Thursday, October 22, 2009

XRefresh

XRefresh.
Automatically refreshes a web page under development when the page is changed and saved.

Allan Jardine | Reflections | Rule

Allan Jardine | Reflections | Rule.
Just as useful - if not more so.

Allan Jardine | Reflections | Crosshair

Allan Jardine | Reflections | Crosshair
Really useful.

RedBean PHP ORM

RedBean PHP ORM

Processing.js

Processing.js
Nice-looking way of creating visualisations and interactive animations using the HTML5 canvas element and JavaScript.

Home - Pencil Project

Home - Pencil Project.
Something to give Balsamiq or Visio + paper prototyping UI stencils a run for their money?

Notable – The easiest way to give feedback on your website.

Notable – The easiest way to give feedback on your website.

Itemscript.org

Itemscript.org.
One to make a note of and read up about later.
Seems like a wrapper for JSON / Ajax data transfer?

Favicon Editor

Favicon Editor

FavIcon from Pics -- free favicon.ico for your website (animated, static, text, iPod icons)

FavIcon from Pics -- free favicon.ico for your website (animated, static, text, iPod icons)

Dynamic Dummy Image Generator - DummyImage.com

Dynamic Dummy Image Generator - DummyImage.com

DHTML eXtensions - professional AJAX components for advanced Web UI - in your PHP, JSP, .NET, ASP and ColdFusion applications

DHTML eXtensions - professional AJAX components for advanced Web UI - in your PHP, JSP, .NET, ASP and ColdFusion applications.
If we ever want an alternative to infragistics then this might be worth a look?

CSS Text Wrapper

CSS Text Wrapper ... err ... may be useful ... one day?

Open NASA - When Failure is our Best Option

Open NASA - When Failure is our Best Option

Panic - Coda - One-Window Web Development for Mac OS X

Panic - Coda - One-Window Web Development for Mac OS X.
This looks great - shame I don't usually work on a Mac!

Clickframes

Clickframes is a way of defining a basic web application in xml and having a set of page specifications built for you from that xml document.

The theory is sound but it's not really prototyping as I'd see it. It seems more like a way to have people who think in xml write the spec and then translate it into a format that people who don't think in xml can understand.

Open Web Tools Directory

Mozilla has (recently) started the Open Web Tools Directory which collects together many (most?) of the useful tools, utilities and frameworks that make a web developer's job that bit more manageable.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Do URLs Matter?

As with so many questions, it depends.

Yes, there are some SEO benefits if the search engine in question can identify words in the URL that are also in the page.

However, it seems that whilst URLs matter a great deal to developers, end users just couldn't care less.

I'm also reminded of this entry in the PuTTY FAQ...

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Niceforms :: Personal projects :: Emblematiq

Niceforms is an attempt to replace the standard HTML input elements that are almost completely resistant to CSS (drop-down list boxes, checkboxes and radio buttons etc.).

Not tried it yet, but since it doesn't work in IE6 (and requires VERY specific markup) I smell trouble ahead.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

abbett.org - Updated Sketch GUI Shapes for Visio

abbett.org - Updated Sketch GUI Shapes for Visio

Smarter Copy And Paste between Pages in Visio

By default, Visio places pasted items in the centre of the view which can be really annoying if you're trying to copy and paste between pages and want the item to be in the same place on the new page as it was on the old one.
This article gives you a way to copy and paste "in place" between pages in Visio 2003 and greater.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

The Autumn of the Multitaskers - The Atlantic (November 2007)

The Autumn of the Multitaskers has almost nothing to do with Web Design ... except that designing websites when working as part of an organisation (especially an agency) seems to almost require that you do lots of things "at the same time".

Monday, June 22, 2009

Too Many Preferences Makes for a Bad User Interface.

This article asks "Why Can't Free Software Do Good UI?" and then suggests the answer is closely related to the mentality of adding preferences rather than fixing problems.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Here comes Squarespace

Squarespace was mentioned on SitePoint yesterday. It's a fully-featured hosted solution for building websites. There are even developer options for web designers to build sites on behalf of their clients, then give their clients appropriate levels of control over their content.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Free Icon Editor (and other stuff) - sibcode

sibcode has a free basic icon editor and some other related software.
Not tried any of it yet, but looks perfect for FavIcon.ico files :-)