Archive for the 'web design' category.
Apr 6 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | Add a Comment
For we non-designers out there, ajaxload.info offers a very cool service: automated creation of animated loading .gifs in three easy steps. Simply choose your indicator type (35 options!), set the background and foreground color, and generate it. View the preview and then download your .gif, ready to use.
Very simple and useful. Thanks for designing this, Kath
Jan 8 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | 27 comments
In March 2007, I wrote about a Safari CSS hack called the "Pound Safari Post Semicolon" hack (coined by Tony at Simian Design). As of Safari 3.0, this hack no longer works. However, there is a way to target Safari 3.0 (and Opera as well):
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
/* Safari 3.0 and Opera 9 rules here */
}
As always, the disclaimer: nobody condones the use of hacks, but we all (well, most of us) have to make use of them at least once in a while. The above code targets both Safari 3.0 and Opera 9. Hopefully, it will be a future-proof hack, since the -webkit part of the selector will probably not be adopted by other browsers.
Example: The following code set the background color of the <body> element red in all browsers and then resets it to blue in Safari 3.0 and Opera 9.body { background-color: red; }
@media screen and (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio:0) {
body { background-color: blue; }
}
[demo]
Tested on Mac OS X version 10.5.1 with Safari version 3.0.4 (5523.10.6) and Mozilla Firefox version 2.0.0.11. Tested on Windows XP Professional Version 2002 SP 2 with Mozilla Firefox version 2.0.0.11, Opera 9.10, and Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. Hack from CSS, JavaScript and XHTML Explained.
Jul 23 | Posted by Jeffrey Barke | Add a Comment
The New York Web Standards Meetup Group will be meeting at theMechanism on 26 July 2007 at 6:30 pm to discuss Ajax and forms.
Did you miss Ajax and Forms a few months ago? Here is an opportunity to catch up and see what we’ve been cooking up. Jeffrey Barke will review cool features, scripts and general visual goodness at theMechanism's office.
After the talk, we will open the floor to a monthly design critique. We encourage attendees to bring current or past projects they feel comfortable showing to get collective input from the group, as well as discuss topics and desired presenters for future Web Standards meetings.
There is no fee—and beverages as usual—will be provided. RSVP now!
26 July 2007 . 6:30 pm
theMechanism|eEmerge
440 9th Avenue 8th Floor
New York, NY 10001 [map]
Please contact us if you’d like to present at the August or September meetup.
Jul 5 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | Add a Comment
theMechanism is proud to have Waggener Edstrom’s Consumer Group website featured on CssGlance.com as an example of a well designed and innovative CSS based website.
CssGlance.com is the first italian website focused on providing its audience with a database of well designed and innovative CSS based websites from all around the world. They want to show that good design and web standards are two sides of the same coin. CssGlance even has a pretty little button for our website:
CssGlance.com is yet another thing we love about Italy – alongside Garlic Bread and Meatballs, of course…
Jul 4 | Posted by Dave Fletcher | Add a Comment
If you’re a designer, we implore you to turn your back on the poorly designed community sites out there and have a peek at a standards-compliant community called Virb.
While your friendly designers and coders at theMechanism usually spend our days holed up in our Creative Bunkers in New York and London making magic, on occasion we must leave the confides of our software apps, sketchbooks and meetings to explore the outdoors. And by “outdoors,” we’re referring to the “new outdoors” — free of menacing bears, wolves, intellect-enhancing novels and games of Go — online communities.
For the mighty Margaret Martin in London, her solace is sometimes found in the World of Warcraft. For Standardista Jeffrey, it’s the singular joy of his Flappy. Many of our entertainment-based clients have dived headfirst into the most fiendish of web site communities known as mySpace. And while mySpace will hopefully soon be swallowed under it’s own bile due to the overabundance of creeps looking for dates, we were recently alerted to a nicely designed web community called Virb.
Virb functions in a similar manner to the brainchild of Marketing hero Seth Godin’s online community called Squidoo, by taking a very clean, clear approach to design and modularization of content. Virb was made by the same folks who made a little-publicized, but lovely musician site called PureVolume. While we all agree that there are too many online communities vying for the attention of kiddies, teens, and eventually creeps, we’re hoping Virb’s ease of use eventually buries mySpace. However, our resident Standardista, Jeffrey Barke reminded me that the mighty mountain built by mySpace may be too hard to climb by any competitors.
In the meantime, I’m leaving the “new outdoors” to dip my toes into the “old outdoors,” by re-reading The 48 Laws of Power. By the time I’m finished, what we know now as the web will be carried around in our pockets — and desktop computers will be the devices of the aged.
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