CategoryCoding

July 6, 2009 — Often creative and truly remarkable design solutions remain unknown because we, designers, simply overlook them. Being busy with our own projects, we sometimes try to grasp the intuition behind (probably) complex and cluttered code of other designers to understand how they manage to implement particular design ideas. In fact, by just observing the code of other developers we can learn a lot from them; we can find interesting ideas and improve the quality of our work. Read more…

July 6, 2009 — XHTML 2 is dead, long live HTML5! According to W3C News Archive, XHTML 2 working group is expected to stop work end of 2009 and W3C is planning to increase resources on HTML5 instead. And even although HTML 5 won’t be completely supported until 2022 (yes, 2022), it doesn’t mean that it won’t be widely adopted within the foreseeable future. Read more…

June 25, 2009 — CSS-design is not easy. We need to find workaround across browser inconsistencies, not that easy CSS-concepts and quite counterintuitive CSS-solutions. Read more…

June 18, 2009 — Without argument, one of the most important things to consider when creating a website is that it be accessible to everyone who wants to view it. Does your website play nice with screen readers? Can a user override your style sheet with a more accessible one and still see everything your website has to offer? Would another Web developer be embarrassed if they saw your code? If your website is standards-compliant, you could more confidently answer these questions. Let’s take a look at 10 ways to improve the accessibility of your XHTML website by making it standards-compliant. We’ll go the extra mile and include criteria that fall beyond the standards set by the W3C but which you should follow to make your website more accessible. Each section lists the criteria you need to meet, explains why you need to meet them and gives examples of what you should and shouldn’t do. Read more…

June 15, 2009 — Cascading Style Sheets were introduced 13 years ago, and the widely adopted CSS 2.1 standard has existed for 11 years now. When we look at websites that were created 11 years ago, it’s clear that we are a thousand miles away from that era. It is quite remarkable how much Web development has evolved over the years, in a way we would never have imagined then. Read more…

June 10, 2009 — As Web developers, we never stop hearing about the Mac. A lot of people love to talk about their Macs, but despite the “elite” status of the Apple computer, is there any need for a Web developer to splash money on one? A few weeks ago, Mark Nutter wrote here on Smashing Magazine in favor of swapping your PC for a Mac, and while some of his reasons are good, there are plenty of reasons to stick with (or switch back to!) Windows. This article explores the best aspects of the Windows PC and, more importantly, the different apps that Web developers can use to become more efficient in their work. Every piece of software mentioned here is free to use. Read more…

June 9, 2009 — Fluid web designs have many benefits, but only if implemented correctly. With proper technique, a design can be seen correctly on large screens, small screens and even tiny PDA screens. With bad coding structure, however, a fluid layout can be disastrous. Because of this, we need to find ways to work around most, if not all, of the cons of fluid design. Read more…

June 2, 2009 — The problem has boggled the minds of Web designers for years: fixed, fluid, elastic or a hybrid layout design? Each option has its benefits and disadvantages. But the final decision depends so much on usability that it is not one to be made lightly. So, with all the confusion, is there a right decision? By considering a few factors and properly setting up the final design, you can end up with a successful layout design that reaps all the benefits. Read more…

June 1, 2009 — Regular expressions are an essential part of any programmer’s toolkit. They can be very handy when you need to identify, replace or modify text, words, patterns or characters. In a nutshell: regular expressions (regex) are like a Swiss army knife for modifying strings of just about anything. Need to make your site URLs look pretty? Use regex. Need to remove all punctuation from a sentence? Definitely use regex. The uses for regular expressions are almost limitless. Regular expressions are something that you’ll come across at least once in your development cycle, whether you’re just trying to modify an .htaccess file to make clean URLs, or something much more advanced like filtering RSS feeds or other data. Here are some resources to get you well on your way to mastering regex. Read more…

May 25, 2009 — This is our sixth installment of Ask SM, featuring reader questions about Web design focusing on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These entries are not all questions, but rather quick Twitter responses to the query, “What has been your most difficult CSS challenge?” Among other things, this post covers the sticky footer issues, positioning elements at bottom of a div, on having layout, aligning labels and inputs, auto top and bottom padding, z-index and more. Read more…