The buzzword “CSS4” came out of nowhere, just as we were getting used to the fact that CSS3 is here and will stick around for some time. Browser vendors are working hard to implement the latest features, and front-end developers are creating more and more tools to be able to work with the style sheets more effectively.
But now, on hearing about CSS4, you might ask, “Hey, what about CSS3? Is it over already?” We’ve been working hard to spread the goodness of CSS3, and now it’s obsolete?
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The popularity of mobile has skyrocketed over the past few years. We've seen six generations of iPhones, five iPad models, hundreds of Android phones and thousands of different devices being manufactured.
Design and development have gone all the way from static and desktop-centric to responsive and device-aware. And it has been a very exciting journey. The field is relatively young — we are all learning (usually by mistakes). Because of that, we are also struggling with generalizations and even stereotypes.
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Whatever you call them — blocks, boxes, areas, regions — we’ve been dividing our Web pages into visible sections for well over a decade. The problem is, we’ve never had the right tools to do so. While our interfaces look all the world like grids, the underlying structure has been cobbled together from numbered headings and unsemantic helper elements; an unbridled stream of content at odds with its own box-like appearance.
Because we can make our <div>s look but not behave like sections, the experience for assistive technology (AT) users and data-mining software is quite different from the experience enjoyed by those gifted with sight.
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Coming out of the grunge, graffiti and David Carson era through the 90's, there has been a major resurgence of interest in typography. We have seen a number of designers and artists make their careers out of designing type or custom lettering, and it has become common to list typography among our skills and disciplines.
Unfortunately, as with any popularity surge, there have come with it a lot of misunderstandings of some of the terms and concepts that we use. This article will help you gain a clearer understanding of what typography is and isn't, and why.
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Today we are pleased to release Frank, an open-source WordPress theme designed and built to provide a light, responsive and unobtrusive reading experience. The theme's default home page makes 9 database queries and consists of 2 requests weighing at roughly 30KB (9.5KB gzipped). Frank keeps it basic: no Javascript dependence, no unnecessary images, just a simple, no-frills, fast blog theme. The theme is introduced by its developer, P.J. Onori. —Ed.
Frank is a responsive WordPress theme. It uses a modified version of the Foundation grid system. It also offers the unique feature of a modular home page layout system. The theme comes with various different layouts for your home page (1 column, 2 column, 3 column, 4 column, etc.) that can be mixed and matched. This allows for a home page with different content sections in different layouts.
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Do you remember those “10 Useful Legal Documents for Designers?” Well, it turns out that you, designers who read Smashing Magazine, liked one in particular: a plain-language, straightforward “Contract of Works for Web Design” which is based heavily on Andy Clarke’s “Contract Killer”. Since Mr. Wong published that template eight months ago, almost 1,500 designers have downloaded it on Docracy alone.
Why is this legal template so popular? Does it really work better than other contracts? Can it help you close that job faster and protect you from getting stiffed? Could it become an industry standard, like grid systems and agile development?
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The varying viewports that our websites encounter on a daily basis continue to demand more from responsive design. Not only must we continue to tackle the issues of content choreography — the art of maintaining order and context throughout the chaotic ebb and flow of the Web browser — but we must also meet the expectations of users.
They’re not sitting still. With the likes of Firefox OS (Boot to Gecko), Chrome OS and now Ubuntu for phones — an OS that makes “Web apps” first-class citizens — delivering native app-like experiences on the Web may become a necessity if users begin to expect it.
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If you've been around WordPress for a while you know how difficult it used to be to create post lists based on complex criteria while also conforming to WordPress standards. Over the course of a few years the platform has come a long way. By utilising the power of the WP_Query class, we can lists posts in any way we want.
The WP_Query class is one of the most important parts of the WordPress codebase. Among other things, it determines the query you need on any given page and pulls posts accordingly.
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Designing websites for smartphones is easy compared to retrofitting those already in place. More than that, it’s embarrassing how, almost eight years after CSS gained practical acceptance, a lack of foresight haunts those of us who write HTML.
Converting older websites to responsive design causes headaches not because small screens are difficult, but because most HTML documents were written under an assumption about screen size.
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