david lano

Jul 3, 20080 comments
A simple CMS solution
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Let’s say you just got done designing a totally sweet web site for a customer. You show the design to them and they absolutely fall in love with it, but explain that they would really like to update the content themselves without having to call you all the time. You choke, cough a little and pretend you didn’t hear them, hoping they say something else. But no, they ask you again. “We would like to have the ability to edit text, images, etc. Can you build that into this design?”. You say, “yeah sure”, but dread the possibility of actually implementing such a feat.

Finding a good Content Management System (CMS) is pretty easy. Paul Anthony has a wonderful post including 13 free CMS solutions with reviews. However, finding a good CMS that fits nice and snug with a preexisting web template is another story.

In the past I had no problem finding the perfect CMS, plugging in a template and going from there, but doing things the other way around was next to impossible. It meant you had to dig through the CMS source code and somehow sync your design up with the original framework. Not fun.

Welcome to CushyCMS - The totally simple and easy to use CMS system that plugs right into your already designed web template. That’s right. Simply add a website to your CushyCMS account, provide some FTP info, add a couple classes to your HTML source code and your good to go. Kick back and relax, no more calls in the middle of the night for that critical text change.

Do you use a CMS? If so, what has worked for you?

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Mar 7, 20081 comment
JQuery: Eye Candy for Web Developers
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Image Credit: lennyjpg

I came across this article over at Web Designer Wall, titled jQuery Tutorials for Designers.

Nick does an excellent job explaining how JQuery works and goes into detail on implementing each example. I won’t attempt to regurgitate Nick’s beautiful post, but here is a sneak peak at the JQuery Demos.

1 comment

Jan 31, 20082 comments
12 Amazing Firefox Add-Ons
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Firefox is by far the best web browser available, no question about it. I could go on and on with its advantages, but here are just a few in case you’re still an unbeliever: tabbed browsing (copied by IE now), built-in spell checker, safer browsing, bookmarks toolbar, custom themes, and (my personal favorite) add-ons for ultimate customization.

There are tons of add-ons out there, some good, some bad, and some that you can’t live without. The following list of add-ons are some I’ve been using for quite a while. I wouldn’t recommend installing too many, just because it can slow down your browser a bit. But don’t let that scare you away from adding a few to your arsenal. Hopefully I have included a few that you haven’t seen before. Enjoy!

Web Developer

1. Web Developer

Web Developer is a must have for any web developer. It adds a toolbar to the browser with various web developer menus including:

  • Disable - Options for disabling cache, javascript, java, page colors, popup blockers, etc.
  • Cookies - Cookie management.
  • CSS - Management and viewing options for stylesheets.
  • Forms - Form Management.
  • Information - About the size of the web page, meta tags, links, etc.
  • Outline - Images, Div’s, Tables, Links, etc.
  • Resize - Window and resolution.
  • Tools - For validating CSS, Forms, HTML, Links, Feeds, etc.
  • View Source - And edit in browser window.

2. Fire FTP

Fire FTP is a sweet FTP client that allows you to transfer files quickly and efficiently, FireFTP also includes more advanced features such as: directory comparison, syncing directories while navigating, SSL encryption, search/filtering, integrity checks, remote editing, drag & drop, and file hashing.

3. ColorZilla

ColorZilla allows you to get a color reading from any point in your browser. Use the eye dropper to copy any color code and paste it into another program or CSS file for an exact color match. You can also zoom in on the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page. The built-in palette browser gives you the option to choose colors from a pre-defined color set and save your most often used colors in custom palettes.

4. ScreenGrab

ScreenGrab takes a snapshot of a web page and makes an image out of it. Nothing to fancy but very helpful when doing online tutorials or sending web clips to friends.

Tabbed Browsing

5. Tab Mix Plus

Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, etc. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

6. NewTabURL

NewTabURL does one simple thing - allows you to open a new tab with any URL you specify. Perfect for those that just need the bare necessities.

7. ColorfulTabs

ColorfulTabs is pretty self explanatory - basically it allows you to have different colored tabs. This is especially helpful when you have several tabs open at once and need to label specific tabs for organization.

Google

8. GooglePreview

GooglePreview is one of my absolute favorites. It inserts preview images (thumbnails) of web sites and Amazon products into the Google and Yahoo search result pages, so you don’t have to be constantly clicking the back button in your browser when you are disappointed with the result of a clicked link.

Downloading

9. Download Statusbar

Download Statusbar packs in more useful features than the standard download window. The fully customizable interface auto-hides when not in use, allowing full control without interruption.

10. UnPlug

UnPlug scans web pages and tells you where media players are getting their data from, and displays it as a link: in most cases, you can then follow the simple download link to save the media file. Unlike many other extensions, UnPlug scans the page, and if it doesn’t know where the data comes from it can guess - correctly most of the time. UnPlug works for lots of sites including youtube.com, ifilm.com, current.tv, revver.com, peekvid.com, video.google.com, mobuzztv.com, etc.

Security

11. NoScript

NoScript provides extra protection for Firefox: allowing JavaScript, Java, Flash and other plugins to be executed only by trusted web sites of your choice (e.g. your online bank), and provides powerful Anti-XSS protection.

Weather

12. Forecastfox

Forecastfox puts a totally customizable status bar in your browser with real-time weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com.

This list is by no means all inclusive, just what happens to work for me. Feel free to share what Firefox plugins you can’t live without.

2 comments

Jan 14, 20081 comment
How to Link a Worpress Page to a Custom PHP File
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Sometimes the most simplistic concepts can be hard to understand. For example, linking a WordPress Page to a custom PHP file should be relatively straight forward, however if one overlooks a few small steps along the way it can be extremely frustrating locating the source of the problem.

Why would anyone want to do this?

This allows us to use the infrastructure provided by WordPress while using a totally custom PHP file. By doing so, we can take full advantage of our custom PHP file while using the current theme inside WordPress. This is especially helpful when integrating an existing website with a blog created by WordPress.

Let’s say we want to create a WordPress Page in WordPress called “Archives” and link this new Page to a custom PHP file with code to display an archived list of our posts.

1. Create PHP File and Edit Template Name

Create a file called “archives.php” and open it up with your favorite text editor. Insert the following snippet of code in the top of your file.

<?php
/*
Template Name: Archives
*/
?>

This tells WordPress that this file is a “Template” and is named “Archives”. It is absolutely crucial that this be included in our archives.php file so WordPress can pick it up and use it accordingly.

In order for our archives.php file to actually do anything we would need to tack on a bit more code that would create a list of archived posts. There are several ways to do this but for starters here is a link that explains it a bit more in detail.

2. Upload PHP File to Server

We will need to locate the file directory containing our current WordPress Theme.

Example: blog/wp-content/themes/current-theme

This directory will contain all of the custom files associated with your WordPress theme.

Upload the “archives.php” file into your theme directory via an FTP server or whatever you use to upload files to your server.

3. Create a WordPress Page

Log into your WordPress admin interface and click on the “Manage” tab and the “Pages” tab respectively. Create a new Page and enter “Archives” in the Page Title field. Leave the main body text area blank. In the right column, find the “Page Template” box and select the “Archives” option from the drop down and click the “Save” button.

4. Take a Look

Now, go to the page you just created using your browser. The URL will be something like this: http://www.yoursite.com/blog/Archives

You have now successfully linked a WordPress Page with a custom PHP file using your current theme. Well Done!

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