways to Save Time While Building a Website

Dan Zappone — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 12:57:21 +0000

As a freelance web developer, time is money. I use many different tricks to increase my productivity and these are my top selections for saving time. Please make you own suggestions for other time savers in the comments.
Drop Down Menus
All Web Menus (http://www.likno.com/allwebmenusinfo.html )
Whenever I need to add a complex drop-down menu to a site, I turn to All Web Menus. This program styles a complex multi level menu in less time then it takes to type the text. All websites need menus and for detailed menus, you should try All Web Menus.
Time saved: 1 Hour per menu.
Image Capture
Gadwin Printscreen (http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/)
Gadwin Printscreen utility replaces windows standard printscreen keyboard button with more options and flexibility. It loads on windows startup and runs silently in the background without consuming system resources but it’s always there when you need it. Instead of just capturing the entire screen view, Gadwin allows you to select a rectangular area very precisely with the help of a built in magnifying window. This tool is invaluable to my work. I often use it to grab different pieces to mock up a design.
Time saved: 2 Minutes per screen capture.

14 of the Most Useful Web Design Blogs

Dan Zappone — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 12:56:35 +0000

Web Design Blogs

There is definitely not a shortage of web design blogs floating around the web, and it’s easy to understand why. Web designers can utilize skills that they already have to get a good looking blog up and running with relative ease. Out of these blogs there are a handful that really stand out in terms of useful content.
Here are some of the most useful web design blogs out there. I’ve excluded big blogs like Smashing Magazine and A List Apart, since most web designers, more than likely, already follow them.