Friday, February 29, 2008
Magical Mystical jQuery Tutorials
I love a good tutorials like I love women [almost]. WebDesignerWall has several great jQuery tutorials such as this:
Link: jQuery Tutorials
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
ExpressionEngine Templates Using WordPress 1.2 CSS
ExpressionEngine user Doug Pardee shared something with me that I hadn’t noticed before. Wordpress 1.2 themes can easily be integrated into ExpressionEngine. Doug wrote the wiki page on it (Templates Using Wordpress 1.2) which explains how to do it.
You can find Wordpress 1.2 CSS templates at Alex King’s site. While the 1.2 templates may not be the greatest ever, it does give some additional starting points for templates, which seems to be needed for some using ExpressionEngine. Take a moment and checkout the wiki page when you have a chance. Thanks Doug for the links! You can check out Doug’s site at Creative Karma.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Site Spotlight: TheHotMag.com
Recently I interviewed Zlatko Najdenovski, the designer behind The Hot Mag. Below you will find the questions and answers from our interview.
Tell us about yourself and how you got involved in web development.
Well, I’m Zlatko Najdenovski and I live in Macedonia. Four years ago I started learning web design and technology in an IT academy in my home country. The courses lasted for a year and since then I have been involved in the web world where I’m constantly keeping up with the latest web technologies and design trends.
Tell us a little about TheHotMag?
It’s basically a blog, at least the community declares it as such, but my aim is to make it more like an online magazine. I decided for this celebrity niche because I found it quite attractive. TheHotMag is mainly focused on celebrities, but doesn’t exclude lifestyle and entertainment in general.
Why did you choose ExpressionEngine for this project?
The good thing about ExpressionEngine is that I have the complete freedom to modify, delete or add new functionalities to my site whenever I want and in a matter of minutes. If I had to hire a developer, it would cost me not just extra money, but extra time also. Now I’m not just a designer but a developer too, and ExpressionEngine has become my CMS of choice.
What was the most difficult part of the site?
Hmm… I’m not sure there was such a part. Thanks to the EE community I always received quick and detailed answers to all my questions during the development process.
Can you share a particular problem you ran into that the EE community helped you out with?
It seems all the folks on the EE forum are willing to spend a good amount of time to help the EE newbies (like me) with detailed answers. As for a concrete problem in my development process… well I had a few: I remember wasting hours trying to figure out how to show categories from two category groups in my articles listing. The people from the community helped me with quick answers and also suggested new ways to solve my problem.
Tell us about your plans for the future of the site.
My plans for the future are to make more unique content and if it’s profitable enough, find creative writers to write interesting stories that will attract a younger audience.
Are you using any special ExpressionEngine Add-ons (modules, plugins, extensions)?
Yes, so far I’m using “Allow EE Code”. That gives me the freedom to write EE tags in my weblog content, which I find quite useful. Soon I’m planning to implement “Gallery Categoree” and “No-follow” plug-ins.
Anything else you want to talk about or promote?
Well, again I would like to say a few nice words about ExpressionEngine. I like the complete freedom of EE and I won’t forget the helpfullness from the community forum.
Thanks to Zlatko for taking the time to share a little about his project!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Subtraction.com: The Switch is On
Khoi Vinh of the super-great Subtraction blog is converting his site from Movable Type to ExpressionEngine.
From the article:
To my surprise however, given a few short hours, I’ve gotten much further in getting ExpressionEngine to replicate my existing functionality than I thought I could. I literally started with zero knowledge of the software at the beginning of the week, and with less than six hours’ worth of labor, I’ve hobbled together a rough but serviceable, EE-powered re-creation of Subtraction.com.
Khoi provides a visual representation of the parts of the site that are powered by ExpressionEngine (in black) and the parts that are static (in red).
Check out Subtraction and the article. Don’t miss the comments from the always passionate ExpressionEngine crowd either.
Monday, February 18, 2008
What Kills You About Designing for ExpressionEngine?
PSDs, PNGs, HTML, CSS, DIVs, in-line, attached – there are all sorts of things to remember when designing a website. Take all of that, then you throw ExpressionEngine in the mix and for many, you now have what seemed like a simple project that has turned into a blank stare.
Fear not, we’re here to help. What is it that frustrates you when you are designing for ExpressionEngine? What questions do you have that you can’t seem to find the answer to? ExpressionEngine is flat awesome, and we will help you see why.
