Flash Page Turn Corner Effect

Posted on August 19, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio, Products, Real Estate News | 8 Comments

Flash Page Peel / Page Flip Effect Script:

Our advertising script is the most effective type of page peel or page flip flash effect on the market. Modified to work with a select few open source applications, the page peel advertising rotator is effective in bringing to life advertising options on your domain.

Dont settle for out dated and greatly annoying popup ads and why settle for banner advertising on your site taking up precious real estate that could be used for more productive site features when you can randomize multiple client advertising campaigns with a system that puts the rest to shame.

80% of your ads success depends on one thing.

Its been said by advertising experts that the 80 / 20 rule applies to advertising in a clearly difinitive way that articulates the effectiveness of an advertisement. For each dollar spent, 80% of that dollar is in the headline and 20% in the content body of an ad. Headlines serve one purpose, to draw attention. That being said; can you honestly think of a more effective headline than this Page Peel Flash Effect Script? The answer should be obvious.

Affordable isn’t even the best way to articulate this. How about Dirt cheap pound for pound more effective than solutions costing hundreds of dollars. If $80.00 out of every $100.00 is spent trying to CATCH YOUR PROSPECTS ATTENTION RIGHT NOW with effective CALLS TO ACTION then this tool is as cost effective any can be. My 80% would be to bet on a sure thing rather than throwing darts at a dart board in hopes someone would click my banner.

Open Realty Tabbed Navigation

Posted on August 7, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio, Products, Real Estate News, Template Design Kit | Leave a Comment

Tabbed Navigation for Open Realty Templates

People like tabs, they like cascading menus and they like clean styled well organized navigation structures. Using tabs for navigation isn’t all to difficult to do for most things as the markup is widely available and easily implemented. One of my favorite of all tabbed type navigation examples is the one published by A List Apart called Sliding Doors A great static tab set with styling for active states for a satisfying effect. But what if you want to use that same tab set in a dynamic environment where tab and or navigation states are all template based. Meaning the navigation elements are not controlled by the database as they are in say Joomla or other applications. Well I needed an answer to that as well having a serious desire to make a tabbed template for CRE Loaded Pro and here is what we did.

Open Realty and Sliding Doors Tab Navigation

Using a static type navigation set like the sliding doors example is that one particular feature of the tabs for active page isn’t exactly a stock feature in Open Realty. Because of this, I recently took a contribution I released last month for CRE Loaded and converted it to work with Open Realty in a no nonsense kind of way that is exceptionally easy to embrace providing a few of your ducks are in a row and you have properly configured your Open Realty installation.

What I’ve done is simple. I take a small chunk of PHP code and determine the URL of the pages I have matched to my tabs and then dynamically set the active state of that particular tab based on an array. Did I lose you? Well here it is in bare bones basic terms.

If you have a tab set with links like Home, About Us, Contact, etc… and you want the active tab to show active when on the about.html page or any other for that matter then when we edit the tab control file by adding the target landing page to the array and then add the link in the tab and your done. Could it get any simpler?

This little technique then gives you the ability to have a nice active state for pages in a templated environment like Open Realty. I’ve used it with other template engines where pages and or active link options are not provided by the application as you can see in the IDX example HERE. When you download the example or visit the site example you can see that the tabs are set to active on each appropriate page. Before you say big deal dude, how is that a challenge, take and download the sliding doors example from A List Apart and examine the code yourself. This solution will not rock the world but it sure does make an Open Realty template shine with a design that can accommodate a nice tabbed navigation.

You can find the tabs example and basic Open Realty template in the tutorials section of TBE.

Best regards.

CRE Loaded Catalog Images

Posted on August 7, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio, Products, Real Estate News, Template Design Kit | 1 Comment

CRE Loaded Thumbnail Generator

Nothing is more annoying than seeing or hearing about the frustration end users and site owners have with their site after spending a lofty chunk on its development. Although some things are certain to surface almost routinely, many things can be avoided by taking the time to draft well written and clear documentation.

In CRE Loaded projects I almost always provide site owners with a style guide if I have the slightest idea that he / she intend on using the content page features in the cart. Now, all though CRE Loaded comes with a WYSIWYG editor for product listings, it does not come with a logical explanation on how to use it effectively and therein lies the problem I face quite frequently with end users.

CRE Loaded unlike osCommerce provides a way for store owners to add content in a more rich and controlled format, thats the good part. But Its been my long held suggestion to end users to do their publishing of content offline in a professional html editor (commercial or not) primarily because online editors fill your drafts with countless inline elements that can break a layout. In every single one of my commercial sites, I draft the content in MS Word so I can port a version of my article to a PDF and MS Reader for downloads and then I copy that article into Dreamweaver, clean up the messy MS Word markup, validating the structure, then pasting it into the WYSIWYG editor in HTML format. As you can guess my blog is NOT one of those places I do this at. Nothing here validates. (proof positive on another experiment I’ll tell you about later)

Pictures and Content Break My Layout!

So, in CRE Loaded projects and templates I’ve always provided the client with a simple one page sheet on the correct image sizes and a small collection of examples among other things for the editor. In the last month alone I’ve seen only 1 person use a CRE Loaded design I’ve built correctly. Thumbnail images are consistent in size, the popup images are all the same size and product images are all the same size. Its when people try to upload these gigantic images in hopes that they will be sized correctly that problems begin.

Because of this I’ve had the php guy build me three little CRE Loaded generators that I’m publishing free of charge for your use. The main one is a simple image generator that takes the product photo and produces three output sizes based on user variables for either width or height. It will add a nice little user defined prefix to the image and provide some other features that will help CRE store owners to quickly generate consistent photo sizes without the lengthy process of producing them in photoshop.

I’ll write more on this generator and the content validation generators later in the week. Until then, blog like a mad man.

Website Application Compliance?

Posted on July 21, 2007
Filed Under Design, Portfolio | 1 Comment

Does XHTML and CSS Compliance Really Matter?

For some reason I seem to just piss people off in forums when I point out ways to improve the compliance of application code. It seems no matter how much patience and professionalism I use to describe ways to reduce the size a site by switching it to CSS or simply cleaning up the hundreds of compliance errors that surface, some people take offense. It’s freaky really.

I recently wrote about creating all css layouts for templates for CRE Loaded and opened up a storm of responses in a particular forum for designers that still has me shaking my head in wonder and amazement. Now I tend to self edit my writings pretty accurately as not to completely offend people but when I say that tables are heavy compared to style sheets, or I talk about cross over block elements as being bad code, I’m speaking truth! Right?

CSS / XHTML compliance is not pure vanity and its not an attempt to show off ones skill in design. Web standards however are alot more than just validation per se. Compliance to web standards has everything to do with the methods of publishing content in ways that screen readers and browsers can understand. It’s also about publishing for consistency, ease of change, control and many things that most compliance browsers should present unanimously in similar form and function. Now validating code doesn’t mean you get to say “I’m better than you are, ha” and it doesn’t mean you will rank better in search engines contrary to popular belief.

Good code standards in my opinion makes a statement about quality and attention to detail not to mention just doing it right. Nothing is harder to deal with then bad code and when code is so bad its noticeable I find myself making it a personal challenge to clean up.

Tables are NOT bad code

The bold and often arrogant pursuit of compliance has led many to adopt this belief that tables are in some way bad code or at least bad coding methods for layouts. Granted tables are not really intended for layout they none the less acceptable methods of site design for popular applications like CRE Loaded or osCommerce as so much of their function relies on tabulated data and data sets that really can’t be displayed effectively any other way.

So, since CRE Loaded was the motive for this post I’ll move to briefly looking at how it can be done using nice clean compliant code.

Open Realty - Joomla - CRE Loaded - Word Press

Of the many applications I work with only three stand out as being in some need of an overhaul. WordPress and Joomla are certainly not on the list as these two applications are very well developed to accommodate good web design.

CRE Loaded is a commercialized enhanced variant of osCommerce which inherits all of its poor layout standards and old inline styling methods. With patience and a little diligence, CRE Loaded as well as osCommerce can be brought up to speed for a lighter and faster product that will at the very least validate providing your content and products descriptions are not messy. Its easy to take an otherwise clean and compliant layout and break it with your content as you can see on my blog I do almost daily as this site produces more non compliant errors than any I’ve worked on. (There is a method to my madness I promise)

I’ve taken CRE Loaded as well as osCommerce on many occasions where custom designs were needed and pretty much went through and cleaned up the code but never did so as a foundation for further templates. Until now! The biggest concern is the frequency of change in these applications and the developers apparent decision to not include the inventory of file changes in the change log (sometimes). This presents a problem as updates and maintenance become a very time consuming endeavor.

An all CSS osCommerce template is possible in Beta 3 and is relatively possible in CRE Loaded 6.2 as I’ve discovered. After spending countless hours building a solid foundation for future design by creating several custom modifications as well as contributions, CRE Loaded templates can eventually weigh nearly 1/3 of their average weight while reducing processing time as much as 80% in all the demo’s and tests I’ve ran. I think that alone speaks for itself.

But compliance in relation to CRE Loaded really begins with the doctype and then all the little redundant generated code methods that make up the application on a whole. CRE Loaded has a proud feature set in its admin panel that let you alter the design to a degree and this doesn’t play well with an all CSS Layout.

I’ve been able to make features like template width, background color and other things controllable in the admin panel work well with an all CSS template. But an all CSS / XHTML compliant template for CRE is a lofty endeavor to say the least.

Now I love CRE Loaded and I suggest it to clients more so than any other commerce application. I wont even touch things like VirtueMart or Zen Cart anymore now that I’ve had some serious time invested into looking at, learning about, and designing for CRE Loaded customers. Compliance was a personal challenge when I decided to take it serious and the very first things I nailed was the module boxes.

CRE Loaded All CSS Templates / Themes

People who use osCommerce or CRE Loaded may be familiar with some of the menu tools available such as JS Cool Menu or DHTML Menu among others. The big issue I’ve always had is that neither one of those menu systems will rank or index with google and the ease of use is almost nil.

The very first obstacle I had was creating and all css multi level menu that I could apply to many of the other CRE Modules so it would index in search engines and reduce its weight and redundant “countless nesting” table levels that were really odd to work with.

After diligence, plenty of $$ for coders, and testing, I was finally able to produce a few master layouts that will validate according to both XHTML and CSS compliance tests and reduce the size to such a degree that when compared to stock templates, the CSS designs will weigh on average about 70% less and load much quicker.

Does this matter? Well I’ll let you and the search engines be the judge as my next posts on the subject wont be until I publish the results I certainly know and expect in terms of indexing and usability.

Regardless of the arguments surrounding compliance standards, CRE Loaded in my personal opinion benefits greatly by quality template design as many would plainly see. The temptation to produce turnkey tabled layouts is hard to avoid considering that most template houses sell their designs for $150 on average. The headache has been the exhaustive amount of layout code that makes up the pages when finally rendered. I think if you look at some of the designs I’ll publish you may consider a similar transition and because of such I’ve assembled a 5 template package which includes several custom menu contributions (All CSS mind you) along with STAR PRODUCT and a few other contributions that will help you in your own template design.

I’ll call it a template kit even though I don’t want it associated in any way to the Rapid Template Design Series. But look If I can save a would be client or customer hundreds of dollars in design by providing a nice little package for $50 my only question to you would be. Is it worth it? and if so, I’m going to publish it!

A designers #1 mistake and how to fix it.

Posted on July 1, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio, Real Estate News | Leave a Comment

Website owners assume people care about them.

The first rule in all web design should be that the only person you will ever impress is the person you are designing for and maybe yourself. People do not visit sites because they care about you or your design; they visit your site to find a solution specific to their need and if you fail to provide that, then the rest is moot.

Much like writing a book, the creative and intuitive process can be broken down into steps that when followed will likely produce consistent and predictable results. Writing is said to be many things but more often than not its said to be an expression of thought. True the pen is mightier than the sword, writing has the power to influence to a great degree, the audience of its intent. Therein lies the key fundamental solution on how to fix a web designers #1 Mistake in design. The process of good design is all about being intuitive and you can expect predictable results when the entire process is followed from conception to delivery. But this in no way says that a designer should NOT make a web site attractive visually. Right? Lets keep things in perspective.

Think about this for a moment. Would you take a 30 gallon metal garbage can and put high grade European automotive paint on it? Why or why not? What exactly is wrong with having a nice looking garbage can? Maybe this isn’t the best way to articulate a point but then again if your site is a container for garbage, then no amount of expensive paint is going to change that.

You design for your audience

It is a bold statement to say that visitors to your site care less about you and your design than you would hope they do. But all to often site designers (and I’m guilty of it myself) focus more on the appearance than the content in hopes that the design will impress enough that someone will caress my ego with praise.

But good quality web design is not a one time $100 shot in the dark for an interface. I don’t know how many times I’ve been asked to simply provide attractive interfaces wherein some of the design specifications defy good marketability of the finished product. I’ve written on guided navigation and intuitive layouts in no fewer than a dozen forums and every time I do, the interaction and responses are so great in number that its clear to me its a subject not covered enough.

Good web design begins with…

So how then does a designer solve this self love and presumption that a visitor cares about his / her design? Simple! All of the above provides the introduction and the summary goes like this;

First lets restate the mistake;
Designing for you and your needs, operating under the belief that people care about your design. Big mistake!

Easy Solution!
When approaching good design, keep your audience always in mind and design for them, NOT YOU. Every facet from interface to content and typography is all for someone else and rarely for you. Good web design begins with a clear idea of who your target audience is before all else. It should be the first group of question a designer asks a client just prior to all other interview questions.

If you have to caress your ego, get a blog, it works wonders for mine.

All CSS Menu for CRELoaded

Posted on June 21, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio | Leave a Comment

Long have I wanted to take the menu we use in osCommerce templates and make it work for CRELoaded. Until recently I have had little incentive to do so because no one ever seems to ask for the feature or even take casual interest in it.

CoolMenu and DHTML Menu like effects

Javascript menu’s wont index in seach engines and the two most popular sub cat type cascading menus used in most shops are either the JS CoolMenu contribution or the Dynamic Drive DHTML Menu contribution, each of which is a JavaScript menu.

My idea was to take one of the stock cascading nav systems I have in my snippet db for oscommerce and create one that will both index well in search engines and function well like the popular JS menu types. You can see the contribution working in this example. http://www.livedemosite.com/demo/oscommerce/

Look for the feature in our CRELoaded template inventory that will be published on http://www.asiteabove.com

Where Are Those Templates

Posted on June 17, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio | Leave a Comment

Joomla, Open Realty, WordPress Templates

All this time about the templates and shame on me for not being clear that those templates Real Estate related are all listed on The Brokers Edge under “Template Inventory”. That section will be turned on and off as I finish the redesign.

All other templates will be (not there yet) on ASiteAbove.com and or TemplateDesignKit.com. This blog is just my personal place to rant, show a few things and list occasional templates.

FREE WordPress Tutorials

Posted on June 13, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio | Leave a Comment

WordPress 2.2 Tutorials

Free WordPress 2.2 Tutorials are available on The Brokers Edge Forums for basic subjects at this point. After careful consideration of the topic inventory we wanted to cover I’ll be mainly directing the blogging tips and tricks in general terms rather than focusing on any particular industry.

~ Not to be confused with wordpresstutorials elsewhere.

Migrating WordPress 2.2 to Joomla

Posted on May 18, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio | 1 Comment

Joomla and SEF Advanced to replace WordPress 2.2

Yep, I’ve mentioned it before and this weekend this site will be migrated to a Joomla site and the blog will be moved to the /blog directory as I prepare to start publishing dozens and dozens of templates and other resources for download.

WordPress is certainly up to the task especially when considering using the WordPress Loop as a mini CMS system. I am a real fan of WordPress more so than ever before as I delve into it for some personal projects I’ve had tucked away for a long time. But WordPress as versatile an effective as it may be does not have a feature I most like about Joomla, the ability to designate menu positions on a page by page basis.

Joomla will give my new design and site some critical features specific to my long planned objective. I’ve wanted to publish tutorials, videos, templates and other resources for download to members where I can change the theme or template ever so slightly to reflect a unique look depending on the area of my site you are in. If for instance you will be visiting the tutorials area the tutorials template is what will be displayed and I can organize the menu’s a lot quicker than using WordPress, which also has the capability of individualized menu structures per “page” not “post” .

So I’m back to work to finish the WordPress projects I’ve started for clients and then over to complete the Forum design on TBE and then back here.

PAY CLOSE ATTENTION to the URL’s. I’m going to use it as an example of how to preserve links and page rank while switching systems and I’ll provide a quick link list page in Joomla to demonstrate how it all works. So often people tell me they don’t want to migrate their site to Joomla for fear of losing their much valued and established indexing of existing links. Well I’m happy to tell you its very possible to preserve every single link regardless if its ASP, HTM, HTML, PHP, or some other flavor of file extension.

Webmaster Client Management Tool

Posted on May 15, 2007
Filed Under Portfolio | Leave a Comment

Web Designers, Hosting, and Webmaster Client Tool

Man I despise losing things or forgetting what DVD I do an archive to when I backup my system. I’ve always wanted to have the resources at my finger tips to manage projects, clients and modified code elements all wrapped up into one convenient application. The problem has been that no such application worked exactly as I want it to. So I created a fast and dirty one using MS Access which is going to get some professional treatment and you are more than welcome to a copy of it.

It solves problems for WordPress, Joomla, vBulletin and other application administrators woes.

Before you say, big stinking deal how stupid is that, learn what it was created to solve.

« go back — keep looking »