http://www.rockatee.com/index.php en info@rockatee.com Copyright 2008 2008-11-15T08:19:33+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/girlsforum/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/girlsforum/#When:08:19:33Z 2008-11-15T08:19:33+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/romps/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/romps/#When:07:51:54Z 2008-11-15T07:51:54+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/tidyfavorites-application-software/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/tidyfavorites-application-software/#When:07:46:54Z 2008-11-15T07:46:54+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/littlestarzone/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/littlestarzone/#When:07:30:37Z 2008-11-15T07:30:37+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/withstyle-templamatic/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/withstyle-templamatic/#When:22:29:51Z 2008-10-06T22:29:51+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/highlighting-menu-items-with-expressionengine/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/highlighting-menu-items-with-expressionengine/#When:01:44:43Z There are indeed are variety of means by which you can highlight a menu item of the current page you're on. One way would be to use ExpressionEngine's embedded template functionality which is very sophisticated. The downside in my view is that you have to — as the name implies &mdash embed a template which may not always be the optimal solution, depending on your amount of embedded templates and your general structure preferences. I usually try to not use too many embedded templates in order to allow for less performance overhead, but your preferences may vary and technically, there is nothing wrong with going that route. So, to highlight your current navigation item, you would create an embed variable. This is the standard structure of an embed variable: {embed="mytemplate" parameter name == "parameter value"} Example: {embed="navigation" sausage == "frankfurter"} In plain text this means your embed variable consists of the parameter name of sausage with a parameter value of frankfurter. For my navigation, I would then create a parameter value for each navigational element within each template which would look like the following for my portfolio index page: Rinse and repeat for each page you link to in your navigation. Next, you will want to create the embedded template. I use a separate template group for my embedded templates and have assigned it the name inc. My navigation template is called _navi, hence, in order for EE to understand that we want to highlight the current navigation item, we have to tell it to do so by implementing conditional variables, in this case the if statement. Another really nifty way of having your current navigation item highlighted, is by using Solspace's Selected plugin. It's extremely easy to set up, and does not require any embedding or the use of conditionals for simple setups. If, for example, you had a list of weblog entry links in your left column and the single entry in your right column and wanted to highlight the current item a user was on, then you would use something like this: <ul> {exp:weblog:entries weblog="{my_weblog}"} {exp:selected item="{segment_2}" replace="class='selected'"} <li {selected_{url_title}}><a href="{/comment_url_title_auto_path}" title="{title}">{title}</a></li> {/exp:selected} {/exp:weblog:entries} </ul> (remove the slash in the comment_url_title_auto_path variable. EE automatically turns it into a link in my entries). You can also use a static menu: <ul> {exp:selected item="{segment_1}" replace="class='selected'"} <li {selected_news}><a href="/news/" title="Latest News">Latest News</li> <li {selected_about}><a href="/about/" title="About">About</li> {/exp:selected} </ul> Here, the second part of the parameter is your actual value, in this case it is the first segment (segment_1) that is replaced, so if you want to highlight a segment, you'd give the second part of the paramter the exact url title. In my example, the exact url title is news and about respectively. There are many more uses for the Solspace plugin, but here I've highlighted two possibilities of its use. ExpressionEngine 2008-10-06T01:44:43+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/rss-and-atom-feeds-now-working/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/rss-and-atom-feeds-now-working/#When:12:38:26Z I've been contacted by a few readers that neither my Atom feed nor my RSS feed were working. This is truly embarassing, I must admit to my shame. The past few weeks have been explosive (in a good way) and I've had little time to write articles and such due to the simple fact that I'm currently overwhelmed with client work. There has also been quite a good amount of spam that paved its way through my comments and thus affected my readers as they received those wonderfully precise and eloquent trash in their mailbox. I have done away with that by implementing a captcha feature. I despise captchas with a passion, but at the moment, this seems the quickest and easiest, if not entirely accessible way of preventing the agressive spam of lately. Should you know of a wiser solution, do share. Meanwhile, I am not in the least prepared to neglect cleaning up the rest of the few remaining quirks and minor technical issues and will attend to these bit by bit, and sooner rather than later. On the writing aspect of things, quite a few articles are in the pipeline and waiting to be released, so do stay tuned and I'll do my best to not disappoint. News 2008-08-14T12:38:26+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/on-the-perils-of-poor-documentation/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/on-the-perils-of-poor-documentation/#When:18:26:15Z Whether you’re a high-school or University graduate, there’s one thing our mentors have tried to impregnate into our brains as a vital tool to comprehend and memorise the information we are taking in; making notes of what we read, see, and hear. Granted, to some it may seem redundant or far too time-consuming to engage in exhaustive documentation of one’s reading and learning material. And there are indeed areas of learning where you don’t need it. If I do it with Books, why not do it with Websites? What do your books look like? Are they neat and clean? I don’t mean coffee marks or other unnescessary stains or speckles of dirt; I mean clear signs that a book is heavily used. My books mdash; for the most part mdash; are a complete mess. Why? Because they’re tools. They’re the hammer and chisel I use, sometimes abuse, excessively amd exhaustively. I write extensive notes on the sides of a page, sometimes a hundred words or more. I underline paragraphs, add questions or exclamation marks when I feel something is either right on the mark or when I’m uncertain of the meaning of certain paragraphs. I use a yellow neon-marker to mark passages that contain a thesis, mark passages in neon-pink that illustrate possible anti-thesis/counter-arguments, and finally use a green marker to highlight the thesis’ conclusion. I place paper notes where adequate with bullet points to help me find the proper information I seek next time I need it. In short, my books look used, torn, and often have very little resemblance in apperance to when I originally bought them. On the web, having a documentation habitus, is of even greater importance, unless you design solely for yourself. Only recently, I’ve made it a habit to always document significant steps taken during the course of designing a web site for a client. While doing this may be considered a daunting and unnerving task, it can pay off in the end, and in more ways than one. The Benefits are not Limited to the Designer Firstly, I tend to experiment a lot when constructing and prototyping a new design. This is not only a fun task, but also a very challenging one many times. Designing layouts that contain stylistic touches that are not overly common, usually require for my CSS to be extravagant as well. There is no way at all, I will remember what I did to client x’s design four years ago. Not remembering means lots of searching and guesswork. Lots of searching means lots of time wasted. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to revisit my own techniques because I had failed to document exactly why and how I coded something, relying on my memory entirely, which is not a very wise thing to do. Secondly, documenting code and explaining why I have written a piece of code in such way or another, also tells me that I understand exactly what I’m doing. If I don’t know the whys and hows, or have quickly looked up a technique from a book without having learned the methods applied thoroughly, I won’t be able to explain it, right? Right.Therefore, documenting properly can be a good mirror to my current level of expertise. Thirdly, the most important benefit to documenting my code is to enable clients and developers to maintain the site independently from me, should they so choose, and doing it beautifully, without breaking the design, its aesthetics, and its accessible markup. Well-documented Code is more than a Memory Crutch What it really is, is a: Accessibility Enabler - I am able to explain why I used non-semantic containers such as the span element, and slightly more semantic mdash; but still fairly neutral mdash; such as the div element to construct my contact form instead of using a list or table.Because opinions on Best Practices in the Web Standards world differ quite significantly in many areas, having good arguments for doing what I do and being able to explain why I chose what I chose, allows for insight, discussion, and enhancements. I can replace certain elements based on newly won cognition on how to best present specific information. Usability Enforcer - When having performed a re-design for Jane Doe’s company, I’ll have documented why I’ve done away with the poorly executed drop-down menu and instead applied a one-level navigation, and placed sub-menu items on the right-hand side. Shall a designer/developer mdash; at any given time mdash; seek to make changes to the navigation architecture, he’ll know and understand the reasoning behind my design decision. Efficiency Maker - Obviously, having documented my code will help save time. I can come back to a design I’ve made years ago and can quickly access the information and logic of the code applied. I may just want to modify the colour scheme slightly. Perhaps I’d like to reduce the markup significantly, optimize, or enhance it to accomodate new browser-integrated CSS rules and the like. I can do this easily when I have my style-, and HTML documents well commented. It not only saves me a lot of time and headaches, and the client lots of money, but is simultaneously most beneficial to developers or teams who work on and maintain the same site. So, making notes, writing good documentation is not a waste of time, not in the long run. I wish I had started out this way when creating websites and using the space I’m given in a HTML or style document, and mdash; for extensive documentation mdash; use separate documents to write down a table of contents, just like any good book does. Design 2008-08-03T18:26:15+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/type-foundries-great-professional-fonts-and-free-too/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/type-foundries-great-professional-fonts-and-free-too/#When:19:52:49Z In my pursuit of purchasing a new typefaces, I never do so without paying a short visit to a foundry's freebie area. While most quality typefaces need to be paid for, sometimes, free typefaces find their way into my font collection, either because they're marvelously beautiful — or, because they allow for me to experiment. Anyway, I have selected a few fonts (it is a good idea to read the license agreements for each of these releases) that I really like and have put on display below. At the very bottom of the article, you'll find the links to some of these foundries as they offer quite a few fluffy typefaces for free that I have not listed. Stylish — by Stefan Hattenbach Download Link | Distributed by MRF FF Nuovo — by Xavier Dupré and Martin Majoor Download Link | Distributed by FontFont FF MT — by Erik Spiekermann Download Link | Distributed by FontFont Lido STF & Lido STF Condensed Download Link | Distributed by Stormtype Gentium Download Link | Distributed by SIL Teaspoon — by Haley Fiege Download Link | Distributed by Font Bros Sovereign Download Link | Distributed by type.co.uk And a few More exljbris Mac Rhino Fonts DerSven Font Bros Manfred Klein Dieter Steffmann Stormtype FontFont Typography 2008-07-23T19:52:49+00:00 http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/new-wordpress-theme-release-for-smashing-magazine/ http://www.rockatee.com/index.php/site/new-wordpress-theme-release-for-smashing-magazine/#When:01:30:24Z While I'm a huge ExpressionEngine afficionado, I do also work with other CMSes and blogging platforms. I know there are a plethora of options to choose from and while I do belive each CMS might probably be good in their own right — as long as the code isn't bloated and their markup practices not outdated — we would still be left with more choices we can possible master. One CMS or blogging platform — though I've never quite understood the difference and would rather label it simple CMS application — is WordPress. I do like it a lot and I think it has its place, even in the professional world. What I like a lot about WordPress is that it's very easy to create themes. The templating system is easy to understand and the widget functionality allows for quick and convenient content placement. Smashing Magazine — a magazine I've grown to love and visit quite often — is releasing one of my themes today, so a big hurrah is in order and I'm quite thrilled and honoured, I must admit. If you do like fun eyecandy with not too much graphic overhead, head on to Smashing Magazine and download the theme! Design 2008-07-16T01:30:24+00:00