How to posts
How to use HTML5 audio (part 2)
This is part two of the HTML5 audio introduction video; if you haven’t watched it already, I recommend checking out part one to get up to speed!
Today, we’ll be working on our HTML5 audio player and adding some exciting functionality to really bring our HTML5 player to life. We’ll be using a method involving data attributes, which allow for easy access to custom values for each audio element, and that’s where our titles, artists and album art come in.
By the end of this tutorial, you’ll understand the following: “Tagging”...
How to host a WordPress blog on your computer
When I’m designing themes for WordPress, I find that working remotely can be a little troublesome at times; particularly when using stylesheet preprocessors such as LESS or SASS. I’ve been developing a number of WordPress themes recently, and to ease the load on my remote server, speed up the theme-building process, and receive an all-round smoother WordPress experience, I’ve found that working...
Really easy responsive design
It’s no secret that many believe responsive web is the future. Creating a responsive site means that it’s able to adapt to the many different browsers and sizes that are available. If I want to make sure my website I’ve created on my desktop can be seen on a tablet with minium scrolling and zooming, I’m going to be interested in creating a responsive site.
One reason responsive sites have become popular is because it just makes sense. It’s cheaper than creating one or more extra sites for mobile phones and tablets. It also makes sure there’s a consistent viewing experience amongst devices and desktop screens. It’s not fun having to increase the size of your window or scroll horizontally to see an entire website.
While creating...
An introduction to Edge Reflow
Edge Reflow is one of the exciting new weapons in Adobe’s ever-expanding Creative Suite arsenal; helping to bring the modern web’s powerful features within reach for designers.
Reflow is designed to help creatives work towards the holy grail of current web design standards: responsive design. Previously only possible for the HTML-savvy, now everyone can produce sites that rearrange themselves for different...
How to create a color picker with HTML5 Canvas
Creating canvas apps is the new thing, we can even create games with it, it’s supported in all major browsers both desktop and mobile, and that makes it a more viable solution than using Flash.
In this tutorial we are going to use the canvas element to create...
How to build a threaded comment block with HTML5 and CSS3
Blogs and forums often have threaded comment replies built into their network. Popular social networks Reddit and Hacker News both support threaded comments, which allows users to directly reply inline with comments, voicing an opinion without getting lost in the shuffle.
We’re going to look at building a simple HTML5 and CSS3 threaded comments layout. We won’t be using any jQuery effects on the comment blocks (although it is possible to extend this functionality). We will look into structuring...
How to sell your web design business for top dollar
I decided to sell my web design company when we were a top 3 agency within our province for medium-sized websites. We were profitable, had 17 employees and life was good. Naturally I believed I’d find a buyer easily, but I was wrong.
Even though I eventually sold the company to a competitor, I could have saved myself a lot of effort and made a lot more money if I had planned ahead.
This...
Building your first WordPress plugin (part 3)
There is no need to ask why anybody would want to write a plugin for WordPress. It’s one of the primary features that makes WordPress so flexible and a good fit for a wide range of projects. In the first part of our series we created the base for a WordPress plugin recognisible by the core. Then, in the second part we learnt how to alter the default functionality of the core. Today we’re going to look at plugin options. This is one of the most common tasks that plugins need to perform.
Commonly you will need to create a set of parameters (options) and give the user the ability to assign appropriate values to them. Values are stored in the database and can be retrieved on request. The plugin will normally perform different actions based on these values, produce different output for example.
What tools does WordPress give us to make this scenario possible? It allows us to register options with the system and retrieve them by assigned ID – The Options...
What's the point of favicons?
When I start telling people about the importance of a favicon to their overall online branding strategy, they usually say the same thing: “Aren’t you taking this branding thing a little bit too far?”
My answer usually goes: “Not if you’re serious about your own branding efforts!”
It’s true, favicons are very little things, probably the least important...
Building your first WordPress plugin (part 2)
In the previous part of our series we created the base for a WordPress plugin recognisible by the core. Today we are going to learn how to actually alter the default functionality of the core.
The concept of hooks, actions, and filters is responsible for that; being the real heart of the whole WordPress plugins system.
Everything starts from the “hooks” provided by the core itself.
What is a “hook”? It is a specially...
Migrate a local WordPress installation in 5 minutes
If you build new WordPress websites on a regular basis, you may be familiar with the process of setting up a local WordPress installation using WAMP or XAMPP to do your development work before migrating the site to your live server. It’s a great way to speed up the development process, as you don’t have to keep uploading your changes before you can view them, and besides, it’s not good practice to make changes to a live website.
The biggest drawback of using a local WordPress development server, is the long-winded process of migrating a site from one server to another.
The process involves backing up all your WordPress files, exporting your database, creating a new database on your live server, uploading your WordPress files to the live server via FTP, importing your data into the new database, editing...