Web design - 14/11/2007 at 12:42 CET
Classy Amp is a Wordpress plugin which wraps ampersands in headings with <span class="amp"> <span>. Thanks to that, you can style your amps via CSS and improve the typography on your website. My friend Alan Lež (alanlez at gmail.com), an aspiring web programmer, is responsible for the programming. Thanks goes to Marko.
Download Classy Amp WP plugin here
How to Use
Copy the classy_amp.php file into your Plugins directory and activate it from your WP admin panel. Hopefully the plugin now inserts the <span> element aroung the amps in the headings and you’re ready to do your CSS magic.
If you’re using serif headings and web-safe fonts like Georgia, to style the ampersands, you can use the following CSS snippet:
span.amp {
font-family: "Goudy Old Style", Palatino, "Book Antiqua", Garamond, serif;
font-style: italic }
Another situation where Classy Amp can come in handy is when you’re setting your headings in Trebuchet MS. Replacing the Trebuchet ampersand with something less crappy is what I usually do.
The plugin should work on WP 1.5 and newer. We’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts and suggestions on making this plugin better. When time permits, we’ll be improving it and making it more user-friendly.
The plugin was inspired by Dan Cederholm, who showed the way of improving web typography with this method.
Comments (8)
Web design - 11/8/2007 at 16:23 CET
For such an easy to understand HTML entity, the non-breaking space (NBSP, ) is being misused way too often. Believe it or not, non-breaking spaces are just that — spaces where a line break will not occur. Meaning, you should not use them to simply add a bit of space between two words, sentences, or elements. Especially not elements. What may at first glance seem like a meaningless issue can in fact contribute greatly to your site’s semantic and overall quality. –Read the rest of this post–
Comments (9)
Web design - 14/4/2007 at 13:06 CET
I bumped into another blog that did not include the about page. A word of advice: you’re not doing anyone a favor by omitting your personal info. We want to know something about you if we’re gonna read your articles and posts. Your name, age and a word or two about you is quite enough. Anything less is usually not.
Personally, I’ll most probably leave your site and never come back if it does not include the about page. If you have the need to hide your name or/and age, then I do not have the need to read anything you have to say.
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Web design - 2/4/2007 at 22:25 CET
Well, not really an adventure, but I’d just like to tell you about a contest I entered at Sitepoint’s Marketplace. The contest ended yesterday and today I found out I had won it. Yay! Here’s one screenshot (just the “task view”) if you want to take a look-see.
These kind of contests always seemed a bit risky — you invest time, possibly a lot of time, and could very well end up with nothing. Nada. Zero. And that feeling, when you get it, sucks. I figured I’d give it a go because this contest looked interesting: design of an index page and a simple interface for a task manager. Plus, I do like contests. I had a bit of spare time, a couple of afternoons when I was not at home, so I made a few (not so good) mockups on my laptop. I enjoyed working on it so I polished it up in the evening, on a proper tool, my desktop computer. –Read the rest of this post–
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Web design - 31/10/2006 at 18:58 CET
I’ve been approached many times by beginners asking how to get started as a web designer. I’ll answer here instead of private messages and e-mail. This way, the message will reach many more aspiring web designers.
You won’t find an in-depth article here, though. You won’t find my own story, either. One article won’t make you a web designer, so you don’t really need that. You don’t need to hear my story either. I’ve started out back when web designers used to wrap one table around another, just to achive a one pixel border. Those days are long gone.
What you will find here is more questions. I’ll ask you: do you have the passion? –Read the rest of this post–
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Web design, General - 15/10/2006 at 23:42 CET
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day on the subject of work, work satisfaction and personal satisfaction. Generally, we have a lot in common, and I always enjoy our conversations. He admitted he admired me for having a job I thoroughly enjoy, which once again reminded me I should be thankful–I really am lucky. It’s very important having a job you sincerely love.
But then, he sort of surprised me when he said that web design is a lonely job. He thought he couldn’t be happy having a job like that because it doesn’t involve much communication. I paused for a second, thought about whether he’s right or wrong, and then thought how most people probably share his thoughts. –Read the rest of this post–
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Web design - 15/7/2006 at 13:58 CET
I was always a fan of keeping it simple when it comes to design. So when I was creating a logo for a project of mine, I wanted to make a clear and simple logo, with a clear and simple message. That was pretty much achieved, I believe.
The logo communicates the message, which is related to building, creating, foundation, basis, groundwork and so on. Mission accomplished, more or less. The danger was obviously in the simplicity of the logo. Surely, someone out there would, or already has, come up with a similar idea. I was willing to take the risk at the time.
In the meantime, months have passed, and we haven’t made much progress with the project. Earlier today, I came across Newshutch, a web-based RSS aggregator. Their logo is obviously very similar to the one I made.
What are your thoughts on this? Should I keep the logo? Or should I get back to the drawing boards?
Comments (7)
Web design - 6/7/2006 at 23:15 CET
In recent times, using the logo as a link back to the homepage has become the default way of handling the issue. Web designers use this method without thinking about it much, because everyone does it. They wrap the A element around the IMG element, and that does the trick. Maybe, but maybe not. While I think the method itself isn’t necessarily bad, using it does raise some usability questions. –Read the rest of this post–
Comments (8)
Web design, Semantics, Coding - 28/6/2006 at 18:01 CET
Just a quick reminder to all the authors out there – the INS and DEL elements are there for a reason. Tantek’s podcast taught me this, hopefully this post can impact others. Specs say:
INS and DEL are used to markup sections of the document that have been inserted or deleted with respect to a different version of a document (e.g., in draft legislation where lawmakers need to view the changes).
So, if you edit an article an insert content, use the INS element. If you decide to delete content, use DEL and let the users know exactly what changes happened in the document.
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Site News, Web design - 1/4/2006 at 14:55 CET
I’ve signed up Yesterdayishere for the May first CSS Reboot yesterday. Don’t expect anything major, though, as I opted for a realign. This site needs a little freshening up, doesn’t it?
For all you folks checking out the links section, keep in mind that I have a del.icio.us account at del.icio.us/bojan. It’s updated daily, so one or two good resources could be found there. Oh, and sorry, but I won’t bundle my tags.
Last, but not least, I thought I’d mention the fact that I’m noticing people are not abbreviating Firefox the right way. The abbreviation is not “FF”, but “Fx”, as stated in the Firefox FAQ.
Comments (2)
Web design, Semantics, Coding - 29/11/2005 at 15:09 CET
As Tantek Çelik said in his excellent WE05 presentation, the address element is perhaps the worst named HTML element. I definately agree there. A couple of months have passed since WE05, but it was only yesterday, when I had a chat with my friend Å ime, that I realized I didn’t properly understand how the address element should be used.
The address element isn’t for marking up literal addresses, said Tantek. It’s not for marking up all addresses on a site.
So, what’s it for, then? Marking up the contact information for a document. –Read the rest of this post–
Comments (8)
Web design - 23/11/2005 at 13:30 CET
Understanding the box model is extremely important when dealing with Cascading Style Sheets. Remember:
- Paddings are added to the overall size
- Borders are added to the overall size
Check out the excellent Interactive CSS Box Model Demo (Flash) which illustrates the box model.
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Web design - 22/11/2005 at 15:08 CET
I’ve concieved an idea for a simple web application. The app will considerably save time in the web site developing process and ultimately save money.
Since I’m not blessed with programming skills, I need someone with good skills, knowledge and some spare time to help me realize the idea.
Please contact me at bojan(at)yesterdayishere.com if you’re interested.
Update: Mike from DarkEye was the first to reply and hopefully we’ll make a good team. Please don’t send any more e-mails regarding programming this app.
Comments (3)
Web design - 21/11/2005 at 15:01 CET
I’m surprised how many designers still struggle with sizing text on web sites. Using pixels is not a good solution because IE cannot resize text set in pixels. Users should be able to resize text, so here’s a simple solution:
- Set
body { font-size: 62.5%; }
- Set something like
p { font-size: 1.2em; }, where 1em is 10px, 1.1em is 11px and so on.
Read more about it on Clagnut: How to size text using ems.
Comments (8)
Web design, General - 8/11/2005 at 13:22 CET
Wilar Bayou’s site (screenshot) looks mighty familiar, wouldn’t you agree? I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m almost certain I’ve seen that very design somewhere else. Perhaps you did, too?
Comments (23)
Web design - 2/11/2005 at 14:16 CET
If you ever wanted to apply more than one background image into your web page, this one’s for you. I’ve stumbled upon many sites that use various techniques, such as nested DIV’s, to combine two or more images into the site background. A quick and simple solution is to style both the HTML and BODY tags. This very site has been using that very technique for a while now. Check out the example.
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Web design - 28/10/2005 at 21:21 CET
Finally, the work on the Dani Gjalskog site slowly but surely draws to a close. It’s a site I’ve done free of charge, to help out this local cultural manifestation, and I can say I’ve very much enjoyed it. –Read the rest of this post–
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Web design - 10/10/2005 at 14:09 CET
Yes, that’s right—the notorious Times New Roman font isn’t evil. Despite the general opinion that the font is pretty much worthless, and a font not to use on the web, I encourage you to try it on your sites. It might be a good change, and you just might get comments like: “hey, what’s that cool serif font you’re using?”. And, really, if you like the Georgia on this site, wouldn’t you like Times New Roman, too?
Edit: The H2’s on this site are now changed from Georgia to Times New Roman. –Read the rest of this post–
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Web design - 15/9/2005 at 16:42 CET
I’d like to share a thought or two about what could well become a trend in web design–positioning the navigation at the bottom of the page. Here are some arguments why I think it may not be such a good idea. –Read the rest of this post–
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Web design, General - 26/7/2005 at 21:03 CET
Finished the work on the CD portfolio of the tallented Croatian artist Davor Habajec. The website is currently not available on the web, but it will be some time next year. In the meantime, feast your eyes on these rather small, but nonetheless lovely graphics.
One | Two | Three.
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