Zo Nicholas IT Consulting » web design basics

Photoshop Basics Workshop

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 08:02:38 +0000

More Photoshop Basics

Tonight’s call will focus on more Photoshop Basics. The goal is to become familiar with more easy to use features to produce more interesting graphics for advertising or product presentation.

I am looking forward to an inspiring session :-).

Incoming search terms:

Simple Sprites Menu

Yorgo Nestoridis — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 09:25:55 +0000

How to build a fading Navigation with Sprites

To build a navigation bar using sprites we need an image (menu design), some CSS code to style the menu area and some HTML code to link the menu to target. Finally we drive the feature with a jQuery.

1. Design the Menu

For best design use Photoshop.

Create a new transparent image with the width of your navigation bar and double the height of the visible menu. In my case, the bar is 1024 pixels wide and 68 pixles high, my new image is thus 1024×137 (I add 1 pixel to the hight which I leave unused).
Design your Tabs and ad text on the normal view.
Do the same on the Hover view.
Save your file.

2. Create your CSS Style Sheet

I start by resetting CSS (import reset style sheet) and then add some general page styles before styling the fading navigation:

@charset "utf-8";
/*
	Imports
*/
@import url("resets.css");
/*
	General Page Style
*/
body { background: #ffffff; }
#page-wrap { margin: 0 auto; width:1024px; }
h2 { color: #fff; font: 30px Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; margin: 20px 0 40px 0; }
/*
	Basic Elements
*/
#content { width: 1024px; position: absolute; top: 224px; }
/*
	Nav / Menu Fade
*/
ul#nav li, ul#nav li a 				{ background: url(../images/nav8.png) no-repeat left top;  height: 67px; width: 192px; }
ul#nav li							{ float: left;  border: 1px solid #666666; border-left: none;}
ul#nav li a							{ display: block; text-indent: -9999px; }

ul#nav li.home						{ background-position: -1px -1px; border-left: 1px solid #243e3b; }
ul#nav li.about						{ background-position: -194px -1px; }
ul#nav li.contact					{ background-position: -387px -1px; }
ul#nav li.portfolio		 			{ background-position: -580px -1px; }
ul#nav li.development		 			{ background-position: -772px -1px; width: 250px;}

ul#nav li.home a					{ background-position: -1px -69px; }
ul#nav li.about a					{ background-position: -194px -69px; }
ul#nav li.contact a					{ background-position: -387px -69px; }
ul#nav li.portfolio a				{ background-position: -580px -69px; }
ul#nav li.development a				{ background-position: -772px -69px; width: 250px; }

The important part is to position your background properly for each menu tab or field. Use the ruler in Photoshop to measure the distances and translate them to x and y values.Please note that the normal view maintains the y value at –1 pixel while the hover view is constant at –69 pixels. The x values increase in function of the width of each tab.

3. Embed your menu with HTML

To display the menu, we need to embed it in our HTML page using some code snippet similar to the following:


	
		
            Sprites Menu
            
              Blog
              About
              Contact
              Portfolio
               Development

To make the whole thing work with the fade effect we call for a jQuery in the header of the document:

Note: Change fade-in and fade-out speed from the java script as indicated; the values are in milliseconds.

Done!

To make your life easier, you may download my sample files which include the CSS reset and the PSD file of the featured menu.

Incoming search terms:

Edit WordPress Theme CSS

Yorgo Nestoridis — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:55:40 +0000

Edit Theme CSS with Firebug

Tonight’s call will focus on the use of Firebug to quickly test and edit your Theme style. Please download and install it. Firebug integrates with Firefox and is immediately ready for use.

Firebug is one of the most efficient tools for professional developers and newbies alike.

2 Good Reasons for using Firebug

Have you ever edited your website’s style? And, have you ever had a hard time to find within the CSS style-sheet the exact block of code you needed to edit to implement a desired modification? With Firebug, you will see immediately which line of your code you need to edit and best of all, you can test the modification on the fly before actually hacking your CSS code.
Having Errors on your page, in your CSS or HTML code? Firebug is an ideal debugger pointing you directly to the problem area and suggesting the necessary modifications.

If you are not yet using Firebug, it’s time to get started tonight :-).

Test your Site with YSlow

YSlow integrates with Firebug and provides important additional optimization information. Download and install from HERE. We will look into YSlow as well at tonight’s call.

Here is an example, running YSlow on my main blog which is, I admit, quite overloaded:

The score with the Semiomantics improved Thesis Theme is 85 (the standard Thesis theme scores 73). This is about what all Ycademy Author Blogs should score if properly set up according to instructions and featuring about as many items as my site.

Now look what the optional Semiomantics SEO Engine can do:

Hey, we just get a whooping 94! Smashing under any standards and just a side effect of the engine :-).

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

A brand new theme, Semiomntics XO, new design and a new cleaner look. Still some bits to tidy up, a bit more work on the stylesheet to get the result I am after. All this of course takes time. So, so far..

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Zo Nicholas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:41:17 +0000

Web Design for FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com is still very much a work in progress.

Old Web Design on FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic

Old Free Leads and Free Traffic

FreeLeadsandFreeTraffic.com new Web Design

Still work to be done.

Free Leads and Free Traffic – new