Archive for October 24, 2008

Wireframe to Mockup to XHTML

{ October 24, 2008 @ 3:04 pm } · { HTML, Kasper Sorensen, web design, Wordpress, XHTML }
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Up until now I have spent a lot of time getting to grips with the basic in and outs of WordPress themes. I understand how important it is that your theme is widget ready and that it is flexible and easy to customize.

Having finished my wireframe and being pretty satisfied with my initial mockups, I can start moving on to the actual theme creation. I have had some difficulties coming up with a colour scheme that I liked, it’s gone from brown to green and now it’s blue. I have come up with two complete mocks; one for the front page and one for the individual post/archive/search pages.

The single pages are different because I need to make room for the comments section. People are used to comments at the bottom of every article, so I will keep them there.

I will have to shrink the main content area to make room for a sidebar on the right. This will hold the sidebar information related to the post being viewed. I intend to ship the theme with sidebar items such as related posts, most recent post and comments etc. These can of course be changed or swapped by using widgets.

Preparing the Markup

Now it’s time to get into the actual coding of the theme. The main challenge at the moment is getting the bottom section of the front page and the single pages styled. The hard part is that the XHTMl needs to be uniform for all the items. I have to style every item the same no matter the content. In other words, the styling needs to be strong enough to hold most of the generic content you find in a WordPress sidebar.

Automattic, owner of WordPress, recommends using a simple <ul><li>link</li></ul>

markup to make it compatible with widgets. I won’t be able to comply with that due to the horizontal layout of the theme. I will make use of one of their alternative versions which will include the use of the <div> tag and some additional php coding in the optional functions.php template file.

/Kasper – on Twitter and Delicious

update

{ October 24, 2008 @ 2:43 pm } · { HTML, James Black, PHP, web design }
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After a frustrating week of configuring my macbook with parallels, I can now begin production, using the software needed for design of my draft mock-up. I have spent recent time since last weeks class understanding PHP, however in need of further secondary resources. Therefore, I shall shall visit the university library after todays class, in search for some relevant and appropriate literature.

In preparation for next weeks class, I shall begin development on my pitch, completing a rough mock-up to co-inside with my proposal, thus meeting the requirements of the directed study. I shall look into the software of XAMPP, downloading a package from the following recommended website; http://www.keitr.com

As quoted:

“Officially, XAMPP’s designers intended it for use only as a development tool, to allow website designers and programmers to test their work on their own computers without any access to the Internet. To make this as easy as possible, many important security features are disabled by default. In practice, however, XAMPP is sometimes used to actually serve web pages on the world wide web.  A special tool is provided to password-protect the most important parts of the package. XAMPP also provides support for creating and manipulating databases in MYSQL and SQLite among others”

This program is released under a public license and acts as a free, easy-to-use web server. Fortunately, XAMPP is available for Mac OS X and is ideal for the development of work I shall be starting. I will post a blog update on my progress during next week!

Peace

www.jamesarctic.blogspot.com

www.myspace.com/arcticuk

Ideas beginning to take shape

{ October 24, 2008 @ 2:43 pm } · { Lee Davies }
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I may have upset Scott by not doing this weeks’ DS task but things are now starting to take shape.  I have been reading the documentation about how to code a create web pages for iPhone, and hopefully will be able to start coding soon.  I will have my mocks up down by next week at the very least though.  I now have the dilemma of deciding on whether I should code the pages in landscape or portrait view, thanks to iPhones ability to display webpages in either orientation.  Kaspers’ workshop/demonstration on CSS has given me some useful tips that I will quite probably end up using when coding my web app.  Thank you sir!

Right now I’m just putting a quick mock up together that I will be able to post on here soon, and this will be followed by a much better mock up some time next week.  I’m also emailing the guy who runs Dead Format, Nick, to see if he can answer some questions for me that I can then post on the blog.

Tasks for the week

{ October 24, 2008 @ 2:41 pm } · { DVD, Flash, Simon Bloom }
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I aim in the following week to complete a number of tasks in order to progress with my project. I need to develop a variety of mock-ups; I will create one that will demonstrate what the menu system will look like on a standalone DVD player. I will also create a mock-up of what the menus will look like on a computer with the flash designs. Video Clips resized for, and super-imposed onto various mobile devices. I will not have the complete design or the actual content because much of this, I will only get when producing the actual DVD for my client. I will instead produce a number of templates showing how the product would work, with a fairly generic design. The second area that I need to work on in preparation for next week is gaining flash skills. At least enough to be able deliver a workshop on a specific feature during the next session. I have already started reading about the program and will use online tutorials in order to further my understanding.

disappointed :(

{ October 24, 2008 @ 2:22 pm } · { too//damn//ninja }
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…with the lack of, well, any work done in the last week.
one student out of the four that turned up had prepared a workshop for peeps to do… one! :(

so, plenty for peeps to be getting on with in the next week! your draft pitches await you then!!!
muahahahahahahaha!

Skills Gap

{ October 24, 2008 @ 11:30 am } · { DVD, Flash, Simon Bloom, Tutorial }
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 Whilst I have played a little bit with Flash before, I have not had a great deal of experience doing anything beyond the basics. I am more familiar with the DVD creation portion of my project having used both Ulead DVD Workshop and Adobe Encore to create a number of DVDs for a variety of purposes. I therefore need to re familiarise myself with Flash and expand my knowledge and skills in this area. Luckily there seems to be a wealth of information and tutorial both freely available on-line and commercially in print. I have purchased Teach Yourself: Flash 8 by Mac Bride to help me to get to grips with the application. I also own Flash 8, so I will be able to go through both the tutorials in the book and on line to enhance my Flash skills that I will need to successfully complete my product. On the Internet there is a wide-range of different tutorials covering various aspects of Flash from a basic introduction to the user interface, but also tutorial focusing on very specific tasks within the program such as 3D Logo Animation.

 

Very Brief Flash Intro

{ October 24, 2008 @ 11:06 am } · { ActionScript, DVD, Flash, Simon Bloom }
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Flash is an extremely flexible tool that has perhaps been most commonly used and associated with the creation of graphic and content rich-websites. Flash was previously Macromedia branded and now comes under the Adobe brand umbrella. It is a program that allows for a mix of point and click graphical tools, similar to graphic applications (e.g. Photoshop) and a code based interface in the form of Actionscript. In recent years the use of Flash for multimedia based websites has boomed, perhaps partly due to the wide-spread take up of broadband Internet and faster home computers. For me one of the most interesting features of Flash is that it can be used to create scalable content for a great variety of devices and platforms. Everything from interactive informational kiosks to mobile phones have utilised Flash. I intend to use Flash for my project as it should enable me to produce menu that will be both visually attractive and provide easy access to the variety of content on offer within my DVD.

 

Flash Logo

Flash Logo

I think… therefore I scamper.

{ October 24, 2008 @ 10:27 am } · { DVD, Flash, Simon Bloom }
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  • Substitute: Substitution of medium; Changing the format of the promotional product. Alternatives are Blu-ray, CD-ROM, Website Delivery, Mobile Site, Bluetooth nodes, USB Key.
  • Combine: The combination of multiple forms of content. Text, Image, Video and Sound. Combining compatible platforms for the product- DVD Players, PC/Mac, Mobile Phones, iPhone, PSP etc.
  • Adapt: Adapting the DVD format by using it as a video delivery format and as a data format allowing for Flash menus and Web-linked content.
  • Magnify: Magnifying the role of special and interactive features instead on mainly focusing on the movie/video.
  • Modify: Individual components such as videos, audio, text etc. are available for use in a DVD. The difference with my project is that all of these features are tightly integrated into a complete multimedia package.
  • Put: Could put the concept to other uses by changing the content to general entertainment, instead of just a promotional tool.
  • Eliminate or minify: Minify the length of the video clips so that the main video content is less than an hour long, this will free up plenty of space for the data portion of the disk.
  • Reverse / Rearrange: I will make a first play video that will highlight the extra features of the DVD and how to access them. This is a reversal of the normal approach of watching the main video on a DVD and then going to explore the extra features. 

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