CommunityMX.com

Adding an Auto-Logout Feature - Part 2

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

If you have a site that is built using one of the server technologies, like ASP, PHP, or ColdFusion, that has a login feature, chances are you also have a logout function. What happens when the user keeps the browser open and doesn't log out? Many times he will go back to the page and attempt to click on something, only to find out that he has to login again. For example, the user might fill in a complex form and walk away, only to come back to try to submit the form and be kicked out of the site.

Part one of this series showed a function to log the user out after a specified period of time. This part will show a second function which will warn the user that the session is about to be closed. Also, the original function will be expanded to allow the use of a custom logout page.

Because this is a client-side JavaScript function, it will work with any server-side language.

The Adding an Auto-Logout Feature Series:
Adding an Auto-Logout Feature - Part 1
Adding an Auto-Logout Feature - Part 2 ...

Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 3

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Here is the 3rd part of our series on making a 3D billiard ball. By the time you finish it, you may be grabbing your chalk and cue.

Grab the source file and play along!

Approximate download size: 5.7MB

The Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball Series:
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 1
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 2
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 3...

Semantic XHTML - Part 10: Image Maps

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

By writing semantic, valid XHTML, the code that you create for your web site will work not only cross browser, but cross device. In Part 9, you were introduced to the image element. In this section we learn about image maps, including the map and area elements.

The Semantic XHTML Series:
Semantic XHTML - Part 1: The Required Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 2: Elements Within the Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 3: Common Block Level Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 4: List Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 5: Table Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 6: Inline Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 7: The Phrase Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 8: Empty Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 9: The Image Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 10: Image Maps...

A Holiday 2-for-1 Special

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Since it's the holiday season and everyone is in great spirits, I thought I might add to the season and bring you a two for one holiday special. Yes two related tutorials in one.

First off, I'm going to show you how to perk up the color and contrast of your images with some quick adjustments using the L-a-b Mode and Curves Adjustment. Then with the same image you'll see how you can create a decorative edge effect using, of all things, the Extract Filter. Lets begin....

CMX Masterpiece Photo Collection 1: Two Days Before the Mast

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

We hope you read Sheri German's article that introduces the concept behind our new CMX stock photo feature. You can read about my equipment and experience, and even learn a little classical literature as a side bonus! Without further ado, we introduce Collection 1, Two Years Before the Mast, ten high resolution images of boats from locations all over the Western Hemisphere.

Approximate download size: 41.5MB ...

Introducing the CMX Stock Photo Feature: Masterpiece Photos

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

It is that "most wonderful time of year", and CMX loves to offer gifts to its subscribers, as well as the web development community at large. While exchanging ideas, we decided it was time to add a much needed feature to Community MX's growing repertoire of subscriber services. We had been wanting to offer stock photos for quite some time, but were waiting for just the right photographer. We found her in Jillian Kossin, a photographer who travels all over the world to get her masterpiece images. It is with great pride that we introduce CMX Masterpiece Photos Collection 1: Two Years Before the Mast, a group of ten images based on boats, trawlers, sailboats, and ships....

Flex Builder 3 Tip: Migrating a Workspace

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Every once and a while there comes a situation where you need to migrate a whole workspace full of Flex projects over to another drive, or another directory. Flex Builder only supports importing projects, not workspaces, so this is not as easy as it sounds. This brief tutorial shows you how to do it simply and headache-free. We'll also cover some gotchas and best practices for managing Flex Builder projects....

Mail Merge with Adobe InDesign

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

InDesign is a great application for creating newsletters. Did you know that it can also mail the newsletter for you? Use the Data Merge feature and you can print your newsletter ready to drop in the mail! You'll need to print the newsletter and you'll need to print the mailing addresses, so why not do them both at the same time?...

Pimpin'

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:04:43 GMT

My new book, Real World Compositing with Photoshop CS4, is set to hit shelves in early January 2009. We turned in the final manuscript this past week. It's been an interesting journey, and I'm already collecting notes for a 2nd edition (if we're lucky), and possibly another book altogether.

We took the approach of going from concept to execution, hoping for a more holistic way of creating composite artwork. The goal wa......

Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 4

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

When it comes to Flash, one of my programming mentors has helped me significantly with troubleshooting ? with making things work when, against all expectation, they simply don't work. In this series, I'd like to explore a single theme ? troubleshooting ? from a variety of angles, sharing with you what my mentor has shared with me. Along the way, we'll turn up a few quirks involved in working with Flash, but more importantly, we'll review how to approach arriving at useful workarounds, regardless what the issue is.

Here in Part 4, we'll take second look the divide-and-conquer approach we used last time, but performed in a very different way. In this excursion, the cause of the problem arguably isn't code at all, and the pertinent troubleshooting doesn't involve ActionScript. Yes, sometimes the solution to a programming hiccup is like stepping off a cliff: away from the familiar (if treacherous) coding landscape and into ... whatever awaits.

The Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles Series:
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 1
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 2
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 3
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 4...

Black is Black?I Want My Color Back

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

It's not possible to colorize a part of an image which is 100% black you say. In other words, if part of the image has zero Red, Green and Blue values in it, it can not be colorized since the technique of coloriztion relies on pixels valued from 1 to 254 in brightness range. I say the impossible is in fact possible. Photoshop has some very clever tools to accomplish this without being in anyway destructive to the original image. In fact you can colorize the same black portion of the image over and over again with different colors and still retain the same image content. Let's begin....

Dreamweaver's Form Validation Behavior

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

This quick video shows how to use the form validation behavior in Dreamweaver.

Approximate download size: 14MB...

Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 6: Using the Snapshot Technique for Editing WordPress Themes

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The goal of this series of articles is to show you how to take what is already an awesome package?including an almost limitless supply of free design themes?and customize the look and feel of a WordPress site to meet your goals. Through this series you'll be learning how to use some of the design tools from Adobe, such as Fireworks and Dreamweaver, as well as free open source browser plugins to modify the design of a WordPress installation.

In this, the sixth article in the series, you'll be learning another method for editing WordPress themes in Dreamweaver. Using the Snapshot technique shown in this article you'll be able to use Dreamweaver CS4 for editing your style sheet while using all of the design tools that Dreamweaver provides.

The Customizing a WordPress Blog Series:
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 1: Editing Header Images
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 2: Examining WordPress Themes with the Firebug Extension for FF
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 3: Examining WordPress Themes with the Web Developer's Extension
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 4: Creating a Testing Environment Using MAMP and Dreamweaver
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 5: Editing WordPress Themes in Dreamweaver CS4
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 6: Using the Snapshot Technique for Editing WordPress Themes...

Adding an Auto-Logout Feature - Part 1

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

If you have a web application that has a login feature, chances are you also have a logout function. What happens when the user keeps the browser open and doesn't log out? Many times he will go back to the page and attempt to click on something, only to find out that he has to login again.

This article will show a JavaScript function that you can put on the page that will automatically log out the user after a specific length of time, so that when he returns to the browser he will already be logged out. Because this is a JavaScript function, it will work with any server-side language.

The Adding an Auto-Logout Feature Series:
Adding an Auto-Logout Feature - Part 1
Adding an Auto-Logout Feature - Part 2 ...

Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 2

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Let's do something with our new #6 billiard ball - let's light that puppy up and put it on a table! In Part 2 of this series, we'll create a basic felt texture, and learn how to move lights around in Photoshop CS4 Extended. Be sure to grab the demo file if you didn't follow along with Part 1 (and shame on you for ditching class!).

The Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball Series:
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 1
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 2
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 3...

The jQuery UI Components - Part 11: Slider Widget

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The jQuery library goes a long way to help make AJAX-oriented applications easier to develop and deploy. One of the things that makes jQuery stand out from the other libraries available though is its expandibility. The jQuery UI plugins, built on top of the original jQuery library, take that original ease of development and expand it to apply to interactive interface components, rather than just the underlying code that drives them.

In this series, we're going to look at the various modules and components that make up the jQuery UI system to see how they can help to make building rich interfaces on top of our existing jQuery systems a piece of cake.

In the eleventh part of this series we'll continue looking at the various jQuery UI Widgets that are available by examining the Slider module.

The jQuery UI Components Series:
The jQuery UI Components - Part 1: Introduction
The jQuery UI Components - Part 2: Draggables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 3: Droppables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 4: Sortables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 5: Resizables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 6: Accordion Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 7: Datepicker Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 8: Colorpicker Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 9: Magnifier Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 10: Progress Bar Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 11: Slider Widget ...

Site Wide Contact Forms in Drupal

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Drupal 6 provides a powerful content management framework that, out of the box, enables any user to create pages, blog's, forums, and more. With many third-party modules that allow for even more functionality, we often overlook functionality that out of the box is already available, just waiting for you to enable it. Contact forms are one such module that with a few quick settings allows people to contact you.

In this quick tutorial we will go through the steps involved to enable and set up one to multiple contact forms quickly and easily....

Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 4: Using Panels

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners Series. This is not a tutorial but a guided tour of the workings and descriptions of Illustrator CS3. I hope you will enjoy this brilliant software as much as I do, learning about this software will not be an overnight event, it takes time and patience to master this wonderful creative software. It will bring frustration and headache but also joy and elation; stick with it, the end product will be well worth it.

In Part 4 of this series, we will briefly introduce you to all the Panels in Illustrator CS3.

The Adobe Illustrator CS3 For Absolute Beginners Series:
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 1: Overview
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 2: The Tools Panel
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 3: Overview of the Work Area
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 4: Using Panels...

Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 5: Editing WordPress Themes in Dreamweaver CS4

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

There's little doubt that the fine, free, open source blogging package available from WordPress has enjoyed astounding success. With downloads of well over 50 million, the PHP, MySQL, and Apache powered WordPress package is currently the world's most popular blogging package and is in use by literally millions of designers and developers (and do-it-yourselfers)around the world.

The goal of this series of articles is to show you how to take what is already an awesome package?including an almost limitless supply of free design themes?and customize the look and feel of a WordPress site to meet your goals. Through this series you'll be learning how to use some of the design tools from Adobe, such as Fireworks and Dreamweaver, as well as free open source browser plugins to modify the design of a WordPress installation.

In this article we'll take a look at the incredible new dynamic design tools that are available in Dreamweaver CS4. Using the new Live View feature you can prepare a design environment for WordPress themes that not only allows you to take advantage of the visual editing environment in Dreamweaver, for the first time you can actually see the changes to linked CSS files take place right within the Dreamweaver design environment. These new features make it possible like never before for anyone to work with WordPress themes.

The Customizing a WordPress Blog Series:
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 1: Editing Header Images
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 2: Examining WordPress Themes with the Firebug Extension for FF
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 3: Examining WordPress Themes with the Web Developer's Extension
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 4: Creating a Testing Environment Using MAMP and Dreamweaver
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 5: Editing WordPress Themes in Dreamweaver CS4...

Semantic XHTML - Part 9: The Image Element

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

By writing semantic, valid XHTML, the code that you create for your web site will work not only cross browser, but cross device. In part 8 you were introduced to empty elements. In this section we discuss another empty element: the inline IMG or image element. Learn when to use and when not to use the image element, and learn all about the image element's attributes.

The Semantic XHTML Series:
Semantic XHTML - Part 1: The Required Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 2: Elements Within the Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 3: Common Block Level Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 4: List Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 5: Table Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 6: Inline Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 7: The Phrase Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 8: Empty Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 9: The Image Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 10: Image Maps...

Building Web Sites With Drupal ? Part 17: Setting Up User Blogs

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

CSS Tabbed Navigation Sets for Sliding Doors Navigation

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Navigation is the most important part of any website - no matter how nice the site looks it has to be usable or it has little to no value in the real world. Not only does the navigation need to be well thought out, it also needs to be well designed, be accessible, look good and be robust enough to not break when a user resizes the page content. Their aren't too many systems that fill all those criteria, but one springs to mind almost every time I build a new site and that is Douglas Bowman's "Sliding Doors" navigation system. In this tutorial I will introduce you to the sliding doors technique. The tutorial is also accompanied by a sliding doors tab starter pack. The starter pack contains four different sets of images in the form of png files that you can easily edit to suit any given layout and all the (X)HTML and CSS required is available within the downloads....

The CSS Starter Page Series - Part 2: More Background Images

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

In the first installment of the CSS Starter Page Series, we looked at how we can use background images to create the look of equal height columns in Dreamweaver's CSS Starter Pages. We worked with fixed-width, hybrid, and liquid two-column layouts.

In this part of the series we will look at how we can use body background images on both fixed and liquid layouts while exploring the various repeat options that are available to us: repeat (the default), no-repeat, repeat_x (horizontally), repeat-y (vertically). We'll also try out some techniques for using complex pattern background images.

The CSS Starter Page Series:
The CSS Starter Page Series - Part 1: Faux-Column Images
The CSS Starter Page Series - Part 2: More Background Images...

Customizing the Flex HTML Wrapper: Adding a Cache Buster Script

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

When Flex Builder compiles an application, it uses a template to create the default HTML wrapper for the SWF file to enable a web browser to show the Flex application correctly. This template can be customized to include specific functionality to the Flex application. In this tutorial, you'll learn how to modify the Flex Builder html template to include a "cache busting" script....

Building Web Sites With Drupal ? Part 16: Creating New Content Types

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

ColdFusion Application Logging with Twitter: Part 2

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

In Part 2 of this two-part series we look at how Twitter can be used to pass messages between two ColdFusion applications -- a poor-man's version of a message queue system.

The ColdFusion Application Logging with Twitter Series:
ColdFusion Application Logging with Twitter: Part 1
ColdFusion Logging with Twitter: Part 2...

Creating Screenshots in Fireworks CS4

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

There have been some pretty cool features added to Fireworks CS4, but here's one for the Windows version of Fireworks you may not know about: the Take Screenshot command. Follow along in this quick tutorial on how to use the Screenshot command....

Semantic XHTML - Part 8: Empty Elements

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

By writing semantic, valid XHTML, the code that you create for your website will work not only cross browser, but cross device. In this article we learn about line breaks and horizontal rules, two empty elements.

The Semantic XHTML Series:
Semantic XHTML - Part 1: The Required Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 2: Elements Within the Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 3: Common Block Level Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 4: List Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 5: Table Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 6: Inline Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 7: The Phrase Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 8: Empty Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 9: The Image Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 10: Image Maps...

Suitcase Fusion 2

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The support technician informed me that I had installed too many fonts. This is when I learned that I needed a font manager. With more research, I learned about a product from Extensis called Suitcase X1 which was a font manager that solved my font management problem and provided several great conveniences in selecting the fonts I needed for specific projects. Extensis in October, 2008 released a fourth generation of this product called Suitcase Fusion 2. Keeping many of the Suitcase features, this new version has even more interactive conveniences.

Below, I will summarize functions common to the current Suitcase product line and highlight the fantastic new features found in Fusion 2. ...

Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 3

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

When it comes to Flash, one of my programming mentors has helped me significantly with troubleshooting ? with making things work when, against all expectation, they simply don't work. In this series, I'd like to explore a single theme ? troubleshooting ? from a variety of angles, sharing with you what my mentor has shared with me. Along the way, we'll turn up a few quirks involved in working with Flash, but more importantly, we'll review how to approach arriving at useful workarounds, regardless what the issue is.

Here in Part 3, we'll learn about an important troubleshooting concept called divide and conquer, which often becomes useful when clues are are harder to discover than in the previous two installments.

The Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles Series:
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 1
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 2
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 3
Flash Troubleshooter Chronicles - Part 4...

You Need to Tone it Down

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Have you ever photographed people where the lighting was pitch black and all you had for a light source was the electronic flash you bought on sale on your camera? Invariably the images you get back turn out to be less than flattering. Generally speaking, in lighting situations like this, the contrast of the scene is so high, parts of the face seem almost bleached. You can avoid some of this by directing the flash a bit differently (not all flashes are capable of this) or use a diffuser over the flash (also not for all flashes) but if the deed is already done, what can you do? Why use Photoshop of course.

There?s got to be a dozen different tools in Photoshop to remedy this situation. The Clone Stamp Tool or the Healing Brush are a couple. However this tutorial will introduce you to a not so obvious fix, which works quickly in only a few steps and will never harm your original. Let?s begin....

Hide Your Body!

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Sometimes, when you have a lot of tables with data on the screen, the information can be overwhelming. If we could create a way to hide table content that didn't completely hide the table and was easily accessed, that could make the page better for the visitor. Well - with a little JavaScript code and a properly setup table - this is a quick fix!...

Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 1

Thu, 04 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Have you ever tried making a good-looking ball in Photoshop? Remember the pain you went through to get the curved highlights and shadows just right? Of course you do! We all did it, and we all had varying amounts of success coaxing 3D effects out of a 2D application.

Well, we're going to do it up right in Photoshop CS4 Extended. Except we will be using actual 3D tools. Mostly. There will be some 2D lovin', 'cause we're old-school like that.

The Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball Series:
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 1
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 2
Photoshop CS4 - 3D Billiard Ball: Part 3...

Semantic XHTML - Part 7: The Phrase Elements

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

By writing semantic, valid XHTML, the code that you create for your website will work not only cross browser, but cross device. In this article we learn about the less comon inline elements. We cover the semantic meaning, default browser presentation, and children and parents of each element.

The Semantic XHTML Series:
Semantic XHTML - Part 1: The Required Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 2: Elements Within the Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 3: Common Block Level Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 4: List Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 5: Table Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 6: Inline Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 7: The Phrase Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 8: Empty Elements
Semantic XHTML - Part 9: The Image Element
Semantic XHTML - Part 10: Image Maps...

Building Web Sites With Drupal ? Part 15: Creating a Moderated User Group

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

There are as many ways to build a web site as there are customers out there. What that usually means is that, as developers, we end up recreating the wheel over and over again. In reality, though, 80% of the customers you come across could likely be serviced quite nicely with relatively minor modifications to a basic site structure that includes the most common functionality. That is the concept behind a Content Management System like Drupal.

Drupal is a framework for creating web applications. As such, it has a wealth of advanced abilities like forums, newsletters, and RSS syndication. But it is also well suited for the building of simpler websites that just need to update their content on a regular basis. If you build sites for clients, chances are there is a portion of your business that could be handled more quickly and more profitably using Drupal.

Drupal manages permissions at the role level, meaning that you can assign users to a role that has the proper permissions, but it can be tricky when you need to control a permission for an individual user. This came up recently when trying to control the commenting of a user. Here is a quick tip on creating a moderated group for troublesome users.

The Building Web Sites With Drupal Series:
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 1: Introduction
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 2: Installation
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 3: Setting Initial Roles and Permissions
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 4: Adding a Forum
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 5: Creating Content
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 6: Instaling a Rich Text Editor
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 7: Adding Polls
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 8: Personalizing Your Site
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 9: Taxonomy 101
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 10: Adding an Event Calendar
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 11: Customizing the Front Page
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 12: Getting Started With Themes
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 13: Cron Jobs
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 14: Taxonomy 201
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 15: Creating a Moderated User Group
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 16: Creating New Content Types
Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 17: Setting Up User Blogs...

HTML/CSS Crash Primer

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

This article is intended as a re-introduction to HTML and CSS, and something I have used in the past to give to any new employees who may have had HTML experience, but exhibited some bad habits in actual coding. You may think HTML is simple and you may think you know all you need to know, but HTML is misused daily. Following are some basics to help correct some of the common problems....

Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 4: Creating a Testing Environment Using MAMP and Dreamweaver

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

There's little doubt that the fine, free, open source blogging package available from WordPress has enjoyed astounding success. With downloads of well over 50 million, the PHP, MySQL, and Apache powered WordPress package is currently the world's most popular blogging package and is in use by literally millions of designers and developers (and do-it-yourselfers)around the world.

The goal of this series of articles is to show you how to take what is already an awesome package?including an almost limitless supply of free design themes?and customize the look and feel of a WordPress site to meet your goals. Through this series you'll be learning how to use some of the design tools from Adobe, such as Fireworks and Dreamweaver, as well as free open source browser plugins to modify the design of a WordPress installation.

In this, the fourth article in the series, you'll be learning how to prepare to create a fully customized WordPress theme of your own. This time around the design tool is Dreamweaver CS4. In this article you'll see how to create a design environment for Dreamweaver that allows you to greatly streamline the process of customizing WordPress designs.

The Customizing a WordPress Blog Series:
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 1: Editing Header Images
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 2: Examining WordPress Themes with the Firebug Extension for FF
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 3: Examining WordPress Themes with the Web Developer's Extension
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 4: Creating a Testing Environment Using MAMP and Dreamweaver
Customizing a WordPress Blog - Part 5: Editing WordPress Themes in Dreamweaver CS4...

Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 3: Overview of The Work Area

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Welcome to Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners Series. This is not a tutorial, but a guided tour of the workings and descriptions of Illustrator CS3. I hope you will enjoy this brilliant software as much as I do. Learning about this software will not be an overnight event, it takes time and patience to master this wonderful, creative software. It will bring frustration and headache, but also joy and elation. Stick with it, the end product will be well worth it.

The Adobe Illustrator CS3 For Absolute Beginners Series:
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 1: Overview
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 2: The Tools Panel
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 3: Overview of the Work Area
Adobe Illustrator CS3 for Absolute Beginners - Part 4: Using Panels...

The jQuery UI Components - Part 10: Progress Bar Widget

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 05:00:00 GMT

The jQuery library goes a long way to help make AJAX-oriented applications easier to develop and deploy. One of the things that makes jQuery stand out from the other libraries available though is its expandibility. The jQuery UI plugins, built on top of the original jQuery library, take that original ease of development and expand it to apply to interactive interface components, rather than just the underlying code that drives them.

In this series, we're going to look at the various modules and components that make up the jQuery UI system to see how they can help to make building rich interfaces on top of our existing jQuery systems a piece of cake.

In the tenth part of this series we'll continue looking at the various jQuery UI Widgets that are available by examining the Progress Bar module.

The jQuery UI Components Series:
The jQuery UI Components - Part 1: Introduction
The jQuery UI Components - Part 2: Draggables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 3: Droppables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 4: Sortables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 5: Resizables
The jQuery UI Components - Part 6: Accordion Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 7: Datepicker Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 8: Colorpicker Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 9: Magnifier Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 10: Progress Bar Widget
The jQuery UI Components - Part 11: Slider Widget ...

MAX Synopsis

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 15:45:03 GMT

Well, MAX San Francisco has come and gone. What an experience; 5000+ geeks attending a single event!

Seriously, it was a great event and I had the opportunity to meet and mingle with many new people. There were also a few networking opportunities as well. Both my Fireworks Mock Up labs were full, and I saw several other very interesting sessions and labs. I for one, was very impressed by the number of Fireworks sessions that were available.

Yep, the secret is out! :-)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving!

The partners of Community MX would like to wish all of our readers a safe and joyous Thanksgiving!

So that our partners can enjoy the holiday with their families and friends, we will not be releasing new content Thursday or Friday. Don't despair, we will be back on Monday with two fresh new pieces of content. :-)

Enjoy your holiday, and we'll see you on Monday!

...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving!

The partners of Community MX would like to wish all of our readers a safe and joyous Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your holiday, and we'll see you on Monday!

...

Creating Standards-compliant Web Designs with Fireworks CS4

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:00:01 GMT

Fireworks CS4 finally began to answer the problem of designing and exporting standards compliant web pages, with the inclusion of a new export feature, CSS and images. This feature was an enhanced version of the Smart CSS extension which was available for FW CS3.

Well, the shipping version of this CS4 feature still had some issues. but luckily for us, Fireworks evangelist Matt Stow worked with Adobe to improve the export script.

You will find his article and the new export asse......

CMX JumpStart: Nairobi

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Welcome to the Nairobi JumpStart!

Nairobi allows you to quickly change the layout of the page from a three-column to a two-column layout by using descendant selectors to change the pages appearance. It also features an "upside down" version of the popular sliding doors navigation method, which is complemented by an accessible sub navigation set.

The main construction of Nairobi consists of liquid outer divs while maintaining a fixed inner content width to ensure that the design fills out the users browser width, while still maintaining a good line reading length. The content, as always, is created with accessibility in mind.

Nairobi comes complete with an extension to install the design into Dreamweaver, making the creation of new pages a breeze. It also comes complete with a series of tutorials that explain in-depth how the design elements have been put together.

Nairobi is a JumpStart not to be missed!...

Introducing CMX JumpStart Nairobi

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Nairobi is the capital and largest city in Kenya. The latest U.S. election put focus on Kenya as the President-Elect, Barack Obama, had a Kenyan father. Nairobi is now one of the most important cities in Africa, and we think that the latest CMX JumpStart, CMX JumpStart Nairobi, will become one of your most important JumpStarts as well. Why? Because Nairobi is all about features and flexibility....

Designing Interfaces in Fireworks CS4

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

If you've been reading any of the Fireworks CS4 articles here at CMX, you can see that the application has had some pretty cool new features added to it. That said, however, CS4 is not just about new features. If you're new to the software, learning the basics is equally, if not more, important. In my book Adobe Fireworks CS4 How-To's, my goal was to explain the software in easy to digest techniques. This PDF excerpt from my book - Chapter 12 - covers 10 techniques for designing interfaces using Fireworks, including two new features: Exporting an AIR Prototype and Exporting a CSS-based layout....

Expose Right?Taking the Strange Out of Dynamic Range

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

You may have heard along the way in your digital photography travels, terms such as Dynamic Range and how when you expose your image you should Expose Right. The purpose of these terms, and they?re specific use in digital photography, might still be a bit of a mystery to you. Hopefully this article will expose them for what they are and shed a little more light on the subject. ...

ColdFusion Application Logging with Twitter: Part 1

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Twitter may been seen simply as a way to blog from a mobile phone. But -- in reality it is so much more. The very simplicity of the Twitter platform makes it an elegant way to log and monitor application activity in your ColdFusion applications. This article, the first of a two-part series, shows you how to generate application logs using Twitter which can then be easily monitored by support or development staff.

The ColdFusion Application Logging with Twitter Series:
ColdFusion Application Logging with Twitter: Part 1
ColdFusion Logging with Twitter: Part 2...

Semantic XHTML - Part 6: Inline Elements

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT

Building Web Sites With Drupal - Part 14: Taxonomy 201

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 05:00:00 GMT