Friday, August 31, 2007
Google Pages
A friend ask me today "how hard is it to make a one page site, really simple, with a contact form".
I hate this question.
The first page of any website is the hardest and most time-consuming. The other pages are easy - just copy and paste the content and format it within the template. But working out the layout, graphics, and then browser bugs on the first pages takes time. It has to be custom for branding purposes.
My friend just got certified as a LMT and wanted a virtual business card/brochure. I suggested he try Google Pages, which offers ad-free websites for Gmail users. Sure, the templates are rather generic but most are attractive enough. You have four different layouts to choose from (one, two, and three column). And there's a little WYSIWYG editor with a HTML option. The only thing I don't like about the editor is that isn't very strong on meaning and semantics. It has no option for <h1>, <h2>, <blockquote>, etc. At least you can edit the HTML directly, which I needed to do to get the content to show up exactly the way we wanted.
I worked with him on formatting the text, but overall he was very happy with how simple it was to set up.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Free Color Scheme Generators
For those that come from non-art backgrounds, one of the more difficult tasks in web design is matching colors and choosing an appropriate color scheme. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools to help with this task. Here's a commented list of the ones I find most helpful:
- Color Schemer Online V2 - This generates color schemes from an inputted RGB or hex value. Also available with (with more options, of course) as a PC/Mac desktop program. Very easy to use and understand, but limited.
- Well Styled - A more advanced color scheme generator, with a color wheel, color variations, and options for mono, contrast, triad, etc. Only input option is RGB.
- Color Wheel by Antone Roundy - put in a color in RGB or hex format, and it automatically generates palettes for Complementary, Split, Mono, Triadic, and Analogous. It is more advanced in that it allows you to select angles and change the tints and shades. It is a bit clumsy in that you must enter the value in chunks of two instead of copying and pasting the whole 6 digit hex.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Get the Web 2.0 Design Look
How do you describe the Web 2.0 design look to people not in the industry? Web design book has a very amusing (but true!) entry on how to create the perfect Web 2.0 logo.
I don't necessarily think the Web 2.0 look is a bad one. It is my favorite design trend. I like how it looks very friendly, with all of the softer colors and rounded corners. And the starbursts and reflections are cool too. But it certainly isn't for everyone, especially when you use most of the effects listed in the article on a single site. For a web development or technology firm? Sure. A heavy construction equipment manufacturer? Umm, no.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Solved: EE Archive Image Problem
I noted in my earlier entry about the archive post images not showing up in Expression Engine.
Turns out that I needed to change the path to the image. I replaced the absolute URL to the image with http://annekowalski.com/images/uploads/.
For example, if the location of the image was:
http://clothingengineer.com/images/uploads/2007/08/burda-2-07-108-sleevecap.jpg
I changed it to read as:
http://annekowalski.com/images/uploads/2007/08/burda-2-07-108-sleevecap.jpg
within my image tag.
Notice how there is no slash between the http://annekowalski.com/images/uploads/ and 2007.
Now the only issue is that lightbox does not work on the archived posts. But it really isn't that important...so it is being pushed on the back burner for now. First I have to get a theme up and running 
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Expression Engine: First Impression
I just bought a new domain name, clothingengineer.com, which will be the new home of Sewing Bunny. I wanted to try something different this time, so instead of installing WordPress I decided to try Expression Engine. My eventual goal is to include articles and tutorials in addition to blog entries.
Background
Expression Engine is best categorized as a general purpose CMS. It is not open source, but includes a free core version (which I am using). The core version is only for non-commercial, personal websites. It is quite basic, but for someone wanting to create a blog it has all the basics.
I am considering upgrading to a $100 personal license in the future, which includes a gallery, email/form module, wiki, mailing list, etc. There is also a license available for commercial sites, which is $250.
Installation
Installing Expression Engine took only a few minutes. Just create a MySQL database, add a user to the database, and upload the files. The installation instructions are very thorough, and tell you everything you need to know. This is one of the strengths of Expression Engine - very clear and detailed documentation.
Configuration
For my purposes, I wanted to set up Expression Engine as a blog.
Since Expression Engine is not a dedicated blog script like WordPress, it took much longer to actually get started writing. Expression Engine uses “weblogs” as their terminology for sections. (It is like how Drupal uses nodes.) I used the default weblog for my blog. From what I understand from the documentation, I would have to create another weblog if I wanted to write articles.
TinyMCE
Even though I know HTML, I prefer to compose entries in a WYSIWYG editor. Expression Engine doesn’t include one by default, but offers TinyMCE as an extension. I followed the installation instructions, but couldn’t enable it. The option was simply grayed out. I solved this by going into the config.php file, finding the line about extensions, and changing the configuration value from “n” to “y”. It worked!
Lightbox
Integrating Lightbox was easy. By following the instructions on the Lightbox website, I was able to not only enable Lightbox for new entries, but have the overlay work with old WordPress entries work as well.
Problems
Images Not Showing
When I installed Expression Engine, I noticed that none of my images were showing up either in the control panel or on the actual website. After a few hours searching the forums and checking every option in my control panel, I finally found out that the problem was the hotlink protection enabled on my server. Once I disabled it, all images showed with no problems.
Importing Old WordPress Entries and Comments
Unfortunately I couldn’t find an easy way to import my old WordPress entries. Fortunately there aren’t very many of them (under 50) but it was still a pain to manually copy and paste entries. And I lost my comments. But again, there weren’t very many of them.
Most of my entries were strictly copy and paste. For the ones with images, I made sure to upload the wp-content folder (which contains all WordPress uploaded files and images) into the site root. Then it was just a matter of ctrl+f in Firefox and replacing my old domain name with my new one. But, then there was the issue of how the images in the archives showed up. Rather than link directly to the wp-content folder in the root, I noticed in the address bar that it takes the name of the enabled template and puts it before the wp-content directory. Hmm...this is something I’m going to have to look into.
But is it Designer Friendly?
For me, the real test will be to see how easy Expression Engine is to theme. I am optimistic about this, since many designers as well as web programmers seemed to have good luck converting their static HTML/CSS templates to Expression Engine. It is one of the major reasons why I chose to go with Expression Engine.
Conclusion
Expression Engine is great for a more sophisticated user looking for software for a more generalized website. WordPress does a great job for blog-only websites, but someone looking for more power and/or commercial support for their blog should consider Expression Engine. The Expression Engine team really has their act together.
WordPress is still the winner for non-technical users that want ultimate ease-of-use and plugin/theme flexibility. The way WordPress handles uploads is superior to that of Expression Engine, and there are way more plugins/themes available.
