My co-worker Lisa McCade points me to Mootools, another Javascript framework. There are so many Javascript frameworks popping up that it is impossible to keep track of them all. I’ve been using Prototype, which is a bit like using crack to get an energy boost. Prototype makes it easy to do AJAX calls, but there [...]

If you are involved with web design for a while, and if you don’t program, you may at some point wonder if you’d like to program. Some designers feel frustrated that they can’t achieve certain effects without relying on a programmer. Many such designers would feel empowered if they knew how to program. Some hold [...]

Syndication feeds such as RSS and Atom have the power to automate the delivery of all forms of digital content. The word “content” can refer to weblog posts or MP3s, the U.S. President’s last speech or the photos of your last family vacation that you’ve uploaded to Flickr. If you subscribe to a podcast (perhaps [...]

We just saw this one and thought we’d point to it. This script allows you to do a tab interface. Again, it is drop dead simple to install on the page. All you have to do is include the script and then assign the right CSS classes to the DIVs that you want to be [...]

How would you like to use one script to create reflected images on your website? Instead of using Photoshop to create the reflections on each image – you can simply use this script to do the work for you! Here is an example Here is the script (including credits to the developers): /** * reflection.js [...]

Many times we want several items to simultaneously disappear from a webpage. Usually this disappearance is triggered when we click something on the page. For instance, last week I was asked to fix an issue with an image map which, when clicked, caused other information to appear . In the middle of the page there [...]

I’m using this on a project and want to suggest it for others. Almost any time that you have to present information in a table, you’ll probably want to make that table sortable. These folks came up with a good trick, and one easy to implement: While the web design community gradually moves away from [...]

The modern, affluent standard of living depends on society’s infrastructure, both physical and intellectual: airports, highways, bridges, ports, telecommunication networks, databases, power plants, and the software that makes it all run. Many brilliant people have struggled hard to figure out the best ways of constructing society’s infrastructure. 150 years ago it was still common for [...]

Anyone doing large scale image handling with Adobe Photoshop will occassionally want to automate some tasks. The easiest way to do this is by writing an action. However, Photoshop actions don’t allow you to ask questions, or act in different ways based on different circumstances. In the terms a computer programmer might use, Photoshop actions [...]

A few articles worth reading: Kathy Sierra fears the ease-of-use police. Though they mean well, they often destroy the usefulness of websites and software by dumbing down the product: Is our heart in the right place but our execution flawed when we neuter a product in the name of newbie-friendliness? In the push to make [...]