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Lessons Learned From Maintaining a WordPress Plug-In

frank — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 01:34:33 +0000

Recently I released a WordPress plugin for Google Analytics that adds a tracking code and dozens of various pieces of meta data to blogs. Since the release of version 4, I’ve updated it 6 times, to the point where it’s now at version 4.0.6. In this article I would like to share with you my experiences in maintaining this and other WordPress plug-ins and common good practices that I’ve distilled from that work.

The updates that I released had a couple of purposes, ranging from bug fixes to new features and fixes in documentation. While all of these are nice to talk about, the bug fixes are the ones you’ll learn the most from, so let’s start by going through these.

Website and Account Configuration

Almost as soon as I released the plug-in, people who updated were telling me that it worked wonderfully, and others were telling me that it didn’t work for them. Turns out I hadn’t tested the plug-in with a Google Analytics account that has only one website registered; I expected the websites to be an array. Fixing this bug was easy, but determining that this was the problem took a while.

Being able to log into a few hosts of people who gave me access to their back end and FTP so that I could test my fix proved invaluable. This enabled me to release 4.0.1 within an hour of the 4.0 release.

Another mistake I made was forcing everyone to reconfigure the plug-in. I assumed it wouldn’t be too much work for people, and it wanted to be sure the settings were clean, but it turns out quite a few people didn’t want to reconfigure. With 4.0.2, I came up with a way to inherit some of the settings and clean up the mess I made, and in 4.0.4 I made a change that I will add to all of my plug-ins:

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Good practice #1: Don’t assume anything about people’s websites and external accounts.

Versioning Option Arrays

As a seasoned WordPress developer, I store all of the options for my plug-in in one option in the database, which is basically a big array. Why I hadn’t ever added a version number to these options is a mystery to me. Doing so makes it possible to do some very cool things: I can now add new features and set a default for these new features as soon as a user upgrades; I can show the user different messages based on the version they had before they upgraded; and more.

Good practice #2: Add a version number to your option arrays.

I’m still not using the WordPress option API stuff (check out this post by Ozh to learn all about it), which I probably should, but for now I find it easier to handle the saving and validation of options myself.

Don’t Release Too Soon

If you’ve got a bug that’s bugging a lot of your plug-in’s users, you’ll probably want to release a bug fix as soon as possible. I know I do. This caused an issue with my 4.0.3 release, though, because I didn’t properly test some of the code I introduced, causing me to have to release 4.0.4 just two hours later to fix a stupid mistake I’d made with booleans. Nothing is as painful as 500 people downloading a version of your plug-in that doesn’t actually work.

Good practice #3: Test, test, test before you release, even when you’re in a hurry.

Know Which Version People Are On

Over the past two weeks, I’ve been helping several people who said they were on the latest version of my plug-in but in fact were not. To remedy this, I’ve started outputting the version number in the comment that the plug-in outputs before the tracking code. Problem is, if people run a plug-in such as W3 Total Cache (which everyone should use by the way) or anything else that minifies their output, that comment will get lost.

There’s a solution for that, too: I’d already wrapped the script in tags, to help with Strict XHTML validation. Minifying will not occur within those CDATA tags, so I moved my “branding” comment to the CDATA section, and I can now always see, first, that my plug-in is active and, secondly, which version of the plug-in they’re using.

Good practice #4: Make sure you can see which version of your plug-in people are running.

URLs in WordPress

One of these things that can generate pretty awful bugs is a blog’s URL. Whether it’s due to people running their entire blog on https or “simply” running their blog in a sub-directory, it can cause headaches. It did for me in version 4.0.2 when I added URL sanitization: all relative URLs in posts and text widgets starting with a / were made absolute, in order to properly track these URLs. Tiny issue: I forgot about blogs in sub-directories, so a tiny portion of people would end up with links that used to go to /home but that now went to http://example.com/blog/home. I know, that was stupid; but that’s why I’m telling you: so you don’t make the same mistake.

Good practice #5: Make sure all URLs you use will work in all circumstances, whether WordPress is in a sub-directory, on a subdomain or just in the root.

Writing to the Root Directory

Somewhat related to the last issue, although I encountered this while developing my WordPress SEO plug-in, not the Google Analytics plug-in: if you write a file — say, an XML site map file — to the root of a website, and the website is actually a WordPress multi-site installation, things can go horribly wrong.

Check out the following scenario:

User 1 writes and publishes a post on example.com/blog-1/.
An updated XML site map for example.com/blog-1/ is generated, and example.com/sitemap.xml is updated.
User 2 writes and publishes a post on example.com/blog-2/.
An updated XML site map for example.com/blog-2/ is generated and example.com/sitemap.xml is overwritten.

See what just happened? The XML site map now contains only the posts from blog-2… This is exactly why the wp-content directory was created. There’s hardly ever a need to put a file in the root of an installation, and by not doing so, you make it far easier to run your plug-in in a multi-site/WordPress MU environment.

Good practice #6: If you’re generating files, generate them in the wp-content directory of your blog. Do not write files to the root directory unless you absolutely, positively have to. And if you do have to do it, make sure it doesn’t go wrong when your plug-in is active on multiple blogs in the same multi-site instance.

Rethink Your Filters

On the day that I released 4.0, I got quite a few feature requests, ranging from very simple to somewhat more complex. One that came in quite rapidly and caught my eye happened to be quite simple: the user wanted the same outbound link that in my plug-in tracks the content of an article to track in text widgets. Because I don’t use text widgets that much, it never occurred to me to do this. It was a valuable lesson, though:

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Good practice #7: If you’re filtering content, try to filter it in as many places as you can, so that users get consistent results all over WordPress.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #1 is Professional Web Design, 242 pages for just $9,90.]

Never Assume

It’s true for everything, I guess, but especially true for WordPress developers: never assume. The seven best practices above mostly boil down to abandoning all assumptions about states, URLs and locations, and even about people knowing which version of a plug-in they’re using. Take all these matters into your own hands; your plug-in will be the better for it!

(al)

New eBook From Smashing Magazine: Mastering Photoshop For Web Design

frank — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:29:40 +0000

Mastering Photoshop for Web Design is the third book in our eBook series, and it’s definitely the best eBook we’ve published so far. It was written from scratch by our regular writer Thomas Giannattasio, exclusively for Smashing Magazine and its readers. We are very proud of the result, in particular because of the high quality of tips, ideas and techniques that Thomas — who is a deep expert in Adobe Photoshop — presents in his book.

Mastering Photoshop is written for advanced and intermediate designers who want to brush up on their workflow and improve their Photoshop skills. The eBook contains 178 pages, explaining fundamental techniques that Web designers need to know to produce high-quality work in Photoshop. You won’t find any generic step-by-step tutorials or learn random effects. You will gain a profound understanding of what you can do with Photoshop and how to use it effectively in your work.

All chapters have undergone a careful technical review by well-known designer, illustrator and speaker Elliot Jay Stocks. The book was proofread by our regular proofreader Andrew Lobo, and it has an attractive layout. The PDF can be printed and read on all devices.

The Author

Thomas Giannattasio is an interactive designer who resides in the Washington DC metro area. He specializes in Web design and front-end development, particularly art direction, website design and application design, and has 14 years of experience. Thomas cares strongly about typography, simplicity and user experience. He works as a senior designer for a global marketing firm and freelances under the name attasi.

Thomas’ articles on Smashing Magazine prove his expertise in Photoshop: The Ails of Typographic Anti-Aliasing and Unknown Photoshop Tricks and Time-Savers are two of the most useful Photoshop-related articles that Smashing Magazine has published over the years.

The Expert’s Opinion

“Photoshop is a powerful tool, and although the basics can be easy to grasp, mastering the application can be extremely difficult. This is where Mastering Photoshop comes in: it takes readers through the app in depth and relates all tasks back to the creative process. There’s much to learn in here, for beginners and experts alike.”

— Elliot Jay Stocks, designer, illustrator and speaker

The eBook, in PDF format, is ideal for archiving, for armchair or mobile reading (including the iPad and iPhone via iBooks and other apps) and of course for printing. You can order your copy of Mastering Photoshop for just $19,90 (or €16.95 if you live in the EU) starting now and exclusively in our Smashing Shop.

The book contains eight chapters:

Color Management
Colors can appear lighter or darker, more or less saturated, cooler or warmer, or just plain wrong depending on the user’s environment. This can be quite a problem, especially with a client’s brand-specific colors. As Web designers, our responsibility is to ensure that the experiences we craft are as true to the original as possible.
Paths
While Illustrator’s vector tools are much more powerful, Photoshop’s benefit lies in its ability to blend vector and raster data together seamlessly. Because Photoshop documents are based on a pixel grid, the path tools in Photoshop make them superior to Illustrator for designing on-screen media.
Layer Styles
Layer Styles are essential to creating flexible and non-degradable documents, because they’re separated from the layer’s actual content. In this chapter, we’ll cover how to create great-looking and reusable styles. We’ll also cover some unique effects and non-typical uses that help to consolidate excess layers.
Brushes
Mastering the digital brush is by no means easy. It carries the same difficulties as the sable brush hidden at the bottom of your art bin. In fact, the difficulty is multiplied by the disconnect between the hand and monitor. Developing Photoshop brush skill takes time, but it is well worth the effort.
Typography
While the majority of type on the Web is rendered by HTML, Photoshop is still necessary to handle treatment beyond the grasp of CSS. In this chapter, we’ll explore Photoshop’s type tools and discover ways to maximize the software’s typesetting capabilities.
Photography
A photograph — especially of the human face — immediately draws the user’s attention and can be used to direct eye flow to important areas of the page. Placing a large photograph above the fold is a common way to provide an entry point to the content. Because photographs are high above other elements in the hierarchy, they need to be handled with care and precision.
Exporting
Once you’ve polished every last pixel, it’s time to get your work into the browser. This is a pretty straightforward process, but properly optimizing your images is crucial. You need to maintain a balance between clarity and download speed. This requires multiple formats, varying levels of compression and other optimization techniques. In this chapter, we’ll explore the workflow of exporting images via the “Save for Web and Devices” dialog.
Summary

Sample Chapter and Screenshots

You can download the Chapter 4, Brushes (4.7 Mb, PDF) for free. Please consider buying the eBook if you find it useful or helpful.

Large view

Motivation behind the book

In the foreword, Thomas describes his motivation:

“This book was written in the hope of filling a gap — a gap that has existed for as long as designers have been using Photoshop for Web design; a gap that we so often fill with tutorials focused on the latest trends and on
inspiration galleries that are quickly browsed and forgotten; a gap that is growing as quickly as our technologies. It’s a gap of foundation.

The fast pace of the Internet has focused us on the latest and greatest techniques, which typically have a lifespan of only a few months. Rarely do we focus on the fundamentals — the principles that outlive the trends. Unfortunately, the principles often appeal to us less than the shiny and new.

Photoshop tutorials offer quick results. They hold our hands step by step until something incredible appears, but they rarely explain in depth the principles that allow us to create something unique and incredible of our own. If you’re a beginner, I hope this book gives you the comprehension you need to bring your ideas to life. If you’re a veteran, I hope it unveils some of the mysteries that have always boggled you.”

The book is not protected by DRM and is available exclusively in the Smashing Shop. Please respect our work and the hard effort of our writer. If you received this book from a source other than the Smashing Shop, please support us by purchasing your copy in our online store.

Thank you.

New eBook From Smashing Magazine: Mastering Photoshop For Web Design

frank — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:29:22 +0000

The Author

The Expert’s Opinion

— Elliot Jay Stocks, designer, illustrator and speaker

The book contains eight chapters:

Color Management
Colors can appear lighter or darker, more or less saturated, cooler or warmer, or just plain wrong depending on the user’s environment. This can be quite a problem, especially with a client’s brand-specific colors. As Web designers, our responsibility is to ensure that the experiences we craft are as true to the original as possible.
Paths
While Illustrator’s vector tools are much more powerful, Photoshop’s benefit lies in its ability to blend vector and raster data together seamlessly. Because Photoshop documents are based on a pixel grid, the path tools in Photoshop make them superior to Illustrator for designing on-screen media.
Layer Styles
Layer Styles are essential to creating flexible and non-degradable documents, because they’re separated from the layer’s actual content. In this chapter, we’ll cover how to create great-looking and reusable styles. We’ll also cover some unique effects and non-typical uses that help to consolidate excess layers.
Brushes
Mastering the digital brush is by no means easy. It carries the same difficulties as the sable brush hidden at the bottom of your art bin. In fact, the difficulty is multiplied by the disconnect between the hand and monitor. Developing Photoshop brush skill takes time, but it is well worth the effort.
Typography
While the majority of type on the Web is rendered by HTML, Photoshop is still necessary to handle treatment beyond the grasp of CSS. In this chapter, we’ll explore Photoshop’s type tools and discover ways to maximize the software’s typesetting capabilities.
Photography
A photograph — especially of the human face — immediately draws the user’s attention and can be used to direct eye flow to important areas of the page. Placing a large photograph above the fold is a common way to provide an entry point to the content. Because photographs are high above other elements in the hierarchy, they need to be handled with care and precision.
Exporting
Once you’ve polished every last pixel, it’s time to get your work into the browser. This is a pretty straightforward process, but properly optimizing your images is crucial. You need to maintain a balance between clarity and download speed. This requires multiple formats, varying levels of compression and other optimization techniques. In this chapter, we’ll explore the workflow of exporting images via the “Save for Web and Devices” dialog.
Summary

Sample Chapter and Screenshots

You can download the Chapter 4, Brushes (4.7 Mb, PDF) for free. Please consider buying the eBook if you find it useful or helpful.

Large view

Motivation behind the book

In the foreword, Thomas describes his motivation:

Thank you.

Storychasing Summer Camp

frank — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:41:13 +0000

Earlier this month, I had the privilege to accompany my son and his scout troop to summer camp in Colorado. Our group for the week included about 40 boys and 10 parents. Shortly after arriving at the church before our departure by charter bus, one of the other parents approached me and asked if I’d brought a laptop. I’m all for “disconnecting” and “unplugging” from technology at times, and I DID plan to do that at camp – but I also planned to do some writing on the “Powerful Ingredients 4 Blended Learning” project during the week. As a result, I brought my Dell Mini10 netbook along. Since I was the only person with a laptop on the trip, AND wifi was available in the Scoutmasters/adult leaders camp cabin, I become the designated storychaser for our trip. This meant I was the “go to” person for all the parents who were taking pictures of our scouts at camp and wanted to share them with the parents back home. In total, I think we had seven parents taking and submitting photos to me, all with different kinds of cameras and media storage cards. In addition, I took some videos with my iPhone 3GS and created a ten minute “highlights of summer camp” video which I edited and posted to YouTube right after we returned. DURING our time at summer camp, however, I uploaded almost one thousand photos to a Flickr collection I setup for the trip. In all, we collectively took and uploaded 1,136 photos of our boys’ summer camp experiences. I received good feedback from parents via email and in person during and after camp, that this provided a fun way for them to “follow along” in their own scout’s adventures at summer camp. In this post, I will share a bit about the process I followed uploading these photos, as well as some of my lessons learned storychasing summer camp.

To provide some organization to the large number of photos I knew I’d be uploading during the week of summer camp, I decided to organize our photos by day and upload them to Flickr into “sets” labeled by date. On my computer’s hard drive, I created folders for each parent’s full-size / uncompressed photos, and put those inside folders for each day. I kept track of which photos I had uploaded, because generally I was uploading 100 to 200 photos per day. This system worked pretty well.

Since we had parents using a wide variety of camera types with high resolutions, and our wifi connection from camp was “high speed” but still certainly limited in its upstream bandwidth, I needed a way to readily compress images before uploading them. This reduced the filesize of each image, making them upload faster, but still provided large images that are great to view and can even be used for small prints. I used the free Flickr Uploadr application, and in the app preferences chose to compress each image to a maximum of 1600 pixel width before uploading.

I have found it works best to upload photos with Flickr Uploadr in batches. Infrequently for some reason, an upload can “hang” or get stuck, and it can be necessary to start it again from the last photo not uploaded. The Uploadr program does quite a bit of processing of images too, when you choose NOT to upload full-quality images, and I’ve found it works faster if I upload smaller groups of photos rather than 100+ at a time. For my uploads from summer camp this year, I generally uploaded 50-60 images at a time. After each batch uploaded, Flickr Uploadr provides the option to put images in sets and add tags from the browser interface. It’s possible to do this in Uploadr first, but I found it easiest to just do this after each upload completed.

In the screenshot below, you can see tags I added to this particular batch of photos, as well as the Flickr set to which I wanted to add it.

The other post-uploading task I had to complete regularly was rotating images which were not taken vertically or in portrait view. I did this using the browser-based Flickr organizer. Again, I could have tried to find all the photos needing rotation in Flickr Uploadr prior to uploading, and rotated them there, but I found this easier to do in the browser afterward.

As I created new Flickr sets for each day, I added those to the Flickr collection I had created for the entire week. That way, our parents back home were able to simply check one site (the address for our Flickr collection) and view new photos which had been added there.

With hindsight, there are a few things I would have done differently and might do next time I have an opportunity to storychase a week-long event with the assistance of others.

It would have been great to have a multi-format digital camera card reader along. While not everyone shooting photos during the week brought their own USB cable to connect their camera to a laptop, we were able to use the three USB cables we had and swap out memory cards into different cameras to copy everyone’s media to my hard drive. A card reader would have made this process even simpler, however.
We didn’t give anyone “photo assignments” to make sure we covered all areas of camp activity and included all our boys in photos, but that might have been a good idea. With over 1000 photos taken, I think we did a pretty good job covering different aspects of camp, but it’s possible we missed some scouts or some activity areas. I’ll consider giving some “assignments” to storychaser photographers next time.
For some reason my primary email address was not a “member” of our parent Yahoo group for our scout troop before camp, so when I uploaded new photos I relayed that to another parent back home who posted the news and link to the Yahoo group. Next time it would be good to be able to directly update our parent Yahoo group without going through an intermediary.
Our troop has been working on a transition to a new WordPress site for the past six months, and that transition is not complete. As a result, we were not able to directly update the main homepage of our troop website from camp. It would be great to have direct access, via WordPress, to the site so we could have made updates there. That would make it easier for everyone back home (those in our Yahoo parent group and those who are not) to access our photos and videos.
I’d definitely opt to bring a netbook to camp again. The small size, long battery life, and light weight made it ideal for my needs. There is no way I’d want to have a full size, 15″ laptop at camp. A netbook was perfect, and I’d definitely use one again.

We had a GREAT time at summer camp, and it was fun to be able to help share our experiences with parents back home during the week. I hope in the months ahead, our storychasers team will be able to share these kinds of methods / techniques with others making trips and wanting to document “in real time” those experiences for others back home. Next summer, I would love to help organize and lead a Storychasers travel event which would focus on learning things from the places we visit, but also developing these skills of digitally documenting and sharing events with others online.

If you have a group for which you’d like some formal “storychasing” professional development / workshops, please contact me or contact Storychasers directly.

Technorati Tags:
boy, digital, digitalstorytelling, edmond, oklahoma, photo, scout, storychase, storychasing, storytelling, summer, camp, boyscout, photography, troop380, colorado, alexander, campalexander

Storychasing Summer Camp

frank — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 19:41:09 +0000

In the screenshot below, you can see tags I added to this particular batch of photos, as well as the Flickr set to which I wanted to add it.

With hindsight, there are a few things I would have done differently and might do next time I have an opportunity to storychase a week-long event with the assistance of others.

It would have been great to have a multi-format digital camera card reader along. While not everyone shooting photos during the week brought their own USB cable to connect their camera to a laptop, we were able to use the three USB cables we had and swap out memory cards into different cameras to copy everyone’s media to my hard drive. A card reader would have made this process even simpler, however.
We didn’t give anyone “photo assignments” to make sure we covered all areas of camp activity and included all our boys in photos, but that might have been a good idea. With over 1000 photos taken, I think we did a pretty good job covering different aspects of camp, but it’s possible we missed some scouts or some activity areas. I’ll consider giving some “assignments” to storychaser photographers next time.
For some reason my primary email address was not a “member” of our parent Yahoo group for our scout troop before camp, so when I uploaded new photos I relayed that to another parent back home who posted the news and link to the Yahoo group. Next time it would be good to be able to directly update our parent Yahoo group without going through an intermediary.
Our troop has been working on a transition to a new WordPress site for the past six months, and that transition is not complete. As a result, we were not able to directly update the main homepage of our troop website from camp. It would be great to have direct access, via WordPress, to the site so we could have made updates there. That would make it easier for everyone back home (those in our Yahoo parent group and those who are not) to access our photos and videos.
I’d definitely opt to bring a netbook to camp again. The small size, long battery life, and light weight made it ideal for my needs. There is no way I’d want to have a full size, 15″ laptop at camp. A netbook was perfect, and I’d definitely use one again.

If you have a group for which you’d like some formal “storychasing” professional development / workshops, please contact me or contact Storychasers directly.

Showcase Of Web Design In Poland

frank — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:04:43 +0000

Vodka, pickled cucumbers and Pope John Paul II might spring to mind when someone mentions Poland. Obviously there’s more to Poland than that. On the world map of design, Poland is marked by creative agencies that produce high-level design and employ some of the best programmers in the world. There’s also a crowd of freelancers and visionaries who have received worldwide recognition.

For the people I interviewed, Web design is life. The art directors and freelancers highlighted here work in all sorts of environments, and they answer questions related to our field. You’ll have the opportunity to see Polish Web design from a number of perspectives — and to form your own opinion while browsing selected productions.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that Smashing Magazine has one of the most influential and popular Twitter accounts? Join our discussions and get updates about useful tools and resources — follow us on Twitter!]

The State Of Things

Question: Can you name some of the milestones in Polish Web design? What are the biggest and most important productions in recent years?

Jacek Opaluch of K2 Internet: If milestones are things that have changed the perception of Web design, we have to mention Internet locations, events and designs. In my opinion, the locations would inlude mocnweb.pl, a forum that no longer functions and is probably only remembered by people over 30. It was a place where people could share their initial experiences and which, if I remember correctly, had the first carefully selected catalogue of Polish Web designers’ websites.

Then there was the everlasting webesteem.pl, steadily breaking records as the website with “the layout that never changed.” There were always several people around — some significant, like Bartek Gołębiowski, Jędrek Kostecki, Bartek Rozbicki, Wojtek Krosnowski, Wojtek Piotrowski, Piotr Łupiński and Łukasz Twardowski — whose attitude toward the Internet undoubtedly had great influence on thinking and design. There were many more people whose names I don’t remember, unfortunately, for which I apologize.

Chopin2010.pl

Certain designs are stuck in my mind. These were well known, not just in Poland, and sometimes they were great examples to follow. Some have been replaced by newer versions, so giving the URLs here might be pointless, but they definitely include: Max Weber’s pdk.pl, a Flash portal with much character (probably the first in Poland); Nokia (created by K2 Internet); plama.art.pl and its subsequent versions; feta.pl; Sullivan’s Productions; click5.pl; Ars Thanea; cookie.pl; and recently, StudioKxx and huncwot.com. These are all first-class websites. Unfortunately it’s impossible for me to name every excellent website.

In my opinion there were two other crucial events that gave shape to things: agencies went public (a sort of goodbye to the formative years of Web design) and eBay debuted in Poland. These events showed the quality of our service and proved that the Polish internaut had been highly underestimated abroad.

Question: Are there any significant differences between Web designing in Poland and in the rest of Europe when it comes to artistic development?

Jacek Opaluch: There are differences in budget, in the attitudes of clients and in understanding the Internet’s potential. Statistically, I don’t see any difference in the quality of the things we do: we win awards, we are jurors and we build among the best of the websites that present outstanding design — just like the rest of the world.

Zakochaj się w kolorze.

Kamil Kaniuk of Merix Studio: Polish programmers and coders are generally well regarded, which results from our observations and experience — often in cooperation with foreign firms. Numerous highly skilled Web developers are in Poland whose code is of world-class quality. Here at Merix Studio, we are searching for such people. The skills of our coders have been appreciated by the British company Independent News and Media, which prepared a series of test tasks for us before they decided to commission us to work on their leading brands (The Independent and Herald, for example).

We are less inspired by Flash achievements and augmented reality (so popular right now) than are other interactive agencies in Poland. We are more interested in the productions of smaller flexible firms such as 37signals, nclud, Reactive and Clearleft. We invest in flexible and cost-optimal open-source software (Drupal, WordPress, Magento), because it can easily substitute for expensive commercial solutions.

Open-source software is regarded slightly differently in Poland than it is in Western countries; the opinion that any self-respecting interactive agency should have its own original content management system (CMS) still prevails here, but this is not so. Just look at the US government: Whitehouse.gov is based on Drupal.

In the current period of economic slowdown, Western companies are looking for ways to reduce costs while maintaining good quality. Many companies outsource to such countries as Poland, and these companies often have funds at their disposal that allow them to be more open to creative ideas. This is encouraging for Polish Web designers.

Warszawska Jesień 2008

Question: When was the starting point of innovative Web design in Poland? When did new media settle in Poland for good?

Łukasz Twardowski of Cookie.pl: The first thing I remember from the Internet was an interactive advertising campaign for Frugo juice. The campaign was created by an agency, and it was the first Polish viral ad. It probably significantly increased interest in the Internet as a medium for advertising, and it collided with the so-called “Internet bubble,” which burst before any innovative design came into being.

Still, this was the time when most designers I admire became active. Some independent websites on Web design were created, like Mocny Web or Webesteem. They attracted people who already thought of themselves as designers for new media. Looking back, I see that what pushed us forward was energy and optimism rather than skills and knowledge.

I think we became aware of both (i.e. skills and the role of Web design) about three or four years ago, but the awareness wasn’t strong yet. The major problem with Web design in Poland is that the best interactive agencies give priority to advertising, and design is a secondary issue. Small clients such as photographers and architects, who might desire and deserve the best designs, often don’t have enough money to employ professionals. It’s great to see, though, that cultural institutions have more money to spend on the Internet, and they spend it wisely.

Question: Is it possible to identify specific patterns in Polish Web design? Is every significant website really different from all the rest?

Łukasz Twardowski: I wish Polish Web design had German discipline, Scandinavian simplicity and our knightly imagination. Polish designs are often much more daring than those of our neighbours. Still, if we want to develop our philosophy of design and be visible to the world, then we have to make more effort.

The economy in Poland has been improving, and the only thing we need now is more energy and optimism. Mocny Web died naturally, and Webesteem is on its last legs. What we lack is a central forum where young designers (in a sense, all of us are “young”) can see the spectacular Web designs and discuss them.

Flirt Camp

Kamil Kaniuk: We think that in Poland there are still no styles in Web design that would distinguish our country from others — that is, that any styles are unequalled. Although one could fairly easily enumerate some common features of designs created elsewhere (the meticulous detail and profound illustrations of Russia, for example, or the graphic-rich interfaces of the United States), no specific style dominates in Poland. However, the “transfer of ideas” (say from West to East) is much faster now than it was a few years ago.

Too often a design is a compromise between the vision of the designer and the requirements of the customer. Such designs tend to undergo amendments by the customer, which can change their original form. In our opinion, the openness of customers to modern solutions (e.g. non-standard interfaces based on JavaScript, like Xpiritmental) is less common in Poland than elsewhere. Foreign customers seem to be more open to our ideas and give us greater freedom, and they are ready to make use of technologies like JavaScript and AJAX.

That opens the gate to creativity and gives the freedom to implement interesting solutions. In many Polish agencies — including those that work with big brands and budgets — some cheap and mediocre designs are created out of necessity.

Kula.gov.pl

Question: What is it like to work as a freelancer in Poland? Is it drudgery or a stress-free job? Is it about keeping loyal clients or constantly searching for new ones?

Jan Stańko: We shouldn’t generalize; every freelancer is different. Starting off is definitely difficult. Without a strong position in the market, you have to look for clients on your own, and you have to convince people that you are trustworthy and deserve opportunities. There are plenty of freelancers, but unfortunately the majority of them are young and immature and have no idea about the business. They finish school and immediately call themselves professionals. It can end badly: very often the honest designers who treat the profession seriously and think of it as their future have to suffer the consequences.

In time, the serious freelancer gets clients and agencies start knocking on their door. Then you can choose the tasks you like the most, and that brings more money. Work gets difficult when you want to earn more money; it can mean sleepless nights, gallons of coffee and in my case, unfortunately, plenty of cigarettes.

There are moments of anxiety as well, usually brought on by people who pretend to know everything about the Internet but actually know very little. I guess the best solution is to cooperate with agencies on a regular basis. Agencies can take the burden of work overload and stress off your back. Also, their complex services give you the opportunity to meet more interesting clients. As for the future, time will tell. I’m not even halfway through my career. Trophies are still a long way ahead!

Bubole

Rafał Nastały: Earning one’s living as a freelancer in Poland without a recognized name can be incredibly tough. Independent clients often don’t want to sign contracts or pre-pay. They also think that preparing a layout is a piece of cake, so when they hear the price, they often back out. It’s very frustrating. It’s much more pleasant to cooperate with several agencies that can give you a fairly constant number of orders.

Piotr Biernawski: I have five or six regular clients. Sometimes a client withdraws, and it’s usually because of money. It’s never a disagreement about the terms of the contract but about actually sticking to these terms (payment can be long delayed, etc.). But when some go, others come. I’ve been working with longstanding clients for five years now.

Drudgery or a piece of cake? Definitely not a piece of cake. If it wasn’t for my strong connection to the mountains, which I love and where I do my hobbies, I would probably move to a bigger city and look for a full-time job. I also have a wife and child who are not very keen to move. However, I don’t think freelancing is drudgery; I can’t afford the latest model of BMW, but I work only about two hours a day. Even though you need to be psychologically strong to work like this, the lifestyle is great.

Łukasz Bronisz: I think it depends on the individual. Everyone arranges their time and work environment differently. Some people prefer working at night and waking up at dusk in order to meet a deadline. Most of us, however, try to work during regular hours. It allows you to be in touch with agencies, allows you to make light changes and corrections and lets you have a private life too.

I imagine that freelancing in Poland is similar to freelancing in other countries. It can be hard sometimes because of tight schedules or having a number of projects going at the same time. On the other hand, you always have the opportunity to relax or even take a break for a couple of days. No one arranges your time or dictates your schedule.

Also, though, no one checks on you. If you choose to freelance, for which your income depends on how much you work, it’s reasonable to cooperate with several agencies. Doing this usually gives you enough orders that you don’t have to worry about the next month and can concentrate on your work. Of course, it’s always good to look for new projects so that you develop and diversify your designs.

Łukasz Bronisz

Konrad Wysokiński: It’s still quite difficult to get by as a freelancer in Poland, although there are probably some people who don’t have to worry about work or can be picky about contracts. I often get the impression that people still don’t know what good design is or know that it costs money. For many people, the Internet is still a must: “People are talking about it, so let’s make a website — but make it as cheap as possible.” Some company owners have this attitude. As a result they ask someone, anyone, who knows a little bit about Photoshop (a brother-in-law’s daughter) to create the cheapest website possible. Thankfully, this has been changing steadily, like our society in general, and I hope that our sensitivity to the profession of Web design will increase with time.

Mateusz Jakobsze: The Web design market in Poland has been gradually expanding. A lot of people freelance to get rid of the constraints of working for agencies. They want creative freedom and to earn more money. Undoubtedly, an advantage to freelancing in Poland is the opportunity to work for clients abroad who pay in Euro or American dollars. The ability to choose which clients and agencies to cooperate with is a big advantage as well. I always try to look abroad for new clients and to network. I have some regular clients as well as a couple of interactive agencies that I often collaborate with. We socialize not only at work but also at parties and unofficial get-togethers. It’s good to maintain informal relationships with your clients.

Mateusz Jakobsze

Question: How does the Web design and development market look in Poland? Is it possible to earn one’s living from freelancing alone?

Jan Stańko: It is possible, definitely. Many people are self-subsisting freelancers, including me. There are quite a lot of agencies and enough clients, and whether we get by depends on our hard work, consistency and responsibility. When it comes to cooperation with agencies, it usually goes smoothly; it’s the clients who are the weak link. But even that has been changing. The Internet is still a brand new thing for many people. Non-professionals find it difficult to catch up with the news that keeps popping up in the field, and sometimes this can result in misunderstanding.

Rafał Nastały: Freelancing is not for everyone. You need to be self-disciplined and consistent to work as a freelancer. When you collaborate with agencies that know how to communicate with clients and that pay generously, you can have a relatively high standard of living.

One negative aspect is the lack of credibility at the bank (getting a big loan is difficult), so if you’re not a high-profile Web designer, the best option is to have a full-time job and take additional work from other sources now and then. This creates financial stability. A bonus like that — a well-paid creative task — is actually very nice. There are of course some freelancers for whom one layout is worth more than the monthly earning of others.

Warszawska Jesień 2009

Piotr Biernawski: It is certainly possible to earn a living from freelancing. I know some people who earn more than ten thousand a month. I’m not talking about famous names here, but about people from small towns, “unheard of” names in our line of business. Considering the time I devote to work, I am not an example of this, but I can afford everyday living: mortgage, alcohol and cigarettes!

Łukasz Bronisz: I think that the Polish market is pretty good. It’s a young market. Actually the whole business is young. Polish clients have become more aware of the Internet in recent years. Plenty of talented people are in the trade in Poland. If you know how to organize your time effectively, talk to people and sometimes work more than the standard eight hours, then freelancing is enough to earn a living. The important thing is to be consistent and up to date.

Konrad Wysokiński: I’ll quote part of a conversation I had with a colleague, a designer. I asked him once, “Can you earn a living from freelancing?” He said, “It depends on your standard of living.” You can get by, of course, but you probably won’t make a fortune. I often get the impression that in Poland this type of work is considered a craft and is not treated with respect like other “professional” work. We are very far from the image of the Web designer you see in Hollywood movies, who has a five million dollar house with a swimming pool, has his own agent and who is the top Web designer for the most famous brands.

Konrad Wysokiński

Mateusz Jakobsze: It’s not much different from what you see in other countries. We have many arenas where graphic designers can display their work, like themed blogs and Internet forums. The majority of creative agencies and independent clients look for employees that way.

Freelance Web designing has been developing in Poland: about a quarter of agencies outsource on a regular basis, and more than a third use freelancers for selected projects. So, there are opportunities to work on different brands for different companies, which is good for both present and future freelancers.

Special workplaces and offices have gradually emerged where there is no boss and all the workers are freelancers. We have such a place in Poznań. It’s a great idea to have freelancers from different professions gathered in one place. I hope for more initiatives like that.

Question: What inspires you? Do you approach every design differently and enthusiastically, or is it sometimes like mass production?

Jan Stańko: Mass production kills creativity, so I avoid it as much as I can. I prefer to do less work better. Then you can show a portfolio that you are really proud of. It’s the only way I work.

Honestly, my inspiration comes from the work of other designers, both from Poland and abroad. Behance.net is a really amazing source, vast and rich. I don’t have a specific example, but this ocean of artistic ideas fuels creativity and prepares you to bring your own ideas to life. Then it just flows.

Rafał Nastały: When I have the freedom of choice and some time on my hands, I try to make something original that appeals to both me and the client. But it sometimes happens that there are several tasks and the deadline is “yesterday.” In this situation, I bear down and work like a robot while trying to maintain a high quality of work. I get inspiration from the Internet. I regularly visit websites devoted strictly to Web design like FWA, DesignFollow and obviously Smashing Magazine. I also visit DesignYouTrust, FormFiftyFive and FFFFound. You can find plenty of great art and designs from many fields.

Piotr Biernawski: Sometimes a free mind, a break from work and lack of inspiration are the best sources of inspiration! I work most effectively after a two-week break in which I do absolutely nothing — but such breaks happen only once in a while. This is why a freelancer needs to be psychologically strong, otherwise getting depressed is easy.

As for inspiration, I have bookmarked several links. They are mostly Polish productions, and I visit them now and then. Given how much I work, this may sound strange, but one’s attitude to design makes a difference. Unfortunately for me, the majority of my recent projects were due “yesterday.” A client pays for fast work, and standards have to be met. There isn’t always a sense of achievement when you work quickly, but as long as the client is satisfied, I’m happy as well. Some interesting projects require more involvement. Usually these are not assigned by agencies but by independent clients who come directly to me. Maybe this tells us something?

Reserved.pl

Łukasz Bronisz: I treat every design individually and use new ideas and techniques. When I start a project, I try to get a sense of what the client likes, but I also aim to be satisfied with my own work. It’s nice when everything goes smoothly and both the client and agency like your idea. Working with individuals can be tough; sometimes they just don’t appreciate your effort, which can compromise the result. This is typical both in Poland and abroad — at least, that has been my experience.

Konrad Wysokiński: I get inspiration from all around. I sometimes do corporate identity design, which can inspire me. Naturally, I watch the best people at work and keep up with the trends. I’m a fan of grunge design, but very rarely can I use it. Every project is a new challenge for me, so I give my heart and soul to each and every design. I’m never convinced by lines like, “Do it quicker and simpler for a lower price.” I believe it’s impossible to make something look professional without taking a professional approach.

Strzyg

Mateusz Jakobsze: Like every creative job, graphic design requires participation. To keep up to date with all the news in both Web and graphic design, I regularly visit the important portals and blogs devoted to this line of work, be they Polish or international. The crucial ones include Behance, Smashing Magazine, DeviantArt, the FWA and New Web Pic. Additionally, I find reading and browsing books on advertising, typography, designing for the Web (including for portfolios, Flash websites and e-commerce shops) and graphic design useful. It can also be a good way to relax and get away from the digital world to some degree.

The last (but most important) sources of inspiration for me are sleep and having a life outside of work (away from my computer). Socializing with friends and going to parties, cinema, opera and other cultural events renew my energy for creative work.

When it comes to designs, I treat every project differently, but I always try to have a plan, an idea of how to do the project, from beginning to end. I make some sketches, and when know exactly what I want, I get down to work. Every design is a new challenge. I set higher standards for myself every day, and I strive to be the best at what I do.

Showcase Of Beautiful Web Design From Poland

McDonald’s Happy Meal

Showcase Of Interactive And Creative Agencies In Poland

Design-Related Websites

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Video Interview at WordCamp Raleigh

frank — Thu, 27 May 2010 12:30:05 +0000

To those of you who don’t know, this past weekend I was at WordCamp Raleigh. It was my first WordCamp, and overall I found it to be a great experience. I met a bunch of people in the WordPress community, and everyone I encountered was very friendly and welcoming.

While I was there, I met Jeffro of WP Tavern and he pulled me aside to do a video interview. In the interview I talk about:

My experiences at WordCamp so far, including the quality of the cookies
Anything new I’ve learned from the sessions, including what I can apply to theming
Whether or not I will attend future WordCamps wearing a lab coat
Future plans for Theme Lab, including the Underground

I’ve embedded it after the jump, check it out.

Let me know what you think of the interview in the comments. And now that WordCamp Raleigh is over, as well as the Page.ly contest, I’ll get back to the regularly scheduled content including themes, tutorials, and CSS tips galore.

Importance of Web Interactivity: Tips and Examples

frank — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:24:44 +0000

There are many elements that go into the creation of a website. A website is the best medium to communicate with users from all over the world. It is therefore essential, it should be designed in such a way that users should be attracted and be engaged on the site. This is when a website can reach its users effectively.

Designers have often wondered about the secret ingredient to make a website appealing. The combination of design and functionality is something every designer wishes to implement in a site. Many successful websites have one main secret ingredient, not every designer is aware about. That element is website interactivity.

What is Web Interactivity?

A simple example can illustrate this point. Picture this: 2 shopping stores are right next to each other. However, one attracts more customers than the other although both have the same goods. This is only because of one reason. The one shop that attracts more customers uses the concept of interaction with people. This is in terms of consumer suggestions, attractive offers, contests and displays. The whole scenario draws people as the overall environment makes a customer feel more comfortable.

In terms of web design, the concept can work in the same manner. The trick lies in a subtle use of web interactions to attract users and cause them to engage on a page.

Here, we can take another example. A radio button or hyperlinks are elements of a web interface. Contrast these with a 3Dimensional Cube or a 3Dimensional Flip Book, both being examples of interactivity. They are complete experiences of doing stuff that engages users with web pages whilst the user is going through the information displayed on the website. This is what makes these examples stand out. The use of interactivities woven very creatively with website content makes them successful in capturing user-attention.

How does one achieve website interactivity?

There are many elements that can be focused upon to achieve web interactivity that attracts users. The main subject of the website should be taken into consideration. This can give a clue as to the kind of interaction to be used. For example, a product website will have various categories on display. The range should be presented in an interactive manner rather than plain rows of products. A 3Dimensional Flip Book can be used to its advantage to showcase a range of products with the relevant information. A user gets engaged whilst flipping through the book.

The creation of these website interactivities requires time to be spent on technical details. However, in the recent times, designers can create these interactivities within minutes without any programming with rapid interactivity software that is available in the market.

Examples of great interactivity websites

Infinit Colours
This example shows the creative use of design and content. The design of the website is such that it engages users from the first moment itself. A user can change the background of the website. Besides, the menu is simple and hangs freely at the bottom area. It can even be dropped down if required. The color and layout used is clutter free. The text is neat without seeming too overpowering yet giving the message to be conveyed. The company is an advertising based company that conveys to users about the abundance of creativity.

Starbucks Coffee at Home
This brand sure does know how to impress its users with loads of creativity that is used generously on its site! A user can simply know the kind of coffee taste he/she is more suited to by taking a simple Find my Perfect Coffee quiz. It makes browsing the site fun and interactive. A user can view the different types of coffee available by moving the cursor over the coffee packets as shown in the image.

Square Circle
This creative agency does know how to connect with its users. Prospective clients are bound to be impressed with the way the site engages the users; one needs to pan through the page and zoom in to view details.

Roth Aniko
This artist manages to display the portfolio in an interactive manner. In this website, users can find a good balance of color, layout along with the interesting presentation of information that engages users.

Harry Potter
Harry Potter lovers will surely love this interactive site which has used interesting elements for display. The picture gallery is used in an interesting way with the pictures revolving around the main figure as shown in the image.

Cathy Beck Communication
The home page of this website involves little interaction. But as a user clicks on the tabs, the layout unfolds into an interesting layout with a zoom panel in the corner; a user can zoom in and out and is engaged on the site!

Magnivate Interactive Boutique Agency
This creative agency has used a unique approach on their site. The site has a cartoon character which takes a user through the various segments in a very interactive way.

Data Fisher
The company information is presented through an interactive 3Dimensional book. This book has a very creative mix of visuals and company information, the combination of which makes the content very readable!

Mercedes A-to-S
This site is one of the perfect examples of a creative and intelligent use of interactivities. The various features of the Mercedes car are explained through a very intelligent use of Flash. The quality of leather can actually be ‘felt’ once the cursor is clicked and dragged over the surface as shown in the image.

Nokia 3110 Evolve
This Nokia website has a very interesting and engaging interaction, where in a user can move the cursor over the mobile phones and the entire angle of the phone changes.

In the same website, a click on the phone enlarges it, as shown in the image. The phone can be viewed in a 3Dimensional way which definitely appears more interesting as compared to a display of images.

Aparte Graphique
The website has a great combination of interactivity. There is a cartoon character along with an engaging way of presentation of information.

Monoface
This creative agency knows how to display its creativity rather than talk about it! The main image can be played around with, by changing the facial features to try many funny combinations!

Unfortunate Events movie
This popular movie needs no introduction as it is full of creative effects. The website is created on the same lines; users can move the cursor over the elements to know details. These are shown in a very creative fashion keeping in mind the concept of the movie.

Website interactivity thus forms to be a very important ingredient for web design. Has this idea made you have a second glance at your website? I would love to hear your response about website interactivity.

Let us share our experiences right here, keep the comments rolling in!

About Author: Poonam works as Product Manager at Harbinger Group and looks after Raptivity Web Expert. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and is an active blogger.

Ultimate List of Design Conferences, Tradeshows, and Expos

frank — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:01:18 +0000

Attending Conferences, Workshops and Trainings is a great way to stay up to date on what’s going on in your field. They’re also a great way to network and stay in touch with other professionals in your field. So here’s a list of a bunch of conferences all over the US and even a few international conferences. They’re roughly split into Graphic Design conferences and Web Design conferences but there is a lot of crossover and a lot of good stuff that anyone could pick up in both industries.

Graphic Design

HOW Design Conference

June 24-27, 2009 – Austin, TX – The 2009 HOW Conference program features a wide range of sessions on everything from getting new clients to boosting your creativity. The sessions are divided into seven tracks—Creativity, Design Disciplines, Business, Your Career, In-House, Technology & Production and the HOW Learning Center.

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Re-Thinking…Design

June 17-18, 2009 – San Fransico, CA – Re-Thinking … Design is an opportunity for the community of smart designers to collaborate on the leadership role that Design should take to shape our future. We will examine how Design thinking is becoming a change agent for transforming the deep fissures in our cultural and business systems, and creating emerging opportunities to elevate the impact of our contributions.

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TypeCon2009: Rhythm

July 14-19, 2009 – Atlanta, GA – Presented b the Society of Typographic Aficionados this conference is for the designer that wants a conference all about typography.

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ATypI Conference

October 26-30, 2009 – Mexico City, Mexico – ATypI (Association Typographique Internationale) is the premier worldwide organisation dedicated to type and typography. Founded in 1957, ATypI provides the structure for communication, information and action amongst the international type community.

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Make/Think: AIGA Design Conference

October 8-11, 2009 – Memphis, TN – “Make/Think,” the 2009 AIGA Design Conference, will explore the dual roles of designers as makers of beautiful things and strategic problem solvers. Join us in Memphis to celebrate design excellence, reinforce friendships and connections and stimulate thinking about the critical issues that surround design practice.

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ad tech

Various Locations – Various Dates – ad:tech is an interactive advertising and technology conference and exhibition. Worldwide shows blend keynote speakers, topic driven panels and workshops to provide attendees with the tools and techniques they need to compete in a changing world.

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Compostmodern

February 21, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – Compostmodern 09, an annual interdisciplinary conference for designers and business leaders dedicated to promoting sustainable design solutions. The one-day event explores the current and future potential for ecologically sustainable growth and responsible design, focusing on real world solutions and practical applications of design thinking.

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Better: Design for Social Causes

February 28, 2009 – Princeton University – Do designers have a responsibility towards shaping our society’s conscience? How can design compel disaffected audiences to take action on social issues? BETTER, the second-annual Princeton University design conference, brings together students and renowned professionals together to confront these questions.

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Plus

November 5-8, 2008 – Birmingham, England – Plus is a unique design-led festival showcasing all that is innovative, pioneering, and novel in the world of international typo/graphic design.

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DXR 09

May 1-9, 2009 – Raleigh, NC – DXR ’09 will be a week long celebration of the incredible designers who call North and South Carolina home and the innovative work being created in these two states. The theme for this year’s event is “Designing Change.” We have a powerful and wonderful design community – it’s time we show the rest of the world what we’re doing to mold our future.

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Photoshop World Conference & Expo

October 1-3, 2009 – Las Vegas, NV – You’ve never seen a training camp like this! Photoshop World is the ONLY Photoshop and digital photography conference designed to put you at the top of your game with fast and furious classes from the world’s leading experts. Photoshop World is where Photoshop Users go to learn hard and play even harder!

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SEGD09: Society for Environmental Graphic Design

May 2-30, 2009 – San Diego, CA – Design is increasingly global, pan-disciplinary, multi-media, and amorphous, defying traditional boundaries or categories. Where does architecture stop and graphic communication begin? At the 2009 SEGD Conference + Expo— themed “Blurring the Boundaries”— we’ll celebrate the dynamic, category-defying state of design today.

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Technical Association of the Graphic Arts

March 15-18, 2009 – New Orleans, LA – Organized in 1948, TAGA is the only global professional technical association for the graphic arts industries. TAGA focuses on graphic arts systems, software, and computer technology developments, as well as the more traditional areas of press, ink, and paper engineering applications.

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SIGGRAPH 2009

August 3-7, 2009 – New Orleans, LA – Stimulate. Collaborate. Create. SIGGRAPH is the highest quality, most timely educational experiences the community has to offer, presented by the most powerful and most engaging leaders in computer graphics and interactive techniques.

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FUSE Design Conference

April 22-24, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – This year, at the 13^th annual FUSE design conference, we focus on authenticity by celebrating the power of collective knowledge through collaboration. You will hear REAL stories about creative directors and brand strategists who plan to unite to meet the challenges posed by our uncertain future.

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Gain: AIGA Business and Design Conference

2010 – TBA – There’s a recap on the 2008 conference but no info on the 2010 conference yet – At “Gain,” attendees heard today’s success stories from a select group of business and design leaders from a variety of industries, who teamed up to share their innovative approaches to generating greater return on investment, fostering emotional connections and providing positive brand experiences for customers.

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View Digital Convergency

November 4-7, 2009 – Turin, Italy – VIEW Conference is the premiere international event in Italy on Computer Graphics, Interactive Techniques, Digital Cinema, 3D Animation, Gaming and VFX.

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Design City 2009

November 12-14, 2009 – Ontario, Canada – Stay on top of your industry! Visit Design City and see the latest graphic design tools, services, and products from the world’s largest vendors. You’ll see and test software that you’ve been wanting to try, you’ll meet the people that you talk to on the phone every day, and you’ll be wowed by some of the latest technology created for your profession.

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Intergraphic

January 12-14, 2010 – Paris, France

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Design Indaba 2009

February 25-27, 2009 – Cape Town, South Africa – By attracting the world’s brightest talent, Design Indaba has become a respected institution on the creative landscape and one of the few multi-sectoral events that celebrates all the creative sectors –graphic design, advertising, film, music, fashion design, industrial design, architecture, craft, visual art, new media, publishing, broadcasting and performing arts.

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5d:09 The Immersive Design Conference

October 1-3, 2009 – Long Beach, CA – Join renowned designers and thinkers for three days of inspiring, educational and career-enhancing discussions and networking focused on the challenges of world-building and the evolving nature of entertainment content creation and story-driven architectural environments.

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Web Design and Development

MIX09: Web Design and Development Conference

March 18-20, 2009 – Las Vegas, NV – Take your web development and design skills to the next level at MIX09. Now in its fourth year, the MIX conference is a gathering of designers and developers who are building the world’s most innovative web sites.

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World Wide Web International Conference

April 20-24, 2009 – Madrid, Spain – The World Wide Web Conference is the global event that brings together key researchers, innovators, decision-makers, technologists, businesses, and standards bodies working to shape the Web.

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Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference

April 27-30, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – At the Voices That Matter: Web Design Conference to be held in San Francisco, California, in April, you can sharpen your skills and strengthen your resume with new techniques and strategies from the most respected professionals in the Web design industry.

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Web Design World

July 20-22, 2009 – Seattle, WA – The design conference for the here and now. These days, everyone’s having to do more with less. We get that. That’s why Web Design World Seattle is all about teaching you what you need today. Like CSS and markup that’s easy to maintain and broadly accessible. Web typography that carries your message and is beautiful to look at. And more…

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An Event Apart: For People Who Make Websites – Seattle

May 4-5, 2009 – Seattle, WA – Join Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman and special guests to gain a deeper understanding of web standards and best practices. Be inspired by fresh ideas and creative new directions. Spend two days with the greatest minds and hottest talents in web design today.

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An Event Apart: For People Who Make Websites – Boston

June 22-23, 2009 – Boston, MA – Join Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman and special guests to gain a deeper understanding of web standards and best practices. Be inspired by fresh ideas and creative new directions. Spend two days with the greatest minds and hottest talents in web design today.

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An Event Apart: For People Who Make Websites – Chicago

October 12-13, 2009 – Chicago, IL – Join Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman and special guests to gain a deeper understanding of web standards and best practices. Be inspired by fresh ideas and creative new directions. Spend two days with the greatest minds and hottest talents in web design today.

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An Event Apart: For People Who Make Websites – San Francisco

December 7-8, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – Join Eric Meyer, Jeffrey Zeldman and special guests to gain a deeper understanding of web standards and best practices. Be inspired by fresh ideas and creative new directions. Spend two days with the greatest minds and hottest talents in web design today.

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Future of Web Design London 2009

April 30 – May 1, 2009 – London, England – It’s that time of year again, FOWD is back to London! We’ve got some amazing speakers lined up for you this year and a few more to be announced! It’s gonna be bigger and better than ever. Don’t miss out!

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In Control 2009: AIGA Cincinnati

June 11-12, 2009 – Cincinnati, Ohio – Learn from a diverse array of Web experts to use modern tools and techniques to refine your Web design craft now. Harness creative inspiration to unlock your potential, amplify innovation, and broaden your reach. Immerse yourself in two days of idea exchange with potential business partners who are as forward-thinking as you are.

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Future of Web Apps Tour 2009

May 27 – June 3, 2009 – Various Cities, England – That’s right folks, we’re taking FOWA on the road in 09. We’re hitting four UK cities in May and June 2009 to bring you a FREE workshop on “Cloud computing” and an afternoon of web apps and speed networking. Don’t miss out.

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Big (D)esign Conference

May 30, 2009 – Dallas, TX – The Big Design Conference is an intense day of learning within the scope of Strategy, Social Media, User Experience, and Code Development. Experts from across the country will gather to present theories, research, experiences, and best practices to students, professionals, and executives looking to stay on the bleeding edge.

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Usability Week 2009

Various Dates – Various Locations – Usability Week 2009 takes you beyond the typical conference experience, offering a three-day usability camp, a three-day intensive session on interaction design, and several specialized, day-long tutorials on core usability topics.

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WebVisions

May 20-22, 2009 – Portland, OR – Explore the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy at the Oregon Convention Center for three days of mind-melding on what’s new in the digital world. Get a glimpse into the future, along with practical information that you can apply to your Web site, company and career.

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Web 2.0 Expo – San Francisco

March 31 – April 3, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – Web 2.0 Expo is a conference and tradeshow for everyone who cares about embracing and extending the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies.

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Web 2.0 Expo – New York

November 16-19, 2009 – New York, NY – Web 2.0 Expo is a conference and tradeshow for everyone who cares about embracing and extending the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies.

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CRE8 Conference

April 14-16, 2009 – Orlando, FL – Improve Your Marketing & Creative Effectiveness

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Web 3.0 Conference

May 19-20, 2009 – New York City, NY – The core idea behind web 3.0 is to extract much more meaningful, actionable insight from information. At the conference, we will explore how companies are using these technologies today, and should be using them tomorrow, for significant bottom line impact in areas like marketing, corporate information management, customer service, and personal productivity.

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The Next Web Conference

April 15-17, 2009 – Amsterdam -The Next Web 2009 is the fourth edition of the conference that began in 2006. 900+ Internet professionals gather for 3 days to enjoy Amsterdam, the conference and to do business.

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The Web Design and Developer Conference

October 15-16, 2008 – Orlando, FL – The Web Design and Developer Conference brings the entire workflow together — from design and prototyping through development and testing. Whether you’re targeting the desktop, web browsers, or mobile devices, you need to deliver your solutions quickly and efficiently.

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Web Developers Conference

October 21, 2009 – Bristol, England – The Web Developers Conference is a chance for students and professionals to get the latest on what’s going on in the Web Industry.

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webdu 2009

May 21-22, 2009 – Sydney, Australia – The conference offers the opportunity to get hands-on technical training, gain new skills, hear breaking news from the Web Industry, network with peers and industry leaders, and ultimately become more successful developing and delivering web applications. Nowhere else in ANZ can this audience find the volume and quality of information available under one roof at webDU.

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IxDA Interaction 09

February 5-8, 2009 – Vancouver BC, Canada – Join several hundred Interaction Designers from around the world as we address the design of interactive systems of all types: applications (web and desktop), mobile, consumer electronics, digitally enhanced environments, and more. Start your year off with stimulating talk, fun parties, and smart discussions about our growing field.

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FITC 2009

April 25-28, 2009 – Ontario, Canada – From Flash to motion design, to Flex and AIR, to design and inspiration, FITC events stand as unique and exciting events that educate, challenge, and inspire. The idea behind all of our events is to bring like-minded people together. Presenters and attendees who have a passion for the industry for, flash, design and the new and exciting.

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Other Conferences

Macworld Conference and Expo

February 9-13, 2010 – San Francisco, CA – Macworld Conference & Expo is a five day celebration that will educate, entertain, and immerse you in the Mac community. With two full halls of exhibitors, Macworld offers access to hundreds of Mac products and services, paired with expert advice, demonstrations and instruction.

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Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2009

June 8-12, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) provides developers and IT professionals with in-depth technical information and hands-on learning about the powerful technologies in iPhone OS and Mac OS X from the Apple engineers who created them.

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BlackBerry Developer Conference

November 9-11, 2009 – San Francisco, CA - If you’re already developing applications for the BlackBerry platform, about to get started with your first project, or just want to know more about the technical advantages of this world-class platform, the BlackBerry Developer Conference is the place to be.

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What is the best conference you’ve ever been to? Are there any big ones that we missed? Do you think these conferences are worth the time and expense?

Adobe AIR Developer’s Toolbox: Resources And Tutorials

frank — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:14:05 +0000

Originally called Apollo, Adobe Air was released in beta back in 2007 and has gone from strength to strength ever since. You can build an Adobe Air app using HTML, JavaScript, Flash or ActionScript relatively simply. Basically anyone with even a little knowledge of programming and a little patience can create rich Internet applications.

Below, we present the Adobe AIR Developer’s Toolbox: Resources and Tutorials, a round-up of tutorials, links, references, cheat sheets and showcases that will help you create the next popular app.

What is AIR and How To Get Started?

First things first: Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) is a cross-platform runtime environment for building rich Internet applications using Adobe Flash, Adobe Flex, HTML, or Ajax, that can be deployed as a desktop application. The runtime bridges the “classic” user experience within Web-applications and rich, highly sophisticated user experience in modern desktop-applications.

To do so, the runtime complements the browser adding desktop integration, local data access, embedded database, convenient desktop APIs and a cross-operating system compatibility. In other words, Adobe Air makes it possible for web-developers to run rich Internet applcations outside the web browser (similar to Mozilla’s Prism) – on the desktop – and also guarantess cross-compatibility across operating systems. Hence, applications are created using a mixture of JavaScript, HTML, and Flash. The resulting application is delivered to end users in a single package and rendered using the WebKit HTML engine.

The only requirement is that the users of AIR-applications have the AIR runtime engine installed (very much like Adobe Flash users need to have the Flash-plugin installed on their system). In fact, Adobe AIR is becoming more and more popular with over 100 million installations of the engine across the globe and over 470 AIR-applications featured on Adobe AIR Market Place.

Adobe AIR SDK

To get you started, you will need the runtime environment for running AIR applications on your OS (download the latest version of Adobe AIR – you will be asked for the OS you are using). You will also need the Adobe AIR Software Development Kit (SDK) to develop, build and deploy Adobe AIR applications.

This development kit (will provide you with the framework for AIR APIs, a template for the Adobe AIR application install badge, the command-line Adobe AIR Debug Launcher and the command-line Adobe AIR Developer tool. The kits are available for Mac OS X (22.1 Mb), Windows (15.8 Mb) and Linux (18.5 Mb).

Official Adobe AIR Resources

For quick reference here is a brief overview of the essential official Adobe AIR resources that may come in handy for developers of AIR-applications.

Adobe AIR Help, Support and Forums

Adobe AIR Development Tools and References

AIR applications can be developed with any IDE or text editor using HTML, JavaScript, and/or Flash. You can then use the free Adobe AIR SDK to package the applications for deployment on Adobe AIR.

Aptana Studio
Aptana Studio is a free open-source AJAX development environment that offers such features as JavaScript debugging, full HTML/CSS/JS content assist, FTP support and integrated samples. Aptana Studio also offers a plug-in for Adobe AIR development that combines the fully featured Web development environment and complete support for developing, running and exporting Adobe AIR applications.

Adobe Flex Builder 3
An Eclipse-based developer tool that allows for coding, interactive debugging and visual design of the user interface and behavior of Flex applications. Includes support for building desktop applications with Adobe AIR.

De MonsterDebugger
De MonsterDebugger is an open-source debugger for Adobe Flash, Flex and AIR. De MonsterDebugger itself was built with Flex and AIR.

Adobe AIR Extensions for Dreamweaver
The Adobe AIR extension for Dreamweaver allows you to package and preview AIR application files directly in Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 or CS4, so you can leverage your existing Web development skills to build rich Web-applications on the desktop.

ScaleNine
ScaleNine provides inspiration and resources to designers and developers working with Adobe technologies. The site offers a variety of themes and skins to turn vanilla Flex and AIR applications into custom visual experiences.

JavaScript Language Reference for Adobe AIR
Overview of the JavaScript Language Reference for Adobe AIR.

Adobe AIR Cheat Sheets

Adobe AIR JavaScript Developers Pocket Guide
This book provides a quick introduction to developing applications for Adobe AIR. The book gives an overview of Adobe AIR, shows how to set up your development environment, and discusses new Adobe AIR functionality and APIs. Once you have finished reading this book, you should have a good understanding of what Adobe AIR is as well as how to build HTML and JavaScript applications for it.

AIR Cheatsheet
This 7-pages long Adobe AIR cheat sheet, created by Sean Moore – print out, learn and use as a quick reference.

Understanding the Potential of Adobe Integrated Runtime (AIR) (PDF)
Most of the information that’s been made available about Adobe AIR so far, has been written for the programmers that are building applications, not for the visionaries that are designing the client experiences. The objective of this paper is to provide executives, project managers, marketers and other visionaries with an introduction to Adobe AIR, and information about how Adobe AIR can be leveraged to create next generation web experiences.

Adobe AIR Free Samples

Download free sample applications that will help you get started using Adobe AIR.

AIR Examples
A bunch of Adobe AIR examples that can be downloaded and used for free. Flex and ActionScript examples are available as well.

Adobe AIR for Linux Sample Applications
This page includes basic applications for Linux built by Adobe engineers to demonstrate capabilities of the runtime.

Six must-see Adobe AIR sample applications
Applications available include Twitter Desktop, Kuler Desktop, Fresh, Finetune Desktop, DiggTop and SearchCoders.

Kevin Hoyt – JavaScript AIR Samples Updated (and more)
A great collection of 75 Adobe Air samples from Kevin Hoyt.

Adobe AIR Beginner Tutorials

Introduction to Adobe Air
“This tutorial introduces you to Adobe Air, a framework to build rich Internet applications.” The first introduction shows you how to create a simple application using HTML/JS technologies.

Build your first Adobe AIR App
This walks you through all of the basic steps of setting up your development environment for the AIR SDK, with explanations of file dependencies and AIR’s Sandbox Security model. One of the coolest parts of the tutorial is learning how to store data via the AIR API.

AIR 101
To be launched in AIR, an HTML or SWF application requires an application XML file (a.k.a. an application descriptor file). You can almost consider this application XML file the actual AIR application file: it is initially opened and read by AIR, it specifies application properties such as application window name and size, and it identifies which file (HTML or SWF) is to be loaded into the AIR container.

AIR Beginner Tutorials: Publishing an Application
In this tut, you’ll learn how to publish your work and create an installer for it.

Create a To-do List in Five Minutes Using JavaScript and AJAX
In this tutorial, you will be shown how to build a simple Web-based application for the desktop with Adobe AIR.

An Introduction To AIR on Linux
This how-to-article explains how to install, run and use Adobe AIR on Linux.

Adobe Air Tutorials

Build a Desktop Application within Aptana and AIR
Ext JS is an excellent framework for building applications in the Web browser that have desktop-like functionality. But what if you could run your JavaScript-powered application on the desktop like any other native application? Adobe AIR makes this a reality.

Introduction to SQLite in Adobe AIR
A few tuts are on this page. You will learn about: SQLite in Adobe AIR, SQLite Contact Manager, SQLite wrapper classes, SQLite Editor and SQLite YouTube Database.

Using SQL with Adobe AIR
If you didn’t know already, AIR comes with a genuine lightweight database: an implementation of SQLite. You can create tables and views, insert and delete data and run queries. The API that does this is the flash.data package. If you are interested in using the SQL capabilities of AIR, then read on.

Flash Applications for Use in the Browser and AIR
This tutorial shows you how applications can be developed for both the Web and AIR runtime using a programming pattern known as the “factory pattern.”

Creating an Image Viewer in AIR With Drag and Drop
Here, you will see how an AIR application can be created to accept image files using drag-and-drop and then individually display those images within the application window.

Custom Move and Resize Window Controls in AIR
This tutorial covers how to use ActionScript to both move and resize an AIR application’s window using Flash controls.

Setting Up an AIR Application with File Associations
You can associate any file type with your AIR applications. This means associated files open in your AIR application. This greatly streamlines your ability to work with external files. This tutorial shows you how to do that.

Using AIR to Get and Set Clipboard Text
In addition to offering the advantages of running as a desktop application, AIR applications are also able to both get and set content from the operating system’s clipboard. This tutorial shows you how to do both with simple text data.

Adobe AIR and Flash Tutorial
In this tut, you will build a little address-book application using the power of Adobe AIR and a local database.

Building an Adobe Air application with Flex
In this tutorial, you will learn how to build an Adobe Air application with Flex, an open-source set of technologies for the development of rich Internet applications.

Adobe AIR and Flex – Getting Started
This tut, a short one, helps you get your first AIR application going. The first thing you do is get everything in place to start running and building AIR applications. This tutorial requires a little knowledge of Flex.

Part 1, Build a Note-Storage App
Part 2, Build a Customer-Management App
This two-part tutorial is fairly lengthy and in-depth but gets you up to speed very quickly.

Create a Data-Driven Application
The SQLite database engine is fast, lightweight and well suited to client-side data management. In this tutorial, you will learn how to build data-driven Adobe AIR applications using the SQLite components.

WebSnapshot – a simple Adobe AIR application

25 Excellent And Useful Adobe AIR Tutorials and Resources
An overview of useful tutorials for newbies and professional developers.

The Tech Labs
A growing blog that contains numerous tutorials related to Adobe Air, Flash and Flex.

Adobe AIR Video Tutorials

Webcams, PNGs and AIR
Build an AIR application that takes webcam shots and saves them to the desktop.

Drag and Drop in AIR
Learn how to drag and drop files from the desktop to your AIR applications.

Developing AIR in Flash
This tutorial shows you how to develop AIR using Flash CS3 Professional.

Getting Started With AIR on Linux
In this tutorial, Mike Chambers explains the basics of getting set up with AIR on Linux.

Air Tutorial – Installing AIR SDK

Embedding a Browser in Flex 3

Intro to Adobe Apollo (a.k.a. AIR)

Cool Adobe Air Applications

Snippage
A few tuts on this page. You’ll learn about: SQLite in Adobe AIR, SQLite Contact Manager, SQLite wrapper classes, SQLite Editor and SQLite YouTube Database.

Random Pattern
A simple app that creates patterns based on set parameters.

Kuler Desktop
Browse and search color themes from kuler.

Spaz – Your Twitter Friend
Spaz is one cool Twitter client.

ReadAir
ReadAir is nice OSX Themed Desktop Client for Mac or Windows, built with Adobe Air.

twhirl
twhirl is a social software client for Twitter, Seesmic, Friendfeed and identi.ca.

Digg Reader
A Digg headline reader that uses all digg.com RSS feeds and auto-updates headlines every two minutes.

GMDesk
GMDesk lets you run Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Maps as a stand-alone application, letting you do all your mail handling, calendar planning, document reading and map browsing in one spot.

Snoto Photo
Snoto Photo is a desktop application for browsing your and others’ recent photos. You can also view photos as a slideshow.

Font Picker
A useful app that lets you browse and preview your computer’s fonts.

Moderator
Moderator is a WordPress plug-in and associated desktop application that allows you to view and moderate comments from your desktop.

Further resources

101 Adobe AIR Resources to Add to Your Toolbelt of Awesomeness
Adobe AIR application showcase and resources.

RefreshingApps
Adobe AIR application showcase and resources.

About the Author

Paul Andrew is a freelance Web designer. He is chief admin for Speckyboy – Design Magazine, a Web design, Web development and graphic design resource blog. Follow him on Twitter here: twitter.com/speckyboy.

(al)

Post tags: adobe, air, tools

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