Previously we looked at moving to jQuery, and then at the best way to do corners and gradients using a variety of techniques (Part 1). In this follow-on article (Part 2) I want to share how jQuery can be extended for similar cornering, gradient, and drop shadow visual effects. Although my JavaScript ability is not much beyond "cut and paste" the idea here is to share how easy it is to create these effects for other folk possessed by similar (in)ability.
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Archive for the 'Internet' category
Rounded corners. Yes, they may be a "Web 2.0" fashion fad, but it has been clearly documented that they're a lot easier to make than square ones. As part of my overhaul of bioneural.net I've been optimizing much of the code "under the hood", meaning a lot of the changes aren't even visible. Re-evaluating how things are put together, and considering how they could be done more efficiently or otherwise improved is a valuable exercise—that it scratches a perfectionist itch is an added bonus. In this article I look at a variety of methods for creating boxes with rounded corners and gradients. Yep, it's a showdown!
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Since I began revamping my site (mostly under-the-hood) at Xmas I've tracked down and eliminated a number of long-standing bugs. I'm now satisfied that my site renders acceptably using Firefox, Safari, IE6 and 7, and across both my primary and alternate styles. Thankfully the majority of bugs I've encountered have been well described and have had solutions documented. But it's matching your issue to the bug description that's the hard part. One particular IE6 bug took me a while to identify because it seemed so random: some pages were inexplicably wider than the fixed-width of 780px by 3px.
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The first version of my site preference panel for WordPress needed lots of JavaScript for the toggle (Proto.aculo.us), more JavaScript to switch styles, and still more JavaScript to change text size. Version 2 still uses JavaScript for the toggle effect—but no additional load—since jQuery is already utilised by K2. The rest is accomplished using server-side PHP, and the revised 3-column panel layout makes use of more recent CSS know-how. I've tried to modularize the preferences panel as much as possible, but some simple template editing is still required (at 4 points). It is optimised for K2 (tested using RC3 and RC4) and although I haven't tested it with other themes (that's your job!) I don't see why it couldn't be used (*Some tweaking may be required. Batteries not included.)
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Having cleaned up your head, you might also like to de-clutter you WordPress options table. Sure, it won't alter the look or performance of your site—but it's what's on the inside that counts right? Unfortunately deactivating a plugin or deleting it from wp-content/plugins will most often not clear out the data it saved to wp-options.
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If you had viewed the source of my WordPress-generated pages a while ago you'd have noticed that my head elements were a real mess. Now they've been spring cleaned, arranged neatly into related groupings and the needless clutter disposed of. Plugins that use the wp_head hook distribute junk all over the show, offending any sense of order. Luckily your WordPress theme is the key to taking control of your head, through a combination of edits to functions.php and header.php.
Continue reading 'Spring clean your WordPress head'
