All - Web Development Articles

I ran across an HTML/CSS challenge recently on a fairly large Drupal site (~ 400 pages). The designer specified using all-caps for headings and menu items. Naturally, using all-caps is a design decision that depends on the typeface, font size, kerning, etc. Typically, I don't care for all-cap text; but in this case, it was the right call. The catch (which we learned deep into the development process) was that the client wanted certain branded words and phrases to remain in mixed case.

During a recent project, I needed to group several fields together within a Drupal view. I was creating a dissolving jQuery slideshow with a control panel. Each slide consisted of a fixed-size background image and a body field containing HTML on top of the image. In addition, there is a "counter" field that displays a control button for each slide. The control buttons for all slides are grouped together outside the area that dissolves. The user can see which slide is currently active and flip between slides using those buttons.

Recently, I had a client ask me to upgrade an embedded Google map for their locations page. The map allows you to view their locations by category: Manufacturing, Corporate, Engineering, or Technical.

The problem was that some of the location markers were too close together. Two of their plants in Ohio are just down the road from each other, so trying to show those two location on the same map that shows facilities in Hawaii and Connecticut was nearly impossible. The two markers in Ohio are directly on top of each other.

Have you ever wanted to know what CMS a web site is running? Typically, I would scan the source code looking for telltale signs. But I came a across a great web development tool today.

Wappalyzer is a Firefox extension that gives you quite a bit of info about a site – not just the CMS, but lots of other stuff like JavaScript frameworks, web server, and development language.