When I started building wordpress themes PHP and most of the advanced wordpress functions went over my head. I’ve learned quite a bit since then, but one step taught me a lot about wordpress and PHP. While I was coding my premium wordpress theme I decided to make a very simple related posts widget. There are plenty of plugins that do this but I wanted to learn about writing widgets and further my PHP and I had a pretty good idea on how to do it, so I did it.
Functions.php
I suspect most people creating themes never even create a functions file, much less know what it does. Used correctly it can be a very powerful tool. This is how advanced theme authors Continue Reading
A new version of the blueprint CSS framework has been released. It features a few improvements on things like file structure and class names. But the big update is the included compressor which can do all sorts of cool things like semantic class names, and a grid generator. I plan on updating this site with the new code and will do a write up and maybe a tutorial when I am done. Which brings me to my other new blueprint.
There has been a slow down in posts and that is due to me finishing up my first premium wordpress theme and the re-aligning of this website. I’m currently getting the documentation together, and writing tutorials and such which has taken up my blogging time. The good content and useful posts will be making an appearance with less pithy comments type of posts.
This site has been going through little changes since it’s inception and as it sits the design isn’t really snapping together, I hope to fix that. Also the index page of curtishenson.com is pretty much worthless, that will be completely changed and the site will essentially be split into two sections: a blog, and webdesign. I hope this will better serve everyone.
Getting inspiration for design can sometimes be challenging. It is easy to go to your favorite CSS gallery or design site and get some ideas, but more often than not this leads to boring designs. Sometimes getting a fresh creative idea takes some digging in some unusual dirt. Continue Reading
Heres a wallpaper for you from me! I call it Sunrise and its a cut down version of a poster I did. There are three versions of the wallpaper which are pretty much different levels of color. I call them “Early Morning”, “Sunrise”, and “Mid Morning”; you can call them “dark”, “original”, and “colorful” if you wish. Continue Reading
Sometimes the easiest things are potentially the most useful. Derek at 5ThirtyOne has written a tutorial on creating a custom database error page. Apparently this feature is now hard-coded into wordpress 2.3.2 and above, making this super easy.
The gist of it is, create a xhtml file called db-error.php and stick in the /wp-content/ directory. Don’t forget to include all the styles(or full path to external sheet) as this is used when your database is not functioning…hence database error. It really is that simple. Check 5ThiryOne for a complete walk through.
Combine Derek’s tutorial with something like these and you can be one of the cool kids even when your database server dies!
On a side note… if you are interested in watching companies take shape or interested about the process check the blog at NextUpdate. They are going to blogging about their startup which provides bug and issue tracking software.
As you can probably tell from the design of the site, I like retro dirty grungy looking things. But no photography subject can grab me like big old unused industrial settings. I love the look of giant machines and vast wide open spaces, rust and just plain old metal.
I have just ran across a great blog called Industrial Decay that features the best from this flickr group every week. Industrial photos are good for than just looking at, they can give you a ton of inspiration for your designs. The look and feel, shapes, colors, size relationships can all be used in designs. Granted they probably won’t help you design that web 2.0 glossy look(try exotic animals for that) but they could get you to break out of a design rut. In any case it is good to get away from all the CSS galleries every once in awhile.
Post photo by nuts muc check his flickr account for more stunning work.
Bryan Culver sums up graphic design pretty nice.
P.S. I love Layer Tennis!
Techno Boxes is a different type of wordpress theme. The theme has a liquid layout and image heavy front page. Check out the demo. Continue Reading
Wordpress is often called an almost infinitely extensible content management system, and two new themes are really proving that true. Theme authors are really pushing the limits, from full news and magazine sites to a contact manager.
Wordpress as a contact manager? Apparently the folks down at The Design Canopy answered yes to that question. They just released WP Contact Manager, a really nice contact manager built on wordpress and a few plugins.
What could be better than a contact manager? I’m glad I asked. Prologue is what is better. Prologue is a new theme from the creators of wordpress themselves. The theme works just like Twitter. I can see why companies would want something like prologue, the first thing that comes to mind is privacy. Prologue can be password protected and would be great for internal communications.
I never would have thought of wordpress as a contact manager or Twitter substitute, but then again not many people thought wordpress could power a magazine website. I can’t wait to see what the future will be bring.
Usability guru Jakob Nielson just posted a new article about the state of user skills. It is a pretty interesting read if you develop websites. The gist of the article is people are getting better at using the web. But, and there is always a but, they aren’t as skilled as most web designers and developers think they are.
As an artsy fartsy designer guy I often forget about basic usability guidelines. The article was a reminder to me that not everyone is a web designer! Shocking I know. Not everyone can immediately Continue Reading
