JD is reporting on extremely high satisfaction rates (96%) for it's Contribute line. Discussed on Web-Graphics before.
Have any of our current readers rolled Contribute out on a recent project? I'd love to hear how it's going.
Once upon a time I had an idea, how to make the WYSIWYG web page ([X]HTML+CSS) editor. The idea is simple: if it has to be really wysiwyg, it must run directly in the browser (everything else is always just an approximation). Is this idea worthy? Can someone use it and make the editor of this kind?
Read more inside this story.
Apple released today the latest revision to its popular iTunes software, which now allows users to purchase individual songs from major music publishers directly within the application, for $.99 per track.
The tracks are not MP3 format, but instead use Apple's new AAC format (which, according to Apple, provides CD-quality audio with smaller file sizes than MP3), which presumably allows Apple to enforce their 3 Mac copying limit on purchased tracks (the new QuickTime 6.2 is also required for playing/encoding AAC files).
One of the nicest things about the new "store" UI is that it stays out of the way: if you have no interest in using this new feature, you never have to see it. Apple has also refrained from forcing advertising down users' throats, which was one of the first things I looked for after firing up this new version. Once again, Apple has made a smart decision which makes for a much better user experience.
What are your impressions of the "new" iTunes? (Discuss)
I've rewritten the List Computed Styles bookmarlet. The new favelet displays computed value of any CSS property of all elements under the cursor (it uses the onmouseover event). It works in IE6/Win, IE5/Mac, and Mozilla. It doesn't work in IE5/Win, Opera and Safari - I don't know why yet...
Colin Moock, flash hero and author of ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide has a new weblog: moockblog
William Cox offers a nifty CSS solution using attribute selectors to add Nate's mini-icons to links automagically to show link attribute information. Via Dark Glass.
Alas, Mozilla seems to be the only place where you can apply CSS rules based upon the value of a HTML element attribute. It's a nifty function, and very useful in applications for tying content semantics to visual stylings.
Webgraphics readers get first notice!
The winners list you see below and details about the judging criteia will be posted to the WThRemix site later today.
Grand Prize
Honorable Mentions
There were no big gaps in the scorring, everyone did well and the numbers were very close together. Congratulations to the five folks above who made the prize cut, and thanks to everyone who donated their time and effort to enter!
The pnhtoolbar is a Mozilla add-on which provides a nice collection of features for web developers. The features are based off of ideas from existing bookmarklets.
Currently active features include (from the pnhtoolbar page):
There isn't a Firebird (Phoenix) version, but it seems to be a handy thing to have installed on your various mozilla based browsers. I've got it working here on the Win2k and OSX versions of Mozilla.
Via blogzilla.
Attention all users of OS X: Apple has released Safari Public Beta 2, adding arguably the most requested feature thus far in the development of this new browser: tabbed browsing. I've been using it all morning, and I'll never go back.
As always, special touches have been added that only Apple seems to think of. Each tab has its own close button, and you can open a folder of bookmarks with one click: Safari opens each site into its own tab, complete with progress indicator to let you know when each page has finished loading. Brilliant!
AutoFill forms are also on the list (something I use quite a bit in IE), as well as importing Netscape/Mozilla bookmarks, and (according to Apple) increased standards compatibility.
To keep up to date with the Safari development team, check out Dave Hyatt's weblog. Dave does a great job of reporting the progress of the team, and also encourages feedback on Safari and it's features/behavior.
Brushstroke.tv has a widely entered Peace Poster Competition that is worth checking out. Regardless of how you feel about the US, war vs peace, politics, terror, colonialism, the middle east, etc., these topics can inspire strong emotions, which in turn can inspire creativity. Melanie's contest is a great outlet for that emotion/creativity, and given 143 entries from more than 15 countries (at time of this writing), I think it's also a great success.
Simon points to a new 3 column Layout Generator Tool. Of course there are a lot of variations on the 3 column theme, but being able to switch the columns around on the fly is a really efficient way to see what you're doing. I completely agree with Simon that more of these types of tools would be very helpful, I'd also like to see a large collection of CSS based widgets that are ready to use. A library of things like what Pixy has offered in the last post, and several of the things available at real world style. Seems like the CSS Discuss Wiki would be the place to collect that stuff.
I posted a simple example of styling form elements fieldset, legend and label. It's nothing special, just to show easy way to make forms aligned even without tables.
Dan Rubin (see the last post) has agreed to join the webgraphics authoring team. I look forward to his contributions, as I'm already very grateful for those handy applescripts he's created. Since we already have a Dan on board, posts by the new Dan will say "Reported by DanRubin". Welcome aboard!
Got a mac? Not happy with the way your browser spits out HTML when you "view source"? Perhaps your browser doesn't yet color code the source. Perhaps your browser does funny things with the font size or intendation. Perhaps you simply want the convienence of having the view-source spit out into an editable document.
Dan over at Webgraph has a solution for you. Actually Dan's scripts have been around for a little while, inspired by a Zeldman post, he created these applescripts which can take the HTML out of a number of different browsers, open up your prefered text editor, and pre-populate a new document with the source HTML to which ever webpage you were just viewing.
The applescripts do this all automagically, but you can take it a step further by associating the script with a key command (I've done this using launchbar). Anyways, this post is to inform folks who haven't already heard of it, and also to let you know that the scripts have been updated today.
View Browser Source (AppleScripts).
Supported Browsers:
Supported Editors:
The WThRemix design and code challenge results will be posted a week from today - Wednesday the 16th of April. Boundless gratitude for the patience exhibited by contestants and other interested parties, we now have a firm publish date.
Finally, the latest installment in Fast, Leise and Steckel's Controlled Vocabulary series. Via Column Two.
It seems like everyone these days is doing a logo redesign. Am I right or wrong? Notice I said everyone, including myself. For those who may have missed it, Digital Web has published a tutorial on the process we went through to redesign the logo. It is told by Kristof Saelen, the designer of the new logo: The process of redesigning a logo.
Dave has added to the library of new functions which are used for retrieving chunks of code in a given page using Javascript and the Document Object Model's structure. One could use these functions as key parts of scripts that require earmarking of various parts of a HTML page for any reason. I'm hardly even a hack at javascript, but by way of explanation: when I made the font-resize tool that used to be part of this site, I used the DOM selection concept (albeit without these handy functions) to select appropriate text to be earmarked for resizing.
So to review, here are the javascript functions that are now available to us:
Remember that contest we held a while back? Just wanted to update those who are interested, and most especially the very patient entrants. Of the three judges who still need to cast their votes, one down - two left.
The big roadmap update brings with it some shocking and exciting news. The Mozilla community has decided to shift focus from the Mozilla browser to the soon to be renamed Pheonix browser, and it's soon to be released Minotaur mail client.
Big John at Positioniseverything.net published three-column layout via CSS with all three columns having same height. Unfortunately, the left column is positioned absolutely (so nothing can be put bellow - like footer etc.). The CSS code contains lots of hacks. I think it can be much simplier. I've made my own solution without positioning, without hacks. It works at least in IE5/Win95, IE6/WinXP, Opera7/WinXP, IE5/Mac, Mozilla, Safari, and Camino.
However, this is just subsidiary thing... First of all, I think all the "CSS gurus" should present more creative examples of CSS posibilities, instead of permanent demonstrating "Look, mom, no tables!"
Anything can be done with CSS (IMHO). Why to waste time round and round by showing how to replace table-layouts, day by day? Hey gurus: be creative, show everything CSS can do, forget tables. Anyone who likes tables will be disgusted by dozens of complicated hacks, by non-stop persuading of table-layout replacements. Show them something else, something better. Show them things they've never seen before. Show them the power of CSS, things beeing impossible with tables. Let them make their own decision.
And, please, stop flooding the web by another two-, three-, and dozen-columns layouts.