Fresh Click Media

If you haven’t read my review of Digging into WordPress, you may not know that I think it’s currently the best WordPress book available.

One thing I didn’t mention in the review is that when you buy it, you’re entitled to free PDF updates for life. Perhaps I left out this because I thought it would amount to the odd grammar correction and so on. Worthwhile, but not that exciting. How wrong I was, because as co-author Chris Coyier announces on the Digging into WordPress site, version 2.0 has been released and it promises an extra chapter dedicated to WordPress 2.9, as well as one called ‘Bonus Tricks’, which focuses on ‘some cool new tricks for your themes’. Included with the download are six WordPress themes too! I’ve only skimmed through the new pages, but the high quality writing and content is preserved.

If you haven’t already grabbed yourself a copy, you should do yourself a favour and buy it!

Unless they’ve been living in a cave for the last couple of years, web developers will be familiar with jQuery. Due to its speed, power and ubiquity, it’s become the de facto JavaScript library for anybody wishing to create cross-browser behaviour.

jQuery version 1.4 was released on January 14, 2009, and hot on the heels of that release is the accompanying ‘jQuery 1.4 Reference Guide‘ book from Packt. The book is nudging at 300 pages in length, and covers the API in a similar way to the excellent online documentation. This isn’t the book for readers with no JavaScript experience, but should be easy to pick up with somebody with at least a limited knowledge.

The eleven chapters cover the following:

1. Anatomy of a jQuery script
2. Selector Expressions
3. DOM Traversal Methods
4. DOM Manipulation Methods
5. Event Methods
6. Effect Methods
7. AJAX Methods
8. Miscellaneous Methods
9. jQuery Properties
10. The Plug-in API
11. Alphabetical Quick Reference

The first chapter gently introduces the reader to the jQuery framework, as it quickly but clearly dissects an example that dynamically extracts headings from an HTML document and assembles them into a table of contents. My only criticism on this chapter is that it doesn’t mention the recommended practice of using Google’s jQuery CDN, preferring to link to a local, downloaded copy.

Subsequent chapters get into the swing of jQuery methods and techniques, using examples to complement their description. Reference guides are rarely the most exciting books, but this is actually quite easy to read, and the examples are well written and help push the reader through the content.

Chapter 10 focuses on plug-in development, and although short, does cover the essentials in a well-written overview of a simple print plugin.

Despite the quality of the online documentation, this is a worthwhile book for any jQuery developer, owing to its clear and direct content. Although the framework is evolving, the book is likely to be relevant for a long time to come.

I seem to be reading quite a few WordPress books of late, and there are certainly a few to choose from. Packt Publishing‘s WordPress 2.8 Theme Design‘s tagline is ‘Create flexible, powerful, and professional themes for your WordPress blogs and websites’.

WordPress themes are of interest to me since they fuse a visual aspect with PHP code, and there’s no doubt that they appeal to many other people too. In this review, I examine how appealing the book is to theme beginners and more advanced users.

Chapter Overview

1. Getting Started as a WordPress Theme Designer
2. Theme Design and Approach
3. Coding it Up
4. Debugging and Validation
5. Putting Your Theme into Action
6. WordPress Template Tag, Function, and CSS Reference
7. AJAX/Dynamic Content and Interactive Forms
8. Dynamic Menus and Interactive Elements
9. Design Tips for Working with WordPress

Book overview

The book’s author Tessa Blakely Silver starts very gently with an introduction to WordPress themes and why downloading a theme that’s already been coded and designed may not always be the best solution. Subsequently, the book develops a theme from scratch and examines core technologies such as WordPress, CSS, XHTML and PHP.

The second chapter starts with a discussion of theme design in general, followed by the beginnings of the theme that’s developed throughout the book. There are further discussions on semantic markup, typography, fonts and layout.

The following chapter focuses on the code aspect of theme design, and suggests a workflow strategy as well as template tags, hooks, and the WordPress loop. Comments are then discussed in some detail, the topic including pagination and threaded comments.

Chapter four examines the process of debugging and validating. A thorough chapter includes references to the W3C validation services, Firefox’s JavaScript/Error console, Firebug and some of the issues that the budding theme developer will face when dealing with IE6.

Chapter five looks at the style.css file, which provides descriptive information about a theme, together with packaging the theme into a ZIP for distribution and running test installations of the theme package.

Chapter six adopts a more reference based approach, with an in depth examination of WordPress template tags, the WordPress template hierarchy, the loop and shortcodes.

The following chapter looks at AJAX and JavaScript, as well as preparing your theme for plugins and widgets.

Chapter eight builds on Chapter 7′s JavaScript discussion by developing a drop-down menu for the theme. There is also a discussion of Flash and how that can be used with WordPress themes.

Chapter nine rounds off the book with a number of design tips that apply not just to WordPress theme design, but web design in general.

The book’s about 250 pages in length, and is generally well written. I did, however, notice a few errors in code samples (mostly misplaced quotes), and a couple of examples in the prose itself. Another minor niggle was that the author talks about semantic markup, and then introduces ‘sidebarLT’ (sidebar left) and ‘sidebarRT’ (sidebar right) IDs into the markup.

Who will get most out of the book?

The back of the book states:

This book can be used by WordPress users or visual designers (with no server-side scripting or programming experience) who are used to working with the common industry-standard tools such as Photoshop and Dreamweaver or other popular graphic, HTML, and text editors.
Regardless of your web development skill set or level, you’ll be walked through the clear, step-by-step instructions. But familiarity with a broad range of web development skills and WordPress know-how will allow you to gain maximum benefit from this book.

It seems as through Packt have tried to convince the potential reader that this is the book for them, regardless of whether they’re fairly inexperienced in some areas, or a a highly skilled developer. I’d say that the book covers a lot of ground, and that it does so at a pace that would be suitable for an inexperienced developer. Much of the content, however, would already be familiar to a skilled web developer, and so I feel that they’d think that the really useful content is a little thinly spread.

Verdict

Overall, it’s encouraging to see more books about WordPress; although the internet is a fantastic resource, books still have a very important role in my opinion. The content of this one is great for beginner-medium level web developers, but more experienced readers will be left wanting more.

There are a huge number of books out there for WordPress, but ‘Digging into WordPress’, written by WordPress ‘veterans’ Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr stands out for a number of reasons.

The book’s been in development for a while, and the finished 400 pages are very polished and generally well written. The book is available from the Digging into WordPress website, and the site features a PDF Sample and containing the contents and Chapter 3 – ‘Anatomy of a WordPress Theme’.

To reproduce here, the main chapters of the book are:

1. Welcome to WordPress – an introduction to WordPress, this chapter is suitable for absolute beginners to WordPress, so if you’ve never used it before, this chapter will get you up and running.
2. Setting up WordPress – installing, categories, tags, user administration, as well as an introduction to using themes and plugins.
3. Anatomy of a WordPress theme – a more detailed examination of WordPress themes, covering theme files, the header, the WordPress loop, comments, theme functions and other theme fundamentals.
4. Theme Design and Development – further examination of themes, including loop customisation, menus, styling and widgets.
5. Extending Functionality – a detailed look at plugins, including custom functions and using WordPress as a CMS.
6. Working with RSS Feeds – a comprehensive chapter featuring many facets of RSS, including using FeedBurner for feed devivery, and tracking and displaying of Feed Statistics.
7. Working with Comments – great chapter that examines one of the most important areas of WordPress.
8. Search Engine Optimisation – this is a great example of something that you wouldn’t normally find in a typical WordPress book, and features many items that are of great interest to many bloggers.
9. Maintaining a Healthy Site – reminds the reader that there are a few things that they can and should do to protect their WordPress installation against hacking and comment spam.

The book’s absolutely jam-packed with useful information, and I learned a few things, despite having used WordPress for a while myself. That said, it starts off very gently, and is suitable to WordPress beginners, too. The written style is very easy to read, and the prose is complemented beautifully by helpful diagrams, screenshots and sidenotes.

Much of the content is standard stuff, taking the reader through core WordPress concepts, but that’s not a criticism, it’s a necessary requirement for this type of book. It’s the additions to this that really make the difference; things like integrating your site with Twitter, FeedBurner and Delicious. It has a real-world feel about it, owing to Chris and Jeff’s experience and usage of WordPress. In fact, it’s a great advertisement for WordPress itself, since it gives a holistic view of using WordPress for real-world sites.

Initially the book was only available as a PDF download, but has recently been made available as a printed book. It looks fantastic, and its spiral-bounding means you can lay it flat on a desk. The only downside is that it is a little pricey, but might be worth considering if you crave a printed page version.

Overall, this is the best WordPress book that I’ve read, and will help you get more out of it, whether you’re a beginner or more seasoned user. Go get it!

A new year is on the horizon, and so it’s natural to look back on the previous 12 months, take stock, and plan for the future. So what kind of year has it been?

Overall, it’s been a good year. My background as a software developer is with Microsoft-based technologies such as Visual C++, and since 2003, .NET and C#. Although my technical mainstay is still .NET, this year has seen me work more and more with open-source, PHP-based solutions such as CodeIgniter and ExpressionEngine. I’ve continued to work with WordPress, and in the second quarter, completed Biking for Bones, a site for my mother-in-law, who rode over 3500 miles in aid of the Arthritis Research Council.

In April, I also had the opportunity to do a project using Adobe Flex. Whilst I’d had a little experience with ActionScript and Flash, this was the first time I did any significant work with Flex, and found it to be an interesting platform. I used WebORB for .NET for back end communication. Although I enjoyed the work, I missed working with good old HTML and CSS, and although some things are undoubtedly easier to achieve with an RIA platform such as Flex, I would argue that javascript libraries such as jQuery make many behavioural paradigms almost effortless.

The latter part of this year has seen me working on a company logo for Fresh Click Media. The aim is to integrate this into a new design for the site, and use the new logo as a focus for business cards that I’m also currently designing. I’ve been toying with the idea of ExpressionEngine for the site, but I’m very fond of WordPress, and it does what I need; I don’t share the opinion that WordPress is a CMS, though it’s a bloody amazing bit of software.

For many people, 2009 will be associated with financial instability and job insecurity. I’ve been fortunate enough to have escaped the downturn this year, but despite many positive predictions for 2010, feel that we’re not out of the worst of it yet. Fingers crossed.

I haven’t achieved everything I wanted in the past year, but I’m okay with that. You can’t plan for everything, and this year has brought some unexpected events that have had an effect on my professional plans. Despite this variation, one thing remains unchanged – I am passionate about what I do, and consider myself very lucky to be doing something I love. If I were religious, I’d be thanking god.

I’m looking forward to 2010. In the short term, I’m going to be working on a redesign for this site and producing those business cards. The longer term aim is to develop Fresh Click Media as a business and win more client work and contracts.

Happy new year to you all!

I’ve just created a (very) short screencast over at screenr.com showing you how to create a colour swatch from an image in Adobe Kuler and export the swatch to Adobe Illustrator. Check it out:

So, I’ve just recorded a second screencast at screenr, this time about googletest – the Google C++ Testing Framework. I had a couple of issues getting things up and running so I thought it might be beneficial to show I got going.

I’ve been more used to unit testing in a C# environment, particularly NUnit and MS Unit, so googletest was a fresh look at unit testing for C++. Note that the screenr title is incorrect, it should read ‘Getting started with googletest – the Google C++ Testing Framework :)

Hey everyone – I’ve just recorded my first ever screencast over at screenr.com. I talk about a jQuery popup keyboard plugin that I wrote a while back.

If you haven’t already checked out screenr, be sure to head over and check it out – it’s a fantastic way to record screencasts up to 5 minutes in length and requires no extra software or faffing about. Recording a screencast is definitely a skill in itself, and since this is my first, I hope you’ll excuse the odd ‘um’ and ‘ah’, but I hope I get the general message across. Five minutes seems like a generous amount of time, but it really does go quickly when you’re recording!

Some points that I didn’t have time to go into on the screencast:

1. The plugin was initially developed with jQuery 1.2.6 (the most up to date version at the time), but having tested with jQuery 1.3.2 (that latest version as I write this), everything seems fine.
2. The plugin has been tested in IE7, Firefox and Safari – everything seems to work well.
3. I haven’t tested the plugin in IE6; I suspect there may be issues with select items and the popup keyboard.

You can download a copy of the screencast project (ZIP file, 8k) shown to have a look in greater detail.

I’ve just found this YouTube video showcasing Microsoft’s vision for our future:

This, however, is more likely to be the actual reality:

There’s no question that carefully chosen and presented typography can help a design to convey its message. Choosing fonts for a piece of work can, however, be a bewildering process.

Here, I present some useful links for font inspiration, in the hope that they’ll help you to choose the right font for the right job.

1. Die 100 Besten Schriften (The 100 Best Fonts of all time.)

   It’s a German language blog post, but it’s packed with (100, unsurprisingly) of the most recognised and often used fonts.

2. 21 Most Used Fonts by Professional Designers

   A great list of 21 of the most often used fonts, with screenshots of their variants.

3. Typefaces no one gets fired for using

   Well-known designer Cameron Moll gives his quick lowdown on his often used typefaces, and requests others do the same.

4. Top 100 Types survey

   The results of Paul Shaw’s readers’ top typefaces.

5. 30 Fonts That All Designers Must Know & Should Own

   Another good list of inspiring fonts.

6. 40+ Excellent Free Fonts for Professional Design

   The cost of professional typefaces can sometimes be prohibitive for the casual designer or someone on a strict budget. Smashing Magazine has put together a great list of more than 40 fonts that are free to use in your designs, and don’t skimp on quality.