Will Woodgate

Review of Joomla! 3 Beginner's Guide

Will Woodgate — 2013-05-22T10:05:13+01:00

This is an excellent book to read for anyone new to Joomla and considering using Joomla in future projects. Although Joomla is not massively difficult to start building with, the way it works is quite a bit different to many other publishing platforms. Therefore novice users can quickly end up isolated and unsure of how to get the most out of this software. Sometimes you want to just jump straight in and know how to create new pages and write content for those pages.

Joomla 3 for beginners by Eric Tiggeler covers just about everything. It starts off with a gradual introduction to what Joomla is and what sort of projects it is most suitable for. The book runs through the details of installation and setup of a dummy project. It then moves on towards the setup of articles, categories, navigation links and templates. Topics like SEO and security are also covered. Within just a few chapters, the book is already teaching you how to build quality websites and discussing lots of advanced features in Joomla.

Like many other Packt books, the book is well structured and laid out throughout. The 'have a go hero' and 'pop quiz' sections provide opportunities to practice what you've read and revise things again if you're unsure about something.

I don't have anything negative to say about this book. Speaking as someone who has only touched the surface of Joomla a few times in the past, I thought the book was excellent and covered everything someone new to Joomla would need to know. I suspect that despite this being branded as a 'beginners guide', there is also a lot of information contained within that could be useful for existing users or users seeking a quick recap.

More information about the book is available here:
http://www.packtpub.com/joomla-3-beginners-guide/book

Book cover image courtesy of Packt Publishing.

Tumblr alternatives for RapidWeaver users

Will Woodgate — 2013-05-20T18:55:02+01:00

It has been announced today that the Tumblr blogging platform has been purchased and taken over by Yahoo. Although both Tumblr and Yahoo have been quick to turn round and tell users that everything will be a "phased transition" and "business as normal", it appears some Tumblr users are a little anxious about this takeover and the possible consequences it might have towards future content ownership and copyright. Yahoo has not just bought Tumblr as a weekend hobby project; clearly they have big plans of their own for monetizing Tumblr and taking it further forward. Yahoo has written a cheque for over £720 million, so it's unlikely they will run Tumblr into the ground (as they've done with some other services) straight away! But ultimately everything published to Tumblr is now on Yahoo's terms. This always is the risk when you hand content over to another company and ask them to store or publish it for you. Particularly free services, where published content becomes an asset of the company.

Using ExpanDrive with Javabean Hosting

Will Woodgate — 2013-05-18T21:32:28+01:00

ExpanDrive is a different-take on traditional FTP software, in that it integrates directly with Finder or Windows Explorer. It is compatible with both Mac and Windows, and lets you 'mount' a remote disk on your computer (in the same fashion as you mount a USB flash drive or camera card). The beauty of this setup is that you can access and navigate a remote disk directly through Finder or Windows Explorer. These remote disks can be set to connect automatically when you switch your computer on.

The good news is that Javabean Hosting is fully compatible with ExpanDrive. This enables you to mount your web hosting account in Finder or Windows Explorer. From there you can access all folders, upload, edit or delete files. For basic FTP tasks, ExpanDrive works great. This blog article will walk you through the steps required to connect to you Javabean Hosting account via Finder.

Buttons to save files to Google Drive

Will Woodgate — 2013-05-09T21:02:52+01:00

The battle between Google Drive, DropBox, SkyDrive, Bittorrent Sync, CloudApp and other cloud storage providers is really starting to hot-up. However this is good news for consumers, who now have many different services available. Plus of course, an ever increasing amount of online storage space and lots of extra addons to make integration easier and more diverse than ever before. A prime example of things moving forward being an announcement from Google earlier today, with news of their new save buttons, tied to Google Drive accounts.

These save buttons work in much the same was as conventional 'Pin' buttons, used by services like Pinterest. So with these new save buttons, when a user clicks on the button, they have the option to save files to their Google Drive. This enables visitors to your website to save many types of files directly to their Google Drive account. Files could include PDF documents, text files, images, sound files and various other things. Even publications like eBooks could be provided with a save button. So the benefits could be pretty advantageous for various types of websites.

Randomiser Stack - 2.0 Released

Will Woodgate — 2013-05-08T10:38:23+01:00

Now both random and responsive! I'm pleased to announce the availability of Randomiser 2.0 this morning. This is a general update focusing on making things easier for our novice users and incorporating fully responsive behaviour. Randomiser is a simple stack that hides a pool of items on a page, and displays one at random (when the page is loaded or refreshed). It's a very simple mechanism, one that does not require PHP support and still allows search engines to index all randomised content. Use it for styled text, HTML code and images. Here are some details of what's changed in the latest version:

Changes in version 2.0

• Simplification of setup. More automation, less stack settings
• Now fully responsive. Will work in both responsive and non-responsive RapidWeaver themes
• Degrades gracefully in instances where Javascript is not available
• Minor changes to informational tooltips

The fade-in option has been removed in this latest version, to improve responsive behaviour. If you are using Randomiser in a traditional fixed-size page layout and you want fade-in support, simply use the free FadeIn stack, and nest Randomiser inside. Previous settings like border, background and padding have been removed, and these can be setup instead using the built-in Stack style controls.

Possible uses for Randomiser

• Cycle through self-hosted advertisements on a websites
• Display new or interesting products at random to customers
• Random quotes, testimonials, extracts of text, poems, psalms, lyrics etc.
• Use it to display pictures at random in theme headers or banners
• Great for displaying quiz questions, facts and associated links

Randomiser is compatible with Stacks 2.0 and later. This update is free for all existing users and obtainable using your original download link or via automatic updates in Stacks. A free demo version is available for potential new users to download and experiment with. If you use Randomiser and like it, please consider rating and / or reviewing the stack on StacksCenter.

Read more

New RapidWeaver theme - introducing Stream

Will Woodgate — 2013-05-01T09:10:59+01:00

I'm pleased to announce the availability of the new Stream RapidWeaver theme today. Some of you may recognise Stream as a RapidWeaver theme similar in appearance to the old News Media theme. Actually your assumptions would be perfectly correct, in that Stream is a totally rebuilt and re-branded clone of the former News Media theme. I decided on the name 'Stream' as a reflection of the speed and fluidity at which this theme can serve content and it prevents any possible confusion with the Media theme. Also Stream fits in well with my other RapidWeaver themes named after various natural phenomena, from which many have been inspired!

News Media had previously received a huge amount of input and direction from regular RapidWeaver forum member 'Photon' who sadly passed away a few months ago. News Media was in desperate need of a new direction and a big update. So last week I committed 25 hours into drastically updating, rebuilding and retesting this theme. Cosmetically, Stream is not very much different from News Media, in appearance. However the 'engine' underneath the theme is brand new and is now sporting all the latest technology you expect to find in a quality RapidWeaver theme.

At this stage I should point out that all News Media theme users are now within the update cycle for Stream. This means that your update / transition to Stream is totally free of charge, and you will continue to receive free updates to the Stream theme. Simply use your existing download link to grab this latest version of Stream, or contact me (with proof of purchase) if you need a new link issued to you.

The rest of this blog article details what's changed in Stream and what new features are available. If you are eager to jump ahead and download the free demo version or see a published example of the Stream theme, then click here onto the ThemeFlood website for more information.

More information about Stream

Introducing ScrollFade, a brand new stack for RapidWeaver

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-19T13:57:52+01:00

Based on the popular FadeIn stack, ScrollFade creates containers within a page which are hidden. When the page is scrolled down and the whole container comes into focus, the hidden container fades into view and is visible. This is the same sort of technique websites like Apple.com use. It is similar in appearance to the popular 'lazy load' method you may have seen or used in the past. ScrollFade does not really add any extra functionality to pages, it is merely intended as a cosmetic embellishment.

This stack is very easy to setup and can support all basic content types like styled text, HTML code and images. With some experimentation, you may be able to get other objects like video and slideshows working too. All normal stack style settings like padding, margins, borders and backgrounds are available to you. ScrollFade works in both fixed-width and responsive webpages. Settings are provided in ScrollFade, letting you adjust the fade speed, delay and opacity.

ScrollFade pre-loads all content, so content is ready to display as a user scrolls the page down. Content within ScrollFade is fully visible to search engines, and this stack degrades gracefully in web browsers without Javascript support.

You can use multiple ScrollFade stacks on the same page, but it is advisable to abide by the normal one effect per page rule, applicable to all animation stacks. ScrollFade can be used with the PlusKit @import function.

ScrollFade is tested and confirmed to work in IE9, IE10, Safari, Firefox, Chrome and Opera web browsers, against RapidWeaver and ThemeFlood themes. It has also been tested on iOS and Android handheld devices. In IE7 and IE8, content is permanently displayed.

The idea for the ScrollFade stack was pitched to me by Tony Reidsma of Stream Communications. Tony came to me at the start of the week, asking if I had a stack available which would trigger the display of content, when the viewer of a website scrolled down to a certain point in the page. I wan't sure if something like this already existed. Despite asking around and checking all the normal stack directories, we could not find anything like this. So I set about building this new stack. Ideally I would have liked to have done something using the CSS :focus pseudo class and a nice CSS3 animation using keyframes. However, jQuery Javascript appeared to be the cleaner and safer option for now. I found some suggested code online and extended that further to do all that I wanted. Then converted the working prototype into the ScrollFade stack.

Click here for more information

Note: this stack requires RapidWeaver 5.0 and Stacks 2.1 or later.

Composition 4.2 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-18T11:49:39+01:00

The purpose of this update is to update some of the underlying frameworks, fix a couple of minor bugs and introduce a few new features requested by users of the theme. Version 4.2 is a free update for all existing users, and you can find out more information about the theme on the ThemeFlood website.

• Updated Bootstrap and Font Awesome More libraries, to the latest versions
• Updated the local version of jQuery used in the theme to version 1.9.1
• Improvements to FreeStyle and ExtraContent handling within the theme
• Updated the ExtraContent previewing option to give more info. about ExtraContent containers
• The page fade-in function is now using pure CSS3 code
• Updated the RAFT toggle navigation menu, to the latest version
• In mobile and tablet mode, the sidebar no longer toggles open or closed
• Moved all theme javascript calls to the end of the page, for improved performance
• Theme javascript code is now minified for a smaller file size
• Fixed a broken line height setting, in the theme style settings
• The 'back to top' link now has a bigger clickable region, for easier selection
• Fixed some of the sidebar colour settings, which were broken
• The theme header container is now removed in splash-screen mode
• Improvements to blog page styling (e.g. blog entry titles are less bold and smaller now)
• Tidied and re-commented the theme index.html file, to make modifications easier
• Various other insignificant changes under the hood

Composition is a pretty unusual theme, compared to many other RapidWeaver themes available. The default 'light-on-dark' colour scheme gives websites a distinctive appearance. One of the big attractions of Composition for many RapidWeaver users is the wide range of theme style and colour settings built-in. All these options give you the power to customise and create stunning web pages; that don't look identical to what other RapidWeaver users are building with the theme!

More information

Installing Piwik analytics in RapidWeaver

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-17T14:11:36+01:00

Monitoring website activity is an important factor towards building successful websites. It allows us to accurately gauge footfall through a website, calculate which pages are most popular and hopefully identify a few trends in customer behaviour. We can see where customers are coming from, how long they stay on pages, and where they exit. With this information, we can tweak aspects of the website to improve the customer experience and also hopefully generate more exposure or revenue. We can shape a website around visitors; through deletion or merger of less popular pages and bringing popular pages further to the front.

In this blog article, I'll show you how to install Piwik analytics in RapidWeaver, and work towards setting up an analytical system which can meet and exceed EU privacy laws, coming into force after 26th May 2013.

Ocean 1.1 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-15T15:47:10+01:00

A minor (free) update for the Ocean RapidWeaver theme, incorporating the following changes:

Updated Bootstrap and Font Awesome More icons to the latest version
All theme JS code is now called at the bottom of the page, to improve loading speed
Updated the local version of jQuery to 1.9.1
The page fade-in option now uses pure CSS3 code
FreeStyle and ExtraContent containers are now hidden until the page is loaded
Updated the ExtraContent previewing option
Minor improvements to tablet and mobile styling
Fixed broken 'back to top' link
Removed some surplus images and optimised the rest
Updated the code used for the drop-down menu's
General improvements to IE7 compatibility
Improved compatibility with Armadillo CMS
Minor style changes to blog page formatting
The theme scripts.js file is now minified for improved performance
Changes to the search bar position and styling

The demo site and free downloadable demo version for Ocean have been updated this morning. The free pack of Bootstrap code snippets has also been updated, to include a newer build of tooltips and a brand new snippet for animated popovers.

More information: http://themeflood.com/ocean/

Creating Concrete5 themes

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-11T14:30:24+01:00

Although building new Concrete5 themes is not rocket science (there are free guides available online already which explain how to 'concretise' a basic HTML template in 10 minutes) if you want to achieve a strong and highly customisable theme, a guide like this is invaluable. Especially if you are building themes for clients or you are considering reselling themes via the Concrete5 marketplace. This book covers just about everything there is to know about building Concrete5 themes. But instead of just telling you in plain steps how to build a theme from start to finish, it delves right into all the details. Every component of a theme is fully explained, so you have a full understanding of exactly how themes work and interact between a user, content and Concrete5. Basically this book shows you the whole picture.

Snow version 2.2 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-09T12:11:43+01:00

Snow is a RapidWeaver theme which blankets websites with a cool, crisp and frosty appearance. This is a really beautiful theme to use in any sort of creative websites or blogs; where minimalism is desired. A plethora of useful theme style and colour settings make this a RapidWeaver theme that is easy to adapt and bend-around existing content. Snow works great with all the standard RapidWeaver plugins, plus addon plugins like WeaverPix and Stacks (making it a great choice of theme for portfolio websites). Snow is the same RapidWeaver theme I use for my website.

Placeholder stack updated - now with 100% more kittens and puppies!

Will Woodgate — 2013-04-07T20:33:49+01:00

Previously the Placeholder stack would render coloured squares with their size printed inside, using Placehold.it as the image server. Functional, but maybe not always really inspirational. Placeholder received a quick update today and now supports placeholder images provided by PlaceKitten, PlaceDog and Lorem Pixel. So alongside coloured squares, you can now also experiment with some actual photographs. Images are provided with the option of full colour, greyscale and / or responsive scaling.

Flood 3.5 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-03-28T10:31:36+00:00

Cosmetically, nothing really changes in this theme update. Flood 3.5 basically focuses on making things easier for people to use and improves theme performance even further. Existing frameworks like Bootstrap, Font Awesome More, RAFT and jQuery have been updated to the very latest versions. A couple of useful new theme style settings have been added.

Theme Details Live Preview

Here are some more details of what's changed in this latest version.

Short survey on a new iOS app

Will Woodgate — 2013-03-25T22:43:41+00:00

Sure, just about anyone can code a mobile app with the potential of selling it onto a multinational and the potential to make £18 million from it in the process. But if you instead want to help shape the development of a new iOS app capable of photographing multi-million pound yachts (instead of creating them), then here's your chance!

Indie developer Greg Barchard has created a very short survey on Google Docs, regarding an exciting new iOS app he is proposing. He's asked if I can retweet the link. So if you have 60 seconds spare, please complete the survey here and provide your honest feedback:

›› CLICK HERE TO COMPLETE THE SURVEY ‹‹

The survey will be live for the next couple of days. Please go ahead and fill in the form. It would be great to have your feedback, and your input will help contribute towards shaping this brand new app. Details are still very thin, hence the need to poll potential users and get feedback. But you can probably gauge from the questions, the general direction this app is going in. I'll also make sure any comments left below in the comment form get forwarded onto Greg.

TogglePlus 1.1.0 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-03-15T16:50:58+00:00

I've just released a free update to the TogglePlus stack. Alongside support for local images and warehoused images, there is now a third option for using font icons. This option is brilliant if you want to create retina-enabled icons of any size and colour. Very useful if you're building mobile websites with TogglePlus, and you want really sharp and crisp icons to use.

To take advantage of font icons, simply select Font Icons from the drop-down, within the Toggle Button settings. Provide an icon for the closed and open states (or use the example icon code already entered by default). Settings exist to precisely adjust the horizontal and vertical positioning, plus the icon margin, font size and colours.

The only proviso is that your page absolutely must contain a font icon library already, of some description. Quite a few quality RapidWeaver themes already contain either the Font Awesome or Font Awesome More font icon packs as standard! If the RapidWeaver theme you've opted to use does not include a Font Awesome library, then you will either need to modify the theme yourself (this can be quite tricky and probably not advisable for novice users) or purchase an additional addon like the Font Awesome stack. Once a font icon library is present within the page, then you can refer to the font icon documentation and paste in the code for desired open and close icons.

The update is free and is available via automatic updates in Stacks or using your purchase link. If you have not used TogglePlus before, then check the examples on the Stacks4Stacks website and download the free demo version to play with.

Automatically linking to new blog posts

Will Woodgate — 2013-03-13T12:31:26+00:00

Blogging is a brilliant method to promote your products, services, interests or campaigns to a worldwide audience. Publishing platforms like RapidWeaver and Concrete5 make it super-easy to operate a simple yet highly effective blog. All that you need to get started is a domain name, a quality web hosting provider (like Javabean Hosting) and the commitment to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Starting a new blog can be a bit daunting at first. However as you start to gain a regular readership, this energises your passion for writing and spurs new ideas. Before long, you may find yourself writing notes or drafting new articles on nearly a daily basis.

The question is often asked of how best to promote a blog more; especially a new blog or a blog that is fairly unique in topic (and therefore may not be receiving the level of readership desired). Getting other similar websites to link to your website is certainly one step in the right direction. Linking to your blog articles from forums (if done in a non-spammy way) can also help. However you can also harness the power of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and App.net to share links to your latest news articles. Not only does this provide your regular followers with notification of exciting new blog articles, but can also play a significant role in attracting new readers to your website. Social networking can be a valuable tool in increasing exposure of a website.

LinkBox Stack 1.2.1 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-02-28T22:11:25+00:00

I've just released a small update for the free LinkBox stack. Changes in this version include the following:

Removed the surplus imageCrop key from the Info.plist
Updated help and info URL's in the stack settings
Improved IE7 and IE8 support when using floating images
Shiny new stack icon
Removed some surplus Javascript code that had crept in

LinkBox is a useful stack to use if you need to set multiple stacks grouped together as a link to another page, a site resource or an external website. For example, if you have a box containing an image and two columns of text, LinkBox can be used to make the entire box link. LinkBox works using a basic HTML and CSS code mechanism. The link container floats invisibly over your content, and avoids the need of wrapping content inside dozens of anchor tags. Simple yet effective.

This update will show up in Stacks after a few minutes, or click onto the website and download the latest version.

Image Slider 2.0 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-02-27T20:26:10+00:00

If you need a basic slideshow plugin for RapidWeaver and the Stacks plugin, then look no further than the newly released ImageSlider 2 from Javabean Software. Built using the world-renowned FlexSlider.js plugin (version 2.0) by WooThemes, ImageSlider provides an easy method to incorporate beautiful image slideshows into your Stack pages. Great for adding a splash of colour to your page design and show-off some beautiful photographs. A couple of new features in Image Slider 2.0 to note are as follows:

Images are now scaled responsively to size, making this stack ideal for use in responsive RapidWeaver themes
Unlike Flash slideshows, ImageSlider works in almost any modern web browser. CSS3 transitions in supported browsers give silky-smooth transition effects
Swipe navigation works really well on iOS and Android devices and makes slideshows more interactive for your users
Improved caption support with some new style options added for easier customisation
New 'minimalist' animated navigation controls which don't distract from your images and hide out of view when not required
Stronger JS, HTML and CSS code for improved resilience in your RapidWeaver projects

As well as the stack getting an update, the user documentation has been freshly updated. Alongside new screenshots, the user guide explains the basics of installing and setting up the stack, and also lends some expert tips align the way. Image Slider is priced at only $5.95, making it one of the cheapest slideshow stacks around. But despite the price tag, everything about Image Slider shouts quality and attention to detail. The time and money you could save using this stack in your projects is quite remarkable.

Of course if you want to crank your RapidWeaver image layout capabilities up to notch-eight, then it's well worth looking at using WeaverPix. This plugin is currently going from strength to strength and is arguably the number one RapidWeaver plugin for doing anything related to images. Don't forget that if you currently buy any RapidWeaver theme from the ThemeFlood website, a 15% discount code is included for WeaverPix.

Moving towards Torrent 2.0

Will Woodgate — 2013-02-09T17:50:12+00:00

Just a quick heads-up that I have started work on the next version of the Torrent RapidWeaver theme, which will become known as 'Torrent 2.0'. This will be a free update for all existing users. The aim with this update is to introduce the following new features:

A fully responsive and mobile-adaptive design
Support for Bootstrap and Font Awesome More
Make the upper banner a FreeStyle container
Brand new animated drop-down menu
Optimisations for CSS and Javascript code
A social media bookmarking bar at the top

If you have any feature requests for this theme, now would be a good time to speak up! I would like to try and have this theme update completed within the next 10 days, with the aim of a release before the end of the month. If there are things that you think should be done differently in this theme or features you feel would benefit other users, leave a comment below or drop me an email. As mentioned previously, I want to build RapidWeaver themes which people actually want to use, rather than just develop themes for the sake of it!

In other theme news, an update is in the pipeline for the Storm theme. Those of you who have been browsing the Javabean Software Google Groups board may have stumbled upon this demo site for Storm 2! I'm also in consultation with a designer, regarding an overhaul of the News Media theme, which I am well aware is now a little outdated and in need of some TLC.

TogglePlus Stack 1.0.1 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-02-08T16:22:36+00:00

This small update includes two requested features:

You can now link to an open a TogglePlus stack from anywhere on the same page. For example, you could have a button at the bottom of a page which jumps a user up to that particular TogglePlus stack and slides it open.
A new line height setting has been added for the ToggleTrigger. This is a useful addition to the existing font size setting, so you can now adjust the line height to avoid titles being cropped.

The update is totally free and will become available in your Stacks library window in Stacks, a few minutes after Stacks has been opened. Click the update button in the menu and flow the onscreen instructions as per normal. Or use your original download link to grab the latest version.

If you would like to read some more information about the TogglePlus stack, try some live examples and get the free demo version, all information and links can be found on this page:
http://www.stacks4stacks.com/toggleplus/

Filter Stack 1.1.3 released

Will Woodgate — 2013-01-22T15:20:33+00:00

A minor update was released a few minutes ago for the Filter stack, taking it up to version 1.1.3. I've added a media block in the styles.css file to remove left margins on smaller screens under 580px wide like so:

@media screen and (max-width: 580px) {
	#filterForm%id% fieldset {
		margin: 0;
	}
}

This will ensure that on small screens (e.g. iPhones, iPods, tablets and other handheld devices) the filter form won't inadvertently get cropped if you have a left margin applied in the stack settings. Don't forget that you can further enhance the filter field yourself, by reducing the input field width and button width in the stack settings. Probably the smallest device you will have viewing your website would be 380px wide, so that is a good minimal width to work towards when testing.

The update is totally free and will become available in your Stacks library window in Stacks, a few minutes after Stacks has been opened. Click the update button in the menu and flow the onscreen instructions as per normal. Or use your original download link to grab the latest version.

Over the next few weeks I plan to build a similar filter addon for WeaverPix. I think WeaverPix would make a terrific platform to build another image filtering system around. This time I might look at using an existing plugin like Isotope or Filtrify.

How to stop your images appearing in image results

Will Woodgate — 2013-01-18T22:07:42+00:00

There are many legitimate reasons why you might want to display images on your own website, but opt-out from having them displayed in image search results. For example, if you were using photographs licensed to you, it would be expected that these images would not be easily available to view elsewhere. So it's not really a practice to be frowned upon as such.

Information is thin, because naturally Google (and others) want to try to build the most comprehensive search database on the planet. It's an opt-out, rather than an opt-in process. However you can take on the Goliath of most search engines and force them to stop indexing your images. This can be done while still maintaining normal search engine crawling and indexing of your website.

Once again, the trick here is to create a robots.txt file. This is easily done by opening your favourite code editor (e.g. TextWranger, Coda or Espresso) and creating a plain text file to place on the web server. The robots.txt file is read by search engines (like Google) and instructs them to include or exclude certain files from indexing. The same method can be followed, regardless of whether you are using RapidWeaver, Concrete5, Drupal, Wordpress, Dreamweaver or another publishing platform to maintain your website with.

On the subject of jQuery 1.9

Will Woodgate — 2013-01-16T15:41:21+00:00

All of the stacks listed on the Stacks4Stacks website were tested back on 20th December 2012 and were confirmed to be working fine with jQuery 1.9 Beta, release candidate one. The 'gold master' of jQuery 1.9 went live and was publicly released a few days ago. It has always been my policy to monitor jQuery development very closely and test my stacks carefully and throughly against the latest Beta releases; as soon as such versions become available to me. For example, right now I'm reading up on version 2.0 and plan some testing in the next few days. This policy ensures that when new versions of jQuery automatically gets loaded into your website, everything should hopefully work seamlessly. Unlike some other Stack developers, I don't wait until after jQuery updates have taken place, before realising thousands of my customers websites are broken! Any updates required to my stacks are made and committed many weeks in advance of jQuery updates becoming available. In my opinion, it's a common-sense approach.

Final theme updates of 2012

Will Woodgate — 2012-12-30T15:21:07+00:00

Late last night, I released a couple of free theme updates for Black & White, Composition, Flood, Media, Monsoon, Snow and Wilderness RapidWeaver themes. Not a great deal has changed in these themes, other than I have updated them to Bootstrap 2.2.2, switched from Font Awesome to Font Awesome More icons and added a new credits.txt file to all. In the Flood theme, a new 'No Navigation' option has been added, by request of a user who wanted the ability to turn off all page navigation and build their own. Please see the support page on the ThemeFlood website for details of how to obtain the latest versions of these themes if you want them. The free pack of Bootstrap code snippets has also been updated with some new snippets, and these are available to download from any theme page on the ThemeFlood website.

The rise of Android

Will Woodgate — 2012-12-10T22:21:49+00:00

As I mentioned a few months back, I was really wowed by the new Nexus 7 by Google. From a hardware perspective, it was (and still is) a really neat bit of kit. Very comfortable to hold, good quality screen, excellent battery life and features like GPS (which my iPad was lacking). But it was the Android operating system that really made the difference. Not only does Android have a Maps app that actually works, but it provides a fast, safe and very 'open' experience more likened to a standard desktop computer; like the ability to setup multiple user accounts on a device and easy installation of apps without requiring access to an app store. It remains my best gadget buy this year and I'd have no trouble recommending it to others.

It seems I'm not alone. Usage of Android on phones and tablets is growing massively, as indicated by this info graphic released today by Jessica Wallance.

WeaverPix 3 Released

Will Woodgate — 2012-11-03T10:40:19+00:00

RapidWeaver has remained a popular publishing platform for photographers seeking to build and maintain online galleries. Following the collapse of Fotopic.net et al, there has been much pessimism about the reliability of some online gallery building tools and cloud image hosting in general. Likewise, the demise of software like Apple iWeb has left photographers with fewer independent solutions for building and publishing their own galleries. Publishing platforms like Wordpress and Concrete5 are great for building galleries with, but the 'cloud formulation' is not to everyones liking. Wordpress in particular requires a fair bit of up-hill customisation and ongoing maintenance to keep galleries safe and functioning correctly. So RapidWeaver is still a solid solution for many. In RapidWeaver, everything is very much drag-and-drop orientated with emphasis on building websites which combine different page styles. RapidWeaver is pretty straightforward to use and gets decent results quickly. Economically speaking, RapidWeaver and addon plugins are relatively cheap to buy (compared to Dreamweaver and many Wordpress extensions). Maintaining your own website is always going to be cheaper and more convenient than faxing the content to a 'web master' and hiring them to make changes for you each time.

Engineering The Internet

Will Woodgate — 2012-10-10T21:58:40+01:00

The Internet is amazing. It allows us to communicate instantly, search for and find information on nearly anything, stay abreast of current events and, of course, watch the latest cute animal video. But how does it actually work? Made up of servers (the machines) and clients (the users), the Internet uses a common language, called a protocol suite, to help devices "talk" with each other via telephone wires and satellites. Every device that connects to the Internet, be it a laptop, a smartphone or a gaming system, has an Internet Protocol, or IP, address. Using these addresses and the protocol suite, the Internet lets users upload, download, share and stream little packets of information. An infographic by Sarah Wenger: http://open-site.org/blog/engineering-the-internet/

Enemies of the Internet

Will Woodgate — 2012-09-18T16:23:48+01:00

Another infographic by Sarah Wenger:
http://open-site.org/blog/enemies-of-the-internet/

"If you think that identity theft is the worst-case-scenario of Internet use, you clearly don’t live in any of the nations that make the list of top “Enemies of the Internet.” Not only do these governments monitor their citizens’ web activity, but they also make it nearly impossible for them to safely share and gather information through anonymous microblogs, Facebook pages or Twitter accounts."

Lots and lots of theme updates!

Will Woodgate — 2012-09-19T20:08:23+01:00

Hello ThemeFlood fans! The days are getting shorter now (at least here in the northern hemisphere) and there was certainly a feeling of Autumn in the air last Friday when I went off for my normal 30 mile cycle. Alas hibernation instincts will soon kick-in and we'll find ourselves spending more time inside in the warm, with a mug of hot coffee (or tea) in front of the computer, shying away from the worst mother nature can throw at us from outside! Traditionally October to Christmas tend to be one of my busiest periods of the year for theme sales - I think this trend can be attributed towards people starting projects for the winter months and preparing business websites for the following year.

Power to the internet people

Will Woodgate — 2012-08-28T21:34:16+01:00

A quick link from Sarah Wenger, to another one of her excellent new infographics:

http://open-site.org/blog/power-to-the-online-people/

You can't really argue with any of the points raised. Bad bits aside, the internet is a force for good and is continuing to become an ever-more connected and powerful platform. Humans are an inquisitive species and crave knowledge. The early internet so far has provided a solid foundation to continue our quest for knowledge and help map a prosperous future. Openness and freedom of speech will always prevail, regardless of what the traditionalists and power-thirsty politicians try to preach!

Free RapidWeaver themes

Will Woodgate — 2012-08-15T09:37:33+01:00

For those new to RapidWeaver or revisiting RapidWeaver after a period of absence, the choice of addons available can seem pretty bewildering at times. New addons get released weekly and it's easy to spend a small fortune on addons. Likewise theme designers sometimes come and go over time. If you're new to RapidWeaver and seeking to expand your theme collection, it's well worth looking at the choice of free RapidWeaver themes available out there. Although these are not always listed on the RapidWeaver addons website, there are some decent free themes to be found from the back-corners of several websites. 'Free' doesn't necessary mean featureless or buggy; there are many free theme designs out there which work well in the latest version of RapidWeaver and include a decent array of customisable options. Free themes are a great way to get aquatinted with RapidWeaver and can even be used to develop your own themes around. This blog post aims to highlight some sources of free RapidWeaver themes in 2012.

A quick review of the Nexus 7

Will Woodgate — 2012-07-18T14:51:06+01:00

I only heard about the Nexus 7 a few weeks ago and read some pretty promising reviews about it on Engadget. So on 16th July I decided to order an 8GB model, with the intention of using it to do some browser testing, on some upcoming mobile / tablet optimised RapidWeaver themes I have been developing recently. As of today, I've never used an Android powered device before, so did not really have much idea of what to expect. Despite some people having pre-ordered their Nexus 7's several weeks ago, mine was dispatched and got delivered at lunchtime today. So either Google was having some distribution issues with earlier orders, or maybe they just favoured me as an existing heavy user of Google services? Yesterday I also heard another very promising review by Stuart Dredge and Lauren Laverne on BBC 6 music (iPlayer link 1:08 min). So it does seem to be a device getting the thumbs up in wider circles.

Unofficial Theme SDK updated

Will Woodgate — 2012-07-17T09:06:25+01:00

I'm pleased to announce the update of the Unofficial Theme SDK, version 2.0 this morning. For those unaware of what the Unofficial Theme SDK actually is, this is my own take on the RapidWeaver theme SDK that Realmac Software already provides. However in my version, I include a lot of features and technologies that many third-party theme developers use. Aspects like ExtraContent, HTML5 doctypes, jQuery Javascript and support for theme editing utilities like RapidWeaver MultiTool and RapidThemer.

In this latest update, cosmetically nothing changes from previous versions, but I've changed some aspects of the underlying theme around and added a few more new technologies like mobile support, the Bootstrap toolkit and CSS3 transitions.

Search & Content - Together at Last

Will Woodgate — 2012-06-09T15:08:16+01:00

[A guest post by Bill Adelstein of Stack-Its.com]

Stack-Its has just announced the release of Searcher2. Searcher2 allows visitors to search for and show content that interests them. So why is this important? Because now visitors can see a 'snapshot' view of a site's contents without going to every page and can dynamically filter what they see.

Searcher2 provides a powerful and easy to use search box, capable of searching across your entire site, auto-generated selection lists with search terms displayed individually, smooth animation, option for initial hidden content, content link buttons to take viewers to the referring pages and the ability to place the controller & searchable content anywhere.

Make sure to check out the awesome demo on the Searcher Product Page. What will your visitors search for?

The week that just was

Will Woodgate — 2012-06-02T22:04:46+01:00

A very busy week has just finished. I've fallen a bit behind with the blog in recent days, so thought it would be sensible to throw-together a quick article tonight summarising events of the past 7 days.

Adding Disqus commenting to any page in your RapidWeaver website

Will Woodgate — 2012-05-22T09:57:41+01:00

Disqus is a very powerful commenting system featuring an excellent admin interface. It makes it easy for people to interact with your website, letting them add comments or other types of feedback on your pages. Disqus is almost ready-to-use, so you don't need to spend hours custom-building something yourself, or endure the expense of hiring a developer or purchasing additional plugins. Disqus is free to use for basic websites and subscription-based packages are available if you need extra features like analytics or support for multiple admin's. It also has the advantage of integrating tightly with social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook. It incorporates a strong spam filter as standard. Although commonly used in blog pages, in theory you can add support for Disqus to many other page types in RapidWeaver as well.

Commenting is useful in all sorts of different projects. If your website hosts an online album or portfolio, then commenting lets people leave feedback about your work. A website selling goods or services can make use of a comments form, so that customers can post reviews and feedback. There are numerous instances when a comments form can be of use. Typically the ability for people to post comments turns an otherwise static and somewhat stagnant website into more of a community with daily activity. Not to mention a powerful tool for businesses to get feedback from real customers.

This short guide will explain the basic steps of adding support for Disqus commenting to a normal Styled Text page in RapidWeaver. It is assumed you already have a Disqus account setup (these are free).

Flood 3.2 released

Will Woodgate — 2012-05-15T16:02:50+01:00

Version 3.2 of the Flood RapidWeaver theme is available today. This update includes the following changes:

Updated the Bootstrap Toolkit to the latest version
Added options to change the height of the Tagline container
Updated the local version of jQuery to version 1.7.2
Adjusted the structure and selector names applied to the site title and slogan
Mobile mode now only gets invoked once the page has finished loading*
Improvements to block and split navigation layouts
Minor adjustments to navigation spacing in IE7
New Miscellaneous theme style setting to make images responsive

* This should improve compatibility with a couple of specialist PHP stacks and plugins which were found to misbehave when viewed through a mobile device. Turning off mobile support (if surplus to requirements) should also be easier now, as there is no viewport tag in the main index.html file.

This is a free non-essential update for all existing users of the theme. The update can be obtained using your original download link or by contacting me direct via the ThemeFlood website.

PS: There is a super exciting free Stack coming along very shortly (a re-release of one of the old favourites), so make sure you are following me on Twitter if you want first access ;-)
Twitter: @willwoodgate

Toggle Stack 1.1.6 released

Will Woodgate — 2012-05-14T12:18:48+01:00

Kicking off a very busy week of new announcements and updates, the free and ever popular Toggle stack has received a minor update this morning. Alongside a new pair of icons, this stack now supports the ability to have a particular item toggled open when a user lands on the page or clicks a link. This feature was requested by Stephan Bender and should be of assistance to many others who use the Toggle stack to build quite complex accordion layouts.

There are some more details on setting up this new feature available on the Toggle stack page. Basically, every trigger now has an empty anchor tag applied to it. Using a tool like WebKit Inspector or Firefox Firebug, you can grab that anchor address from the page source code and use it as a link directly to that particular Toggle stack (which will open when the link is initiated).

The Toggle stack remains free to download and use in your personal and commercial web projects. I know it has proved to be a popular, flexible and reliable alternative for many ThemeFlood theme users. The update should show automatically in your Stacks element window (a few minutes after Stacks has been open). Or you can grab a copy of the stack via the Toggle stack page.

Filter Stack 1.1.1 released

Will Woodgate — 2012-05-03T17:12:14+01:00

This is a free update for all existing users and includes the following changes:

New option in the Filter Region settings to have items hidden on page load
New option to consolidate the Filter stack in Stacks edit mode
New icon
Removed surplus imageCrop property from the Info.plist file

This update is obtainable via Sparkle automatic updates in Stacks (the update should show in the Stack elements window a few minutes after Stacks has been launched) or download the latest version using your download link.

StackSlider 2.1.1 released

Will Woodgate — 2012-05-03T11:47:29+01:00

This morning, a free update has been made available for the StackSlider stack. This update includes the following changes:

Removed surplus imageCrop property from the Info.plist file
Adjusted the stack title slightly
Adjusted the setting group name slightly
Removed the surplus stack settings
Added a new option to consolidate the stack in edit mode
New icon
New setup instructions in edit mode

This is a free update for all existing users of the StackSlider stack. The update is obtainable via the Stacks element library (a few minutes after stacks has been opened) or via your original download link emailed to you at time of purchase.

If you are interested in Beta testing the next incarnation of the free FontGetter stack, please drop me an email or tweet. Work has been ongoing in recent days to update this stack for Stacks 2, introduce several new features, and hopefully make the stack a lot easier to use. Although it was planned to permanently shelve this stack, I've had repeated calls from lots of previous users to release it again. Apparently other stacks for embedding fonts fall short of expectations, for some people. So I've been nagged into getting this project restarted again, to offer an alternative solution.

Flood 3.1 released

Will Woodgate — 2012-04-11T14:44:42+01:00

Today I have released version 3.1 of the Flood RapidWeaver theme. There's not really any major changes in this update, just these few minor things:

Less flickering / flashing as the page loads on iOS devices
New and improved mobile mode simulator
Removed navigation indicator arrows
Formatting on sidebar headings has been adjusted
Added a new option to create a 'Back To Top' link
Minor adjustments to padding and margins in mobile output
New 'auto' banner height setting, for making the banner more responsive*
New header layout option to have the title, slogan and navigation centre-aligned
New options to change heading colours on the horizontal containers
Fixed an issue whereby Bootstrap buttons were inheriting visited link colours

This is a free update for all existing users.

* Making the banner container 'truly' responsive is easier now. Instead of using CSS background images or theme settings, you need to instead use HTML inline images (either dragged and dropped into your project or warehoused on the web server). Basically any image in ExtraContent4 with the new 'Auto' banner height setting selected will become responsive, and scale both horizontally and vertically as the page is resized. You can either use the free ExtraContent stack or ExtraContent code snippet available from the ExtraContent website. Or make use of a third-party responsive stack, placed in ExtraContent4.

The online demo of the Flood theme has been updated to include some more page styles (including Bootstrap examples).

On the subject of iPhones

Will Woodgate — 2012-04-05T13:52:39+01:00

The true social and environmental cost of iPhones to be exact. At the start of the week I got emailed a link to an interesting interactive graphic, entitled "the true cost of an iPhone". You can view it here:
http://www.mbaonline.com/cost-of-iphone/

Bottom line - new gadgets are great. Although much of the social and environmental implications relating to manufacturing are largely beyond the control of average consumers, there are still things we can do to be responsible consumers.

Flood 3.0 released

Will Woodgate — 2012-03-29T12:05:35+01:00

After nearly 4 months of development, testing and numerous Beta builds, I'm really pleased to finally unveil the latest update today for the Flood RapidWeaver theme. This sophisticated, minimalist RapidWeaver theme really pushes the limits of what themes can do, and packs in an array of revolutionary new features, some of which have never been seen in RapidWeaver themes before.

For those of you unfamiliar with this theme, Flood is a powerful and adaptable RapidWeaver theme, which gives you the features and customisable options to build stunning minimalist-styled websites with. Built on a robust scaffolding, the theme boasts excellent cross-browser compatibility with web browsers as far back as IE7 and all of your favourite RapidWeaver page styles.

ImageCaption stack responds and goes responsive!

Will Woodgate — 2012-03-17T20:56:04+00:00

I've just released a free update (version 1.3.0) to the ever-popular ImageCaption stack for Stacks 2.0. Alongside a new icon (many thanks to Dusan), the ImageCaption stack now supports responsive scaling on images dropped into the static content placeholder.

Importing content into an ExtraContent area using PlusKit

Will Woodgate — 2012-02-25T11:29:10+00:00

The ExtraContent technique allows you to break outside of the traditional content / sidebar regions in a webpage and place content into other parts of the page or special boxes and content regions. Typically this can help you utilise screen 'estate' better and create an altogether more advanced page layout to captivate your readers. Sometimes you may want to apply the same ExtraContent configuration across multiple pages (for example, some social networking and bookmarking icons) or you may want to pull in content from another page and embed it within an ExtraContent container. In most situations, the PlusKit plugin by Loghound software is best to use for this job.

ImageCaption stack updated to 2.2.0

Will Woodgate — 2012-02-21T11:45:12+00:00

The popular ImageCaption stack has been updated this morning, to include the following features and modifications:

Caption transparency should work more reliably now in IE7 / IE8, when other hacks are already being used in the page
Removed the surplus ImageCrop key from the Info.plist file
Renamed and reordered some of the setting groups for easier reading
ImageCaption height setting should now display 'px' properly in the box, when first loaded
Updated some of the informational tooltips in the stack settings
Reworked the link options slightly, so that if no link is set, you don't have a surplus tag in the page
Link container now has a class selector of imageCaptionLink applied, for custom CSS code
Added an option to consolidate the stack in edit mode - useful if you have finished editing the stack and wish to hide its contents
Tested and confirmed to be working in IE10, due for public release later this year

JavaBean Hosting launches a new RapidWeaver plugin

Will Woodgate — 2012-02-17T12:16:54+00:00

This one really is a game-changer and gives a whole new meaning to the concept of "RapidWeaver friendly hosting", which has become somewhat of a cliché recently. The new JavaBean Hosting plugin can be added to your RapidWeaver projects. It provides an exceptionally intuitive user interface, to get account statistics, status and documentation relating to your hosting account. It really does bridge the gap between RapidWeaver and webhosting. Nothing else like this has been developed before, and it is a pretty exciting little plugin.

Adding a Wibiya toolbar to your RapidWeaver website (and a short guide on building your own)

Will Woodgate — 2012-02-11T17:12:15+00:00

I was asked the other day how to go about building a Wibiya toolbar into a RapidWeaver website. At first I had no idea (I had never even heard of Wibiya before), but a quick peruse of the Wibiya website reveals that it is a social networking / bookmarking bar that gets displayed at the bottom of your website. Ultimately Wibiya is intended as an easy way for visitors to your website to share links with friends and colleagues. Wibiya promises to be "quick & easy" to integrate in a website, and "increase engagement & page views". Wibiya is currently a free service for basic accounts, and an option exists to update to premium accounts for a fee. Wibiya offers basic analytics, so you can keep tabs on the volume of people sharing your site.

Meta Mate plugin released for RapidWeaver

Will Woodgate — 2012-02-05T17:32:40+00:00

Meta data is special attributes added to the section of a webpage, which contain extra information about the page. Commonly this meta data has been used to display copyright information, publication dates, change frequencies, author names, keywords and descriptions. Several years ago, this meta data was heavily relied upon by search engines crawling websites. A net result of this meant that some unscrupulous people abused the system, and crammed their sites chock-full with meta data. So search engines had to rewrite their search algorithms somewhat, with less focus on meta data. As a result of this, it was widely believed at the time that this meta data was no longer required. Worryingly, some still live by this same rule.

Truth is, meta data is still of utmost importance to include in webpages. Search engines like Google are still very much using page description meta data in their search results. Although search engines don't use keywords so much now, other social networking and bookmarking services do still use this meta data. Very often, you may find that search engines 'borrow' content from these other channels and reuse it in their own search results. So however you look at it, meta data is not dead, and if anything it's more important than it ever has been. So I was incredibly pleased to see Michael Robinson release a brand new meta data plugin for RapidWeaver a few days ago, named Meta Mate. Here's a brief overview of the new plugin...

Adding Sparkle support to Stacks

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-30T14:27:18+00:00

If you are thinking of going into stack development or you already are a stack developer, the topic of Sparkle may have crossed your mind at some point. Sparkle is already built into Stacks 2, and compares the version number of the stack installed on a users computer against the version number presented on your web server. If it transpires that a newer version of the stack is available, the end user is automatically notified and gets a polite prompt to download the updated stack at a time convenient to them. The latest implementation of Sparkle in Stacks 2.0 is more secure and reliable, compared to what was previously running in Stacks 1.4. So now is a good time to consider adding Sparkle support to your stacks.

Setting up Sparkle for the first time in a stack is quite difficult. It requires the use of several components and some careful configuration. With Sparkle, it is very much as case of either it works, or it doesn't. Sparkle won't tell you where any problems may lie via error messages or logs. You've just got to rely on basic instinct much of the time and follow the setup procedure as carefully as possible. However, once Sparkle is setup correctly, it really does run like clockwork. Automated updates via Sparkle avoid the timely (and in some cases very costly) process of manually emailing updates out to your customers each time, and is a reliable means of ensuring your customers are running the latest versions. Especially important as new web browsers like Internet Explorer 10 come onto the horizon.

In recent weeks, a couple of stack developers have released some scripts to assist other developers in helping maintain an effective development and release workflow. I acknowledge these scripts exist, but rather than muddy the water, I still feel it is important to understand the basics of how Sparkle works and get at least your first few stacks 'sparkled' manually. Like me, you may actually prefer the manual process anyway. I switched on Sparkle support in all of my stacks on 7th December 2011. Since then, a couple of developers have asked me recently what is involved in getting Sparkle setup, hence I decided to put this short tutorial together.

Improving the RapidWeaver contact form

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-22T13:08:02+00:00

The contact form page style that comes installed with RapidWeaver is well-suited to most people's requirements. It is easy to setup, flexible enough to build some pretty lengthy forms with, and more importantly it is safe to use - safeguarding against hackers and spammers. It has always been my first choice of form plugin to use in RapidWeaver. Although there are other form-creation plugins and services available (e.g. FormLoom, FormSnap, Google Docs and Forms To Go) for many basic setups, these solutions are over-kill. Many people hate form filling, so the quicker and more painless you can make the process on your website, the better all round. The contact form page style that ships with RapidWeaver does have a few limitations, but if you are not afraid of custom CSS and HTML code, there are some inventive things you can do to make it rival other solutions.

MP3 audio in the Grid Iron stack

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-21T23:12:45+00:00

Another useful tutorial uploaded by Greg Barchard, this time covering the topic of integrating MP3 audio into the Grid Iron stack. This would be very useful for linking to audio recordings, such as lectures, an archive of sound effects or listing your own music samples. As before, any editors with read-write access to the Google spreadsheet would be able to update the table at anytime from outside of RapidWeaver, and add new audio listings. Grid Iron does the automatic conversion from the Google Docs spreadsheet to an embedded HTML table. More information and an example can be found here.

Load images into weaverPix with weaverFM

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-17T21:17:18+00:00

Many users may not know it, but it is possible to quickly (and easily) manage your RapidWeaver weaverPix slideshows with weaverFM. Greg Barchard has put together a tutorial on the subject here. This would be very useful if you have built a website on behalf of a client, and the client wishes to access and update the images in the slideshow his or herself at any time. I love it when RapidWeaver plugins can work together and provide a useful solution to common problems.

So, what theme widths should a RapidWeaver theme actually support?

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-14T10:32:45+00:00

This is something I have been thinking about these past few weeks. Traditionally, nearly all web designers and RapidWeaver theme developers have built sites using the 960px grid system (or a variant of). However the number of people browsing the internet with 1024 x 768px screen resolutions has diminished significantly in recent times. The W3Counter website suggests that 1024 x 768px resolution is still trending on the top, but larger screen resolutions are very close behind, within 1% of traipsing the leader. We're now finding that RapidWeaver themes with a fixed width of 960px or 1000px look odd in screen sizes of 1140px wide or greater. Some people are starting to say that 1000px fixed widths simply aren't wide enough any more. And indeed, they have a very valid point.

Conditionals stack released

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-12T08:49:12+00:00

Conditionals is a new stack which allows you to hide or display stacks, dependant on the ruleset you devise. It can be used to display informational messages in older versions of IE (Internet Explorer), to warn of impending compatibility issues. It can also be used to hide certain stacks in older versions of IE or provide links or page content which is more accessible. The Conditionals stack can be used to either hide or display content, based on the version of IE detected. You can also control if that content is hidden or shown in other web browsers which do not meet the ruleset you create.

DropCMS stack updated to version 1.3.0

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-11T09:54:40+00:00

CMS's (Content Management Systems) seem to be all the talk at the moment on the RapidWeaver forums. Although DropCMS is less than 2 months old, it has attracted significant interest from many users. Today version 1.3.0 of the DropCMS stack has landed, which introduces the following new features:

Toggle stack updated to version 1.1.2

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-09T12:19:19+00:00

A new week, and the first of several planned updates. The first update to hit the appcast servers this morning is the free Toggle stack. Today version 1.1.2 has been made available, which incorporates the following changes and feature requests:

Introducing Grid Iron

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-06T20:16:29+00:00

Grid Iron is the latest stack to leave the Greg Barchard labs, and is intended to make the process of embedding a Google Docs spreadsheet within a website really easy. We're being told that more and more computing is moving from the office to the cloud. Services like Google Docs have sprung up pretty quickly out of nowhere, and become strong competition against the likes of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice. Certainly if you are just a casual writer or number cruncher, being able to centralise your office and access documents from any internet-connected computer in the world has its benefits.

ThemeFlood - where we're going...

Will Woodgate — 2012-01-01T21:01:40+00:00

As I mentioned on the RapidWeaver forums on 25th December, 2011 has been a tremendously successful year for me, with many thanks to the RapidWeaver community worldwide for their ongoing support. New RapidWeaver themes like Flood, Torrent, Haze and Photogenic were released this past year and have sold hundreds of copies (far beyond any of my wildest expectations). It really confused the accountant! On 1st December 2011, Stacks 2 got its first public airing and again many hundreds of Stacks have been sold. Throughout 2011, the ThemeFlood and newly launched Stacks4Stacks website combined received 47,588 unique visitors who viewed a combined total of 297,369 webpages. Javabean Hosting (who I switched to in August) have done a fantastic job of dealing with this increase in traffic. So things are going really well at the moment, and I do hope the momentum continues into 2012.

How to float YouTube video's within text

Will Woodgate — 2011-11-04T20:35:45+00:00

This has been a topic of conversation with several people in recent weeks, so I thought I would share a method today on how to get text wrapping correctly around a YouTube video. The core of the problem is that Youtube video's (like other objects) are block elements, and thus they span the full 100% width of a given container, and split blocks of text into two. Not always ideal. Video content does not behave in the same way, compared to images. So we have to use some extra code to get wrapping working correctly.

Flood 2.0 released

Will Woodgate — 2011-10-19T20:31:38+01:00

Today I'm releasing Flood 2.0. Cosmetically not a lot changes in this version. The update was mainly put together to address a couple of niggling issues and build in support for some new features, which existing users had contacted and asked me about. As ever, this update is completely free for existing users to obtain, and you can grab the latest update using your download link or requesting a new link.

I'm not going to hide the fact that Flood has exceeded all of my expectations. It was a theme I had originally put together for my own website (ThemeFlood), because I needed something very clean and modern-looking, in which to showcase my collection of themes and stacks. It didn't take very long before I was getting a steady trickle of people asking what theme I was using, followed closely by the question of where it was obtainable! So I spent a couple of weeks tidying up the theme and building in a lot of theme style and colour settings. Because it was quite a complex theme, it had to warrant the £20 price tag. And so it went on sale in March 2011.

I honestly thought that a lot of people would have laughed at the Flood theme and questioned why something that looks so simple should cost so much. But thankfully the provision of a free demo version meant that many people downloaded Flood and quickly came to realise the power and potential of this theme. And that is why I think it has been the most successful RapidWeaver theme I've ever released. To date, I have told over 300 copies of Flood through my website, and I know for sure that there have been several dozen purchase orders for it as well, from education organisations and bigger media / publishing companies. Considering the theme is not even a year old, that is pretty good going.

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, passes away aged 56

Will Woodgate — 2011-10-06T20:30:30+01:00

Sad news this morning that Steve Jobs, who stepped down from position of CEO in August has died at the age of 56. Without question, Steve has inspired millions and had a significant influence on 21st century technology. Steve was always pushing the limits of design and technology. He set ambitious standards for the competition to equal and certainly a world without Apple would be a more subdued place. BBC News writeup: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15193922

MacRabbit releases Espresso 2.0

Will Woodgate — 2011-09-30T20:28:57+01:00

Following quick behind the launch of Analog this week, MacRabbit has released Espresso 2.0. This version of Espresso merges the previous Apple award-winning CSSEdit with Espresso 1.0, and introduces a swath of new features. Previously I really liked CSSEdit and Espresso 1 and used them extensively on a day-to-day basis for RapidWeaver theme and stack development. So to have both apps merged together as one makes sense to me. The user interface in this latest version of Espresso remains fantastic, and there are plenty of options to satisfy both novice web developers and seasoned professionals.

Purchasing Espresso 2 will cost you $79. That may seem a little steep, but one web development project would easily cover that cost. Existing Espresso or CSSEdit users can benefit from very generous upgrade discounts as well. Altogether Espresso 2 offers a fantastic application for web developers, a beautiful interface and is brimming with professional features for getting jobs done quicker.

MacRabbit website: http://macrabbit.com/

RapidMaps on special offer today

Will Woodgate — 2011-09-29T20:27:11+01:00

RapidMaps is today's featured MacZot, selling for $6.99 instead of the normal price of $14.95. A very useful plugin to use in RapidWeaver, wherever you want to display a map. It uses Google Maps, so you don't have to worry about sub-licensing maps from other companies. Remarkably simple to setup and the interface is much easier to work with, compared with competing stacks.

RapidMaps is a RapidWeaver plugin that lets you add Google Maps to your site in a few clicks. Just center your map, fill in your Google API Key and publish!

MacZot website: http://maczot.com/
RapidMaps: http://www.omnidea.it/rapidmaps/

Analog Released by RealMac Software

Will Woodgate — 2011-09-28T20:25:27+01:00

A superb little image editor I've been Beta testing for the past few months got released today. It's called Analog and is developed by Realmac Software, the same company behind other prestigious software titles like RapidWeaver, LittleSnapper and Courier. Analog is a remarkably simple application that lets you to drag and drop images into a placeholder and choose from a range of professional looking filters and frame effects. Then these processed images can be saved locally on your hard drive, attached to an email or published to various online 'clouds' like Flickr, Picasa or Facebook for the world to see.

Introducing System7

Will Woodgate — 2010-07-08T16:28:57+01:00

Drop-down menu navigation layouts have become a popular trend in modern web design. Although they are sometimes criticised by accessibility experts, generally they are favoured by both developers and site visitors and mimic navigation layouts found in common desktop software. However integrating drop-downs into websites is still a very challenging process. Many methods exist relying on a broad range of techniques and technologies. Integration in RapidWeaver is particularly difficult as page links get generated automatically and projects can be quite hostile places with any number of stacks or scripts running in the same page.

Putting a "Share This" button in a blog post

Will Woodgate — 2010-01-18T03:25:00+00:00

Social networking icons and buttons have become a common feature in blogs. This in turn makes it easier to promote blog posts organically, improve SEO (search engine optimisation) and generally make your blog a more friendly place for regular readers. There are a number of different social networking icons which can be added to a page. Some authors prefer to use their own custom icons, whereas other prefer to use a widget or module. This post will focus on a ready-made module of buttons, but the same procedure can be applied to custom buttons as well.