Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Joseph McDermott
A lot of community extensions (or modules) are available for the feature-rich open-source e-commerce solution Magento but what if they don’t quite work as you want them to? What if you could understand the structure of a Magento module a little better, to the point that you could modify it to suit your needs or, better yet, write your own module from scratch?
In this tutorial, we will introduce the coding of Magento in the form of a “Hello World”-style module. The goal of the module will be simply to write some information to a log file every time a product is saved. This very basic module will allow us to cover a number of interesting topics.
Continue Reading "The Basics Of Creating A Magento Module"
March 1, 2012 at 5:37 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Peter Wilson
Every day I work with WordPress in one way or another. My Twitter feed is full of WordPress types, and I’m a regular at my local WordPress meetup. I’m a WordPress fan. The developer across the hall from me works with Joomla. His Twitter feed is full of Joomla types, and he uses the CMS every day. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that he attends the local Joomla user group. He’s a Joomla fan.
The White House hosts a number of Web developers who use Drupal every day. Their Twitter feeds are probably full of Drupal types, and some may well attend the Washington DC Drupal meetup. They are Drupal fans.
Continue Reading "Dear Drupal: Season’s Greetings. Love, Smashing WordPress."
December 21, 2011 at 10:36 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Daniela Panfili
Microsoft’s new mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7 (WP7), introduces a fresh approach to content organization and a different UX, based on the Metro design language and principles that will be incorporated into Windows 8. It also targets a different market than its predecessor: instead of being designed mainly for business and technology workers, WP7 is targeted at active people with a busy life, both offline and online, and who use social networks every day, whatever their background.
First, it’s a new interface, so you have space to create and develop some new ideas for it. We are still at the beginning of its growing curve, so it’s an interesting challenge. When I saw a WP7 presentation for the first time, I thought, “I want to design something for this.” Exploring is a great way to learn how to build a new exciting experience for users.
Continue Reading "Introduction To Designing For Windows Phone 7 And Metro"
December 20, 2011 at 4:12 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Sameer Borate
Computing is full of buzzwords, “cloud computing” being the latest one. But unlike most trends that fizzle out after the initial surge, cloud computing is here to stay. This article goes over Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service and guides you to implementing a WordPress plugin that backs up your WordPress database to Amazon’s S3 cloud. Note that this is not a tutorial on creating a WordPress plugin from scratch, so some familiarity with plugin development is assumed.
The reason for using Amazon S3 to store important data follows from the “3-2-1” backup rule, coined by Peter Krogh. According to the 3-2-1 rule, you would keep three copies of any critical data: the original data, a backup copy on removable media, and a second backup at an off-site location (in our case, Amazon’s S3 cloud).
Continue Reading "Integrating Amazon S3 With WordPress"
December 2, 2011 at 4:23 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Coding, Developer's Toolbox by Philip Tellis
As Web developers, we have an affinity for developing with JavaScript. Whatever the language used in the back end, JavaScript and the browser are the primary language-platform combination available at the user’s end. It has many uses, ranging from silly to experience-enhancing.
In this article, we’ll look at some methods of manipulating JavaScript to determine various network characteristics from within the browser — characteristics that were previously available only to applications that directly interface with the operating system. Much of this was discovered while building the Boomerang project to measure real user performance.
Continue Reading "Analyzing Network Characteristics Using JavaScript And The DOM, Part 1"
November 14, 2011 at 2:15 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Sawyer Hollenshead
When I took my first steps into the WordPress theme arena, I didn’t know much about it. I wandered blindly into the business, not knowing whether I was doing things correctly. Over time, through trial and error and making rookie mistakes, I learned some valuable lessons and gained important insights. To save you from going down the same winding path, I’ll share some of the important takeaways that I’ve learned so far, like how to gain a solid user base, what to include in your themes and, most importantly, what to leave out.
You could build the best WordPress theme in the world, but it won’t matter unless people know about it and use it. One of the smartest things I did when starting my theme business was to release a free theme. It took a while for it to gain traction, but things took off once it got some attention from being featured on other websites. Consumers are willing to download a free theme from the new kid on the block and try it out because hardly any financial risk is involved.
Continue Reading "Building WordPress Themes You Can Sell"
November 1, 2011 at 8:42 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Laura Klein
User experience design isn’t just about building wireframes and Photoshop mock-ups. It extends to areas that you wouldn’t necessarily think are part of the discipline.
For example, your customer service department can have a huge impact on your website’s overall user experience. Similarly, the design of your user experience could have an awfully big effect on your customer service department. Of course, not all of your users will interact with the customer service department, but for those who do, their experience can improve or destroy the customer relationship.
Continue Reading "Idiots, Drama Queens and Scammers: Improving Customer Service with UX"
November 1, 2011 at 6:45 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Laura Klein
User experience design isn’t just about building wireframes and Photoshop mock-ups. It extends to areas that you wouldn’t necessarily think are part of the discipline.
For example, your customer service department can have a huge impact on your website’s overall user experience. Similarly, the design of your user experience could have an awfully big effect on your customer service department. Of course, not all of your users will interact with the customer service department, but for those who do, their experience can improve or destroy the customer relationship.
Continue Reading "Idiots, Drama Queens and Scammers: Improving Customer Service with UX"
November 1, 2011 at 6:45 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by David Hansen
As a Web designer, I often find myself building WordPress-based websites that will ultimately be updated and maintained by clients who have little to no experience working with HTML. While the TinyMCE rich-text editor is great for giving Web content managers of any skill level the tools they need to easily style and publish their posts to a degree, creating anything beyond a single column of text with a few floated images generally requires at least a basic understanding of HTML.
This article shows you an easy-to-implement trick that enables even the least tech-savvy of clients to manage multi-column content layouts within the comfort of the WYSIWIG editor. And for you advanced users, it’s still a great way to standardize and streamline your content entry.
Continue Reading "Advanced Layout Templates In WordPress’ Content Editor"
October 15, 2011 at 9:27 am Comments (0)
Filed under content, Developer's Toolbox by Rachel Andrew
Users will always need support. You could have a bulletproof product and the most excellent tutorials and documentation, and someone will find a way to break it or just not read the information staring them in the face. Later in this article, I’ll explain some ways to minimize support requests and the time spent in dealing with them. But you should expect to offer support and build it into the price of your product.
Your support systems should also help you track the amount of time being taken up by support, so that you can plan for future requirements. If you are a small company whose product developers are supporting the product at present, knowing the amount of time each license or user requires for support on average will enable you to project when you might need to hire additional support staff.
Continue Reading "Supporting Your Product: How To Provide Technical Support"
October 10, 2011 at 12:50 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Daniel Pataki
WordPress plugins are PHP scripts that alter your website. The changes could be anything from the simplest tweak in the header to a more drastic makeover (such as changing how log-ins work, triggering emails to be sent, and much more).
Whereas themes modify the look of your website, plugins change how it functions. With plugins, you can create custom post types, add new tables to your database to track popular articles, automatically link your contents folder to a “CDN” server such as Amazon S3… you get the picture.
Continue Reading "WordPress Essentials: How To Create A WordPress Plugin"
September 30, 2011 at 11:16 am Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Des Traynor
“What do you mean improve? I charged him correctly didn’t I?“. My manager looked at me disappointed. ” Yes, Des, you charged him correctly. But a vending machine can do that too. They show up on time, they’re more accurate, I don’t pay them by the hour and they’re never hungover. Your job is to do something that a vending machine can’t do. Your job is to make our customers happy. Give them a good experience. Bring them back here again. Get it?”
MBAs call this “customer experience“, though when it’s spelled out it sounds more like common sense. And like most common sense it’s rarely that common. Especially in the world of subscription software where we need customers to stick around. User experience designers are great at making software friendly and usable to new customers.
Continue Reading "Taking A Customer From Like To Love: The UX Of Long-Term Relationships"
August 26, 2011 at 2:25 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Laura Klein
I read a lot of design articles about best practices for improving the flow of sign-up forms. Most of these articles offer great advice, such as minimizing the number of steps, asking for as little information up front as possible, and providing clear feedback on the status of the user’s data.
If you’re creating a sign-up form, you could do worse than to follow all of these guidelines. On the other hand, you could do a lot better.
Design guidelines aren’t one size fits all. Sometimes you can improve a process by breaking a few rules. The trick is knowing which rules to break for a particular project.
Continue Reading "Breaking The Rules: A UX Case Study"
August 17, 2011 at 2:10 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox, html5 by Derek Johnson
By now, we all know that we should be using HTML5 to build websites. The discussion now is moving on to how to use HTML5 correctly. One important part of HTML5 that is still not widely understood is sectioning content: section, article, aside and nav. To understand sectioning content, we need to grasp the document outlining algorithm.
Understanding the document outlining algorithm can be a challenge, but the rewards are well worth it. No longer will you agonize over whether to use a section or div element?—?you will know straight away. Moreover, you will know why these elements are used, and this knowledge of semantics is the biggest benefit of learning how the algorithm works.
Continue Reading "HTML5 And The Document Outlining Algorithm"
August 16, 2011 at 11:24 am Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox, testing, Tools by Cameron Chapman
At some point in the future, the way that all major browsers render Web code will likely be standardized, which will make testing across multiple browsers no longer necessary as long as the website is coded according to Web standards. But because that day is still a way off (if it will really come at all), testing your design the advanced browsers as well as legacy browsers is a necessary part of any project.
The old-school way to test code was to load your website on as many computers as you could find, using as many different combinations of browsers and operating systems as possible. That was fine if you had access to a bunch of different computers (and had some time to kill). But there are much more efficient ways to test across browsers, using either free or commercial Web services and software. In this article we review some of the most useful ones.
Continue Reading "Review Of Cross-Browser Testing Tools"
August 7, 2011 at 9:24 am Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Jason Gross
Right now is an exciting time to be in the Web design community. Every month we seem to stumble on a new thought-provoking way to put our expanding tool set to use for our clients and the patrons of the Web. Many designers are chomping at the bit to litter their websites with new CSS, advanced HTML and ultra-engaging JavaScript. By all means, go out and use every last declaration and element you can get your hands on. Abusing, misusing and taking advantage of everything the Web could possibly offer is the best way to learn about what we can and can’t and should and shouldn’t do in future.
Whether you are excitedly exploring responsive design, diving headlong into accessibility, building a typographic masterpiece or seeing what level of interactivity you can achieve, all of your Web-based projects should have a common core. All of the new methods being discussed in the design community daily might be overwhelming, but no matter what route you ultimately take, almost any Web project you embark on today should start with solid HTML and logical CSS. This may seem like common sense, but the fact is that very, very few websites today benefit from sensationally optimized HTML and CSS and appropriately applied JavaScript.
Continue Reading "The Neglected Necessities Of Design"
August 5, 2011 at 12:35 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by Jen Gordon
The world of mobile app development is quickly becoming a crowded and complicated space, especially for those outside of the development niche. “Which development platform should I use?” “Do I go native or Web-based?” “Which devices should I plan for?” “Can I build my mobile website by hand or should I use a pre-built package?” The questions are endless.
As a designer, my job is to help my clients answer these questions. I try to stay in the category of “knowing enough to be dangerous,” and I keep tabs on the latest mobile development trends, one being the growing popularity of mobile Web apps.
Continue Reading "Create An HTML/CSS Mobile Web App Using Sencha Touch"
July 19, 2011 at 10:34 am Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox by ZURB
A visitor comes to your website all giddy to learn more about your product, when suddenly a snazzy slideshow loads with some snap. Impressed, they go to register and are greeted by a most elegant modal window. At this point they are finally overjoyed by the velociraptor that suddenly charges across their screen. They don’t know why but they like it.
Crafting a polished and unique experience for your users is becoming ever more critical as the Web gets more overloaded. Standing out is hard. To the rescue come frameworks such as jQuery, which offer a modular, highly customizable experience for your visitors.
Continue Reading "Orbit and Reveal: jQuery Plug-Ins For Image Sliders and Modal Windows"
July 17, 2011 at 5:08 pm Comments (0)
Filed under Developer's Toolbox, mobile by Matt Lawson
The number of people browsing the Web from a mobile device has more than tripled since 2009, and it is sure to continue growing, with browser platforms such as iOS and Android offering mobile browser support that is almost identical to what we have come to expect from a desktop experience. As the mobile consumer market continues to grow, so will the aspirations of individuals and companies who look to embrace what the mobile Web has to offer.
With this in mind, many website owners have begun to develop a strategy for providing information and services to their mobile visitors. However, mobile strategies can vary massively from website to website, depending on what the company wants to offer visitors. For example, eBay’s strategy will be very different from an individual’s strategy for a portfolio website, which might simply be to improve readability for those viewing on a mobile device.
Continue Reading "Picking A Mobile Support Strategy For Your Website"
July 11, 2011 at 12:35 pm Comments (0)
Filed under content, copywriting, Developer's Toolbox by Allie Gray
Content strategy is a beast with many heads, names and trajectories. To approach it is to be sucked in full force. Even so, as crucial as content strategy is, conveying its gravity to a big audience, or to key administrators, is often hard. Being so inherently complex, it’s often easiest to tackle by example.
My first job as a Web content writer involved creating a campaign that promoted holiday spending and travel. I came up with clever tag lines that incorporated lyrics from Bing Crosby Christmas jingles. I thought I was doing great work, and when I got an email from my boss to discuss the campaign, I assumed I would get a pat on the back.
Continue Reading "Content Strategy: Optimizing Your Efforts For Success"
content,
copywriting
June 3, 2011 at 1:15 pm Comments (0)
