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Browsing Category: "graphic design"

PatternCooler | Seamless Background Designs for Blogs, Mobile Phone Wallpapers, MySpace, Webdesign Projects

Cool Shit, graphic design August 15th, 2008

Tweek cool patters at patterncooler.com.

PatternCooler | Seamless Background Designs for Blogs, Mobile Phone Wallpapers, MySpace, Webdesign Projects

The best part is the developer’s request for donations for a better wig at the end of the wizard.

John

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Creating a template for Joomla 1.5

Joomla, Great Ideas, graphic design, Web Development, FireFox, PHP July 2nd, 2008

There is not too much secret to create a template for Joomla 1.5. The concept is the same as breaking a design for any site and you just need to know some content anchors and some “must have” files to make it work.

Let’s start with the “must have files”. No matter what kind of template you are building you will need the following:

index.php
templateDetails.xml
template_thumbnail.png
a css folder with template.css (or whatever name you want to use.css) inside
a images folder with at least the logo.png file (must have this name)

If you have this, your template is half away to be complete.

The templateDetails.xml is tricky and it have changed from the 1.0.x version to the 1.5.x version. Anyway this file must have the following parameters:

xml opening tag: <?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>
install open with version and type described: <install version=”1.5″ type=”template”>
- name: this will be the name displayed on joomla for your template, but it will be as well the directory of the template
- creationDate
- author
- copyright
- authorEmail
- authorUrl
- version: the version of the template
- description: the description that will be shown for the administrator on joomla
- and files: all the files that you use on your template
  - with filenames (off course has to contain the “most have” files)

Now all you need to do is break the design and attach the content anchors on your file and this is how it works. When you go the module manager on Joomla you will see a bunch of module positioning availabe. Copy those names, you will need them. They are the current anchors that you have available to use on your template. You can definitly change what module is on which positioning on the module manager, and that can affect the use of your template.

Anyway, for any module positioning on your template, let’s say, left, you will use the following command:

<jdoc:include type=”modules” name=”modulename: left for example” />

You don’t need to write a html header, those Joomla will take care of, but you will need to tell Joomla to do that and for that you will need to use:

<jdoc:include type=”head” />

At the very first line of your index.php you will need to test if you can execute Joomla. It’s required for the template. Anyway, you still have to work out some other checks needed for Joomla to work, so this is how your header must be:

“<?php
defined( ‘_JEXEC’ ) or die( ‘Restricted access’ );
JPlugin::loadLanguage( ‘tpl_SG1′ );
?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”<?php echo $this->language; ?>” lang=”<?php echo $this->language; ?>”>
<head>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; <?php echo _ISO; ?>” />
<?php if ($my->id) { initEditor(); } ?>
<jdoc:include type=”head” />
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”templates/system/css/system.css” type=”text/css” />
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”templates/<?php echo $this->template ?>/css/template_css.css” type=”text/css” />
</head>

Now, construct your template how it should be. Add the anchors and for the content area, add the following anchor:

<jdoc:include type=”component” />

You are done. Keep these tips and tricks in mind and you will create a Joomla Template in no time.

Cris

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99designs » Web design for Washers, Inc.

graphic design May 15th, 2008

99 designs is a user submitted design contest. Offer up a cash reward and have a crowd of designers compete to create your logo, website, branding, etc.

It’s LendingTree for design.

99designs » Web design for Washers, Inc.
88

John

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OpenDesigns.org nears the 1K mark of open source templates

graphic design February 20th, 2008

Open Designs, the open source web design community is boasting 955 templates. Soon they will be crossing the 1000 mark which is impressive for a site just over a year old.

I’m going to see if I can submit my design at the right time to become the 1000th design.

View Designs · OpenDesigns.org

John

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Web Design Inspiration - Stylegala, Webcreme, FWA

graphic design, Web Development February 18th, 2008

Since I blogged about CSSRemix, they’ve had continued connectivity issues. I would like to think this is the “robot effect”.

Here’s a collection of other Site Inspiration on the web:

http://www.stylegala.com/

http://www.webcreme.com/

http://cssmania.com/

The FWA: Favourite Website Awards - Web awards at the cutting edge

http://styleboost.com/

John

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Graphic Design Tool Tutorials

graphic design February 4th, 2008

Illustrator Tutorials (found this on Digg):

http://www.designertoday.com/Tutorials/Illustrator.aspx

Photoshop Tutorials:

http://www.dennisplucinik.com/blog/2007/08/28/60-advanced-adobe-photoshop-tutorials/

John

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CSSRemix - Design Inspiration

CSS, graphic design, Web Development January 29th, 2008

Back in the day, when I needed some web design inspiration, I would head over to Styleboost.com and see what cool sites had recently been posted. But over a period of 2 years, StyleBoost became increasingly dedicated to flash based site. The day I searched through several pages and didn’t seen an HTML/CSS design, I stopped visiting styleboost.

Today, I found a great alternative: CSSRemix. Great CSS design brought to you in one place.

John

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Two Favorite Stock Photography Sites

graphic design January 24th, 2008

Stock photography prices on Corbis and iStockPhoto have skyrocketed over the past two years. That’s why, I’m very happy to find two great stock photography sites who keep their prices reasonable.

The first is Lucky Oliver. A stock photography site combined with social networking and blogging. The search is cool and Ajaxy. Everything is paid for in tokens which has its intended affect. Like poker chips in a casino or tickets at a carnival, you start spending money without realizing it. Still, the photography is quality and inexpensive, the interface is amazing and the look of the site is well crafted and clever: http://www.luckyoliver.com/

Then there’s Fotolio. Fotolio claims to be the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images. Their prices are low. The photography is quality. The website’s look and feel is boring.

One cool feature is that you can easily subscribe to a RSS feed for a specific keyword you’re looking for. This could work almost like a saved search agent.

http://rss.fotolia.com/?k=boobs&zone_id=2

Happy Searching.