So… I guess I’m a little bit lazy these days regarding my feed list. The result is me missing some very interesting discussions. But no regret, actually a kind of relieved, I feel right now. Ed: this sounds like Yoda wrote it!? : ). I’d say me and the guys fell into a creativity thunder again, and despite of the short deadlines, we’re okay and we are managin’ it relatively easy. Some interesting stuff to come…

Anyway, I’ve just read post and the comments over there at JSM and it’s good to see the things are going forward globally, not just for the chosen few. The need for a quality is rising. That includes better web sites. Better design and better code.

My observations on the Typetester’s popularity, comments I receive etc. led me to a conclusion there’s a very large number of the guys who really get it. However, there’s still some misunderstanding about the standards and the whole story behind it. People are now aware why it’s all good, but there’s still many validatorians and wannabe ortodox standardistas. Or maybe I’m just too harsh…

Thanks to the valuable feedback on Typetester last week, some minor improvements were made. Here’s the list:

• a few spelling errors were correct (there’s a possibility there will be more of these, so let me know)
• text is now sized with ems, instead of pixels (remember that the base font size is still 10px, so 1em is 10px, 1.2em is 12px and so on)
• negative tracking down to -10px
• color picker is now more subtle and the icon for toggling it on and off was added
• various code tweaks here and there

More to come…

This post is a quick reminder to all of us who code and test web sites on Macs. We often take some common Safari behavior for granted, but the reality is a little bit different. No matter how much one dislikes PCs and has an aversion to anything but the divine Mac OS, the truth is – there’s more visitors with IE5.x than with Safari. Said that, here’re the most common CSS flaws. Workarounds included. Continue reading ›

If you search Amazon for Keith Jeremy’s upcoming book, by entering the DOM scripting, you might end up with very interesting results. The first book is, naturally, DOM scripting. The second one is DHTML Utopia Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM by Stuart Langridge, which is also very well worth considering. But the third one is a pearl – the Ajax Training Sessions by Jorrit Smink.

Probably, the most of you find this situation funny – *laughs* Yeah, the Amazon connects the book for the soccer coaches with JavaScript and DOM book, just because the two have the term ‘Ajax’ in common. And I tell you what – you’re right, it is funny. But it’s also a pleasant surprise if you are a sports trainer, like I am. Searching for one thing and finding something totally opposite, yet relevant to my other interests, I find strange, veeery strange…

The Typetester is finally fixed and here it is – the public beta. A big thank you to all the guys for their invaluable help and suggestions. OK, enough talk – take a look at the Typetester.

Still here?

Still here? Interested in more details? Well, the Typetester is an online application, that can be pretty useful when you need to check or choose a typeface for your (next) project. You can easily set up a typeface with the most of the options applicable for the screen type, including the colors of the text and the background. The color fields will accept any meaningful format – wether you type #f00, #ff0000, rgb(255,0,0) or red – it’s all the same. There is also nifty color picker, which pops up when you double-click the input field.

Fonts from user’s system are pulled into a web page (big thanks goes to the smart guys from UP). This way, I don’t have to worry that I missed some font and you don’t have to type your favorite typeface by hand. However, if your browser doesn’t support this feature for whatever reason, the application will degrade accordingly, but unfortunately, you’ll have to type-in font names letter by letter. You can just stick with those from the predefined list and save yourself a trouble.

There are some more handy features, but I don’t want to spoil the fun of exploration.

How it all began?

First, there were just some rudimentary functions, which enabled quick setup and preview of the fonts. It started taking more serious approach, after my fellow colleagues showed a great appreciation for this kind of tools and encouraged further development.

The core functionality was already there. What was missing was more pleasant and usable interface. So I went into it more deeply and added features along the way (that’s why the code is still a mess).

During the further development, a few type savvy fellas took a look at it and requested for some more features. I still have some things on my mind, which I’d like to add, but right now, I feel that I should take a break a few days and then look at it from another perspective. After all, let’s first see what the response will be to this first public version.

I want details

There’s so many things to talk about – why some decisions were made and what solutions were applied. But since I’m expecting some overseen bugs reported in a next few days, I’d rather leave some space for that. More in-depth explanation comes soon. Promise.

I love Dan. I mean, I don’t know the guy, but I really like to hear what he has to say, ‘cause he does it exactly as he preaches.

I purchased my copy of his latest handbook Bulletproof Web Design about two weeks ago, and I was fairly surprised when the mailman brought it the day before yesterday. That was fast, I said to myself. Couldn’t wait for the weekend to come, so I can dive into it in peace.

From my experience with previous Dan’s book, the Web Standards Solutions, it really did fulfill my expectations. What’s so great about it, you ask? Well, without too much philosophy and unnecessary discussion to fill-up 260 pages of a book, the author gets in, scores and gets out in no more than three hours of web developer’s time – the thing one’s always missing…

The book is divided into 9 chapters of which the last one is a full-blown example of bulletproof design, coupling all previous chapters together in an effective demonstration of how to use all those tiny parts to combine them into a real-life, flexible web page. What I like with Dan, is his non-arrogant approach. If he thinks someone else’s work is worth it, he’ll mention it respectively and with a proper credit.

From what I’ve seen, the author covered it all – from flexible rounded boxes to multi-column fluid layouts. Solutions to the problems are ready to be taken as they are. The only thing that might be missing to a faithful reader, is a free muffin shipped with the book, considering the certain digression on page 68. A book for every web professional’s desk.

The Mint is out! Yey! Fighting hard not to give it a special treatment (I’m neither paid for writing this, nor am I Shaun Inman’s buddy), let’s start with a tour. Continue reading ›

When started using Macs, my main issue was lack of maximizing applications’ windows control. At the time of this writing I still haven’t found the maximize shortcut, so if there is one, I’d be happy to know about it.

In Usable GUI Design: A Quick Guide for F/OSS Developers, the author summarizes Fitts’ law:

1. Make commonly used controls larger and distinctive.
2. Use the edges and corners of the screen to make your controls virtually infinite.
3. Never, ever put controls 1 pixel away from a screen edge or corner.

In Mac browsers, window controls are anything but virtually infinite (they are even not anywhere near a screen corners or edges). What’s more, there’s no easy and obvious way to resize the window to occupy the whole screen. Scrolling up and down through a web page could be performed by scrolling the mouse wheel, if the default mouse would have one.

If applications’ window is maximized (and controls are virtually infinite), one can move mouse pointer really fast to a corner or edge of the screen – and perform the desired action pretty quickly.

Sure, experienced users usually use a keyboard to navigate through an application, but from my point of view – being user-friendly is mostly about making unexperienced users’ life easier. Power-users will customize their preferences anyway.