A Webdesign / Development Blog: FLDtrace

If you already have experience in building navigation for websites, probably you already know that using floats for links gives you more flexibility for customization.

However, the down-side is that when the design requires, we cannot center the navigation automatically as you add more links. Of course, we can specify margin: auto for the ul element, but than, we need to assign the width, which is very inconvenient when, for example, we need to add an extra link and we need to adjust the ul width again.

In next posting, you will see that the solution is easy and you will find other situations where you can apply the same technique.

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Maybe you have noticed that majority of the drop-down menus on the web, are aligned to the left of their containing parent. Using Jquery, we will position the dropdown in the middle of the parent, dynamically centered, no matter how long the parent’s link width gets. Since the dropdowns are positioned absolutely, the CSS margin: auto won’t help in our case.

Using this method, we can have an interesting design, with an arrow pointing up or you can come up with other design ideas. Also, for users without Javascript enabled in their browsers, the navigation will degrade gracefully and the positioning will be to the left of the parent.

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In the following article, I will explain a method to make it easy for you or for your clients, to float multiple images left, in Wordpress.

The method is useful if you want to float images left, on sections such as team bio, where the member will have his/her image left and a bio text aside right.

The alternative, dirty way to do it, would be using tables, but the code is bulky, harder to maintain, page loads slower and definitely not the easiest way to do it. Read on for the good method.

A website speed performance depends mainly on the quality of the CSS and markup code behind it. (JavaScript as well but this part will not be covered in this post.)

The websites with a clean code are also easier to maintain, saving time to the developer and money to the client, that’s why I find extremely important to write the (X)HTML and CSS efficiently.

While there are more website layouts types: fixed-width, fluid (liquid), elastic, hybrid, it is important to choose the layout which suits best for the website target audience.

The most popular is fixed-width layout, which allows to take the design and preserve the appearance to the pixel, that’s why me and most coders out there choose it.

Have you ever tried in Wordpress, to list only the sub pages of the current parent page and hide the sub pages of the other parent pages?

I had few people asking me how I realized toggling the subpage navigation links in following website.

If you notice, the other parent sub pages are hidden. If you go instead on other subpage, it will hide the others and show up the sub-pages of the current page.

If / else statements are programming language logic and is something that will help us create better Wordpress custom themes.

A client of mine, wanted to improve his Wordpress site and decided he wants to display different sidebar information depending on the page or section the visitor is.

For example, he wanted to have blog related links as: latest posts, categories and tags, being displayed only on blog section (blog index, categories view, single post view etc). On products/services page and its sub-pages, he decided he wants to have displayed the sub-pages of that section and other interesting links. The rest of the pages, should have only the interesting links section or generic information.

Most of web designers and developers, I know or heard of, are building websites using a MAC PC or laptop.

While it is nothing wrong with that, I am firm adept of Windows platform, though there are advantages or disadvantages of each operating system.

Is true that MACS are sexier, much easier to work with, plus can save time and headaches to developer, but in the end, we build websites for our clients. That’s why their needs should be our focus.

Here are few reasons, why web developers should use Windows OS when we build websites:

BBpress Front Page Text for BBpress forum has been released and this post will serve as plug-in’s home page. The simple plug-in, adds a back-end option for administrators to add/manage content for forum’s front page. While the developers can easily add the text by diving in the back-end, the plug-in allows the the clients to easily update the content without being code savvy. It also helps if you need to update the front page text regularly.

The website speed and responsiveness are very important factors and this aspects should not be neglected if you want to have happy visitors.

There are many areas that should be improved for better website performance as: smart wise written (X)HTML/CSS, optimized images and minimal javascript.

On larger websites, you will have JavaScript, that needs to be loaded just on certain pages or areas from the website, without needing to load it and slow down those.

This article is not only meant for print/graphic designers but for the others web designers as well.

Although, I am web designer myself, I found working with a few clients, who already had the website design ready and need to slice into (X)HTML/CSS, which part I love and cannot complain about. These types of designs usually are provided by in house graphic designer, other graphic design freelancer or a web design company.