Samantha Warren, ON THE TOPIC OF Opinions/Reviews

Since college I have been slowly building my own library of design resources. The explanation behind design fundamentals are inconveniently scattered over several volumes on my bookshelf. Over time the practice of using all of these elements can become second nature to a designer, sometimes making it a challenge to verbally break down the thought-process behind a piece of work. For me, this is when I turn to my design library for assistance.

There are a lot of great design books out there that debate the fundamentals of design, but many are confusing, complex, disorganized, and dated.  I am happy to add Ellen Lupton’s new book, which is co-authored by Jennifer Cole Phillips, to my bookshelf.  Yes, Graphic Design: The New Basics is officially my new design fundamentals go-to guide.

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Peyton Crump, ON THE TOPIC OF General and Opinions/Reviews and Tips and Tricks

Dear Scrabulous-

I’m a big Scrabble fan, and I know I’m way behind by just having hooked up with you this weekend. I also know there are people fighting over you (not such a bad problem to have) and I hope you hang around. I like your user interface mostly fine, but I’m wondering if you could tidy up a few small things.

Continue reading "Dear Scrabulous, I Like U, and I Like UI"

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Erik Olson, ON THE TOPIC OF Flash and Opinions/Reviews

This month’s meeting was small (nine people) but friendly and featured two speakers.  The first presenter, Eric Coker of PStrat, spoke about PHP services for Flex. Eric discussed BlazeDS, an open-source, fast, scalable, Java-based remoting and web-messaging technology that enables developers to easily connect to back-end distributed data and push data in real-time. He strongly emphasized the cheapness of an open-source technology. He also spoke about AMFPHP, PDO or PHP Data Objects and their roles, and light-weight messaging and remoting technologies.

Continue reading "Raleigh-Durham Adobe User Group (RDAUG) Meeting Recap"

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Erik Olson, ON THE TOPIC OF Flash and Opinions/Reviews

Maps have come a long way on the web; having a powerful API will take them even further. Yahoo! introduced a very exciting API for AS3 in late February that proves to be the most powerful map API for Actionscript on the web right now.

With the map API you have a great map engine with the ability to create custom components, overlays and markers while taking advantage of different web services provided by Yahoo!.

Some of the goodies they have included in the release so far:

• Traffic
• Satellite
• Hybrid maps
• Custom Markers
• Geo Coding
• Geodesic Polylines (think of that map in Indiana Jones when he’s flying all over the globe)
• Local Search
• Weather Map
• Flickr Photos

The Flickr photos API is one of the fun new features. It takes the most popular key words based on photos taken and tagged within the cities and areas you are currently viewing on your Yahoo! map. The tags act as markers, so you click on a tag to reveal random photos and even videos taken by people who visited the area. It’s a great way to get an eclectic view of whatever area you’re interested in.

Getting started with the API really is very simple. All you have to do is download the swc and sign up for a free API key. Within about 10 minutes, I had the zoom component and the Map, Satellite and Hybrid views fully functioning.

This initial introduction is limited (for now) to Flex. However, a somewhat simple workaround has come from some talented developers for those of you who are very eager to take your maps into Flash right away.

There are some restrictions to usage. However, it’s fairly generous. The rate limits are based on the number of API calls made per IP address during a 24-hour window. You can think of the 24 hours as a day, but the clock does not reset itself at midnight, per se. Instead, the clock starts the first time you make the API call from the IP. Then, 24 hours later, Yahoo! resets the counters for your IP address.

I’m excited about seeing some great (usable) Flash maps on many more sites.

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Rob Soule, ON THE TOPIC OF Opinions/Reviews

For me, one of the most anticipated panels this year as SXSWi was EllisLabs’ ExpressionEngine (EE) 2.0 preview. After having our team’s flight delayed due to weather, we finally managed to make the last of three panels where EllisLabs revealed what they have been working on so diligently for months now. In my opinion, they didn’t disappoint.

I’ve been an EE user for more than a year now and have quickly grown to love it. The flexibility it offers is far superior to most every other CMS (Content Management System) on the market. But as in every great product, it’s not without quirks. What is encouraging to me is that it seems EllisLabs has really made an attempt to tackle most of these issues head-on, having taken the user’s feedback into account for their next release.

Here’s a list of some notable things mentioned:

2.0 will now run off of CodeIgniter, their open source PHP framework
While I don’t fully comprehend the intricacies of this announcement, I can understand its benefits. CodeIgniter will now be an open-source project giving PHP gurus the chance to submit patches and make updates. This, much like most open sources projects, creates a more stable and community-driven/backed project. EllisLabs’ Derek Allard also mentioned features such as abstract querying, better session support, html, and form generation.

2.0 will now have jQuery built in. (my personal favorite, w00t!)
When this new feature was announced, I actually cheered. (I’m such a dork). I was encouraged because I’m a huge jQuery advocate, so the possibilities here are endless. Much like the way Rails seamlessly works with Prototype and Scriptaculous, we’ll now be able to create complex jQuery actions, both visual (DHTML effects) and functional (Ajax), with a few simple lines of code. jQuery will also be fully supported inside the control panel, enabling geeks like to me to customize their experiences by writing plugins. I also assume that they’ve cleaned up a lot of the extraneous JavaScript that currently clogs processor power, slowing your CP loading times. Once 2.0 is released, I’m certain it will only be a matter of time before we see some extremely innovative plugins and extensions leveraging the power of jQuery.

2.0 will include a brand new control panel (CP) interface and layout
The majority of the preview time was dedicated to showing users around the new control panel. This included some very dramatic and much needed changes. It’s apparent in the redesign that EllisLabs is very concerned with streamlining some of its time consuming actions. This includes things like sorting, searching, and custom field creation. Actions that now use ajax, meaning no long page loads? Sweet!

My only criticism is about the design and layout of the control panel. (The official screen shots have generated some heated conversations). I think the design should be more neutral and utilitarian than its new playful self. I was a bit surprised that EllisLabs hadn’t given the CP redesign to Jesse of 31Three, who designed the current EE site. His talent in wireframing and architecting complex data is evident. I would think hiring him for this redesign would be a natural extension of the great work he has already done for EllisLabs.

With that said, Rick Ellis, the CEO, had a great response to some of the criticism the design has received. This is _just_ a preview after all and I’m sure we’ll see numerous custom themes before long. Maybe even one from Jesse?

All-in-all, I’m stoked for the 2.0 release. EllisLabs has addressed flaws in EE and is moving forward. I can’t wait to see what else they’ve got in the pipeline.

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