cdcstudios.com | portfolio v7.1

So it’s been quite a while since I’ve made/posted any new wallpapers. Now that I’m back in Portland I’m going to try and work on fixing that by throwing up a wallpaper every few weeks.

This wallpaper is just a quicky I threw together after watching “Drugs are Like that” on archive.org. Very enjoyable and surprisingly hilarious film that is chock full of stuff I’m tempted to have fun with in a myriad number of different projects. This desktop is based on a screencap from about halfway into the video.

I’ve got 4-5 really old wallpapers I’m in the midst of cleaning up to add on the site, but those will have to wait awhile since I’m getting ready to teardown/rebuild/redesign the entire site. More on that later in the month though. Speaking of which I just now really realized this version of the site is a little over a year old. Hooray for wordpress, blogging and php!

Click here for this wallpaper (or any of the others I’ve made)

Introducing Moopost ver .8
Since I’ve been having so much fun integrating moo.fx into wordpress I thought how much fun it would be to integrate it into posts.

Due to so many different ways of constructing a theme it took a bit of work to get going but in the end I think it’s a quick handy little plugin that works straight out of the box with no errors.

Anyways to install this plugin all you need to do is upload the moopost folder into your plugins folder and then activate it. It should work flawlessly. If it doesn’t it’s mostlike the way your theme formats the post title. If you take a look at the index.php file inside your theme folder you want the_permalink to be called first in the post for this to work the best.

Also since this includes an image (which due to not being set for a specific theme isn’t the best image but I like it. It is however a png using alpha transparency so it will look great in firefox, safari, and IE 7 but will look terrible in IE 6 and earlier. Anyhow if you want to change it there is also an included gif file but that image isn’t really suitable for production usage. Feel free to make your own image and replace it.

The plugin has been tested with both the standard 2 themes included with wordpress (default and classic). As I install new themes I’ll check and update with bug fixes. In the mean time feel free to let me know if you have any errors or questions.

To see the plugin in action go here:
http://cdcstudios.com/wptest/
Make sure to use the theme switcher on the sidebar to see it switch between the themes and still work perfectly :D

To download moopost click here

I’ve been looking at my dashboard and wanting it to be basically remain the same but in a much smaller/manageable way.

With the recent release of my moo.fx archive plugin (CDC Clean Archives) I thought it would be handy to have the dashboard use the same functions.

This Wordpress plugin was written with the ajax like moo.fx libraries found at: moofx.mad4milk.net. In addition to that, the excellent #wordpress channel on freenode irc for any advice/suggestions I got.

It’s not the most technically advanced plugin but I do have other enhancements in mind that will integrate this plugin with 3 or 4 other plugins to really make the dashboard be the nerve central of the wordpress admin section.

Tragically it does require replacing the actual index.php in the wp-admin folder (although you can modify the file yourself for security if you’d like by simply using the included index.php as a template for what needs changed).

Anyways to install this plugin all you need to do is upload the Moodash folder into your plugins folder and then copy the included index.php into your wp-admin folder and then activate the plugin.

Get Moodash now

A week ahead of schedule and I’m putting the final touches on the Lotus Media Group website. I’ve completed everything except for the content copy being added in. Since I started this project with the goal of having it finished in time for the CSS Reboot, I’m quite happy to have finished it well in time for the event. Currently the only page publically available is the email notification page however. That will stay up until May 1st.

I ended up using a few different elements in this that I hadn’t been familiar with. First off was a far greater bit of attention being paid to the actual method of building each page. I made sure to keep the sidebar content as well as the navigation system be called via a php include to make editing that content far easier in the long run. Handling those items via php will allow far greater scalability in the future as a variety of scripts can quickly be added in without requiring a full rewrite.

I also used a slightly different method of Faux Columns than usual in creating the layout. I made sure to make things just slightly different in IE to illustrate to prospective clients why standards compliant browsers are better in a very subtle way. I’ve also used a twist on the “onion skinning” css technique on the Firefox version of the site.

Since part of the spec required a backend client management script I decided to go with a rather Basecamp-esque open source script called WebCollab. It’s an excellently written project management system with a whole slew of useful functions such as:

• Easy to read and intuitive screen layouts. Most users can use WebCollab without training.
• Individual users are assigned rights and permissions. Users can also be put into groups with controlled rights and permissions.
• Projects and tasks progress and approaching deadlines are graphically highlighted.
• Changes are personally highlighted for other users to see.
• Changes and new items can be emailed to affected users.

It took a bit of time to see how the system handled CSS and in the end I had to rewrite quite a bit of the backend in order to have the look I wanted. In the end it both complimented the front end layout and provided a secure area where clients can communicate with the dev team.

Overall the time invested in this project gave me the chance to sit back and really formulate how I wanted things to look as well as to continue to wrap my brain around integrating design ideas with existing Open Source software. One of the best parts is for everything I did the pages validate as xhtml strict using the application/xhtml content tag so it’s not tag soup in any way :D

For now head over to lotusmg.com and register for the announcement email.