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Forcing WordPress Widgets Open

Published February 25, 2013

On occasion, I’ve run into an issue with the admin section of a WordPress site where I couldn’t access the widgets. Some plugin or Javascript conflict is causing a problem where it just won’t let me open the widget and access its contents. Of course I need to find and fix the problem, but sometimes I just need to update a widget quickly…and right now!

Here’s a temporary fix to give you access to your widgets without the currently-broken Javascript: add ?widgets-access=on to the end of the URL of your widgets page — e.g. yourwebsite.com/wp-admin/widgets.php?widgets-access=on — and you’ll have non-cool but fully-functional widget access.

Posted in WordPress | Comments closed

Fun with Responsive Web Design

Published January 11, 2013

One of the most useful and eye-opening books I read last year was “Responsive Web Design” by Ethan Marcotte. It “explore[s] CSS techniques and design principles” and “demonstrat[es] how you can deliver a quality experience to your users no matter how large (or small) their display” (quoted from the ABA website).

In short, he tells you how you can use CSS to optimize a single website for various screen sizes — large monitors, smaller tablets, tiny phones — using CSS. I think this is great for everyone involved on the web:

Users won’t end up seeing the “wrong” version of a site, like when someone sends you a link to “m.website.com” from their mobile device, which in turn looks ridiculous on your computer screen.
IT people no longer have to manage two versions of the same site (regular and mobile).
Designers and developers only deal with a single site and code, with CSS making the layout decisions based on the screen it’s on.

Of course, responsive web design has its own challenges, but personally I find it fun and exciting (which leads me to believe that I’m in the correct profession).

As a quick learning experience, I optimized my personal site (kieranchapman.net) for mobile devices using only CSS. The home page normally has a large photo with the latest blog posts overlaid in the top right. This layout works fine on monitors and tablets, but the text was far too small on my iPhone. So now on smaller screens the home page rearranges itself using CSS, displaying a smaller main photo with the blog posts below it.

The navigation links also have been moved below the logo, and on subpages the sidebar has been moved below the main page content. All of this makes for a much easier reading experience on mobile devices, all easily handled using CSS.

Posted in CSS, Design, Development | Comments closed

Portfolio Update

Published September 7, 2012

I finally did a long-overdue update to the Portfolio section. I still need to add screenshots of mobile device apps I’ve worked on, but at least now there’s some more recent work.

You’ll see that I continue to do a lot of custom WordPress work. I’m surprised when I hear clients and companies say that they don’t want to use WordPress as their CMS because they don’t want to use one of the existing themes. And they’re surprised to hear that there are no design limitations for a custom WordPress site. Sure, if you’re looking for a quick and inexpensive WordPress site, customizing an existing theme might be the way to go (and I’ve done plenty of those, too). But designing a site from the ground up with WordPress powering the back-end is an option.

Posted in KCD, Releases | Comments closed

Long Time, No Update…

Published August 9, 2012

I noticed that my last blog post was over 9 months ago — not exactly doing a bang-up job keeping this fresh!

While there’s probably not a ton of people following this blog, it’s important to keep things somewhat updated so people know that I’m still working. It’s not good for the blog to look like an archive rather than an active site — it’s what I tell my clients, but here I am not following my own advice. (It’s the case of the carpenter who doesn’t fix up his own house.)

I’ll try to do a better job going forward, at the very least to prove that I’m still alive and working…

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The Android Experiment Ends

Published October 20, 2011

iPhone 4S

I’ve been using an Android (HTC Incredible) for the past 6 months or so. Overall it’s been pretty good, but I never loved it. I’ve been looking forward to replacing it with the the iPhone 4S, and now that I have I’m so much happier.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what bothers me about the Android, but this “Four months with Android” blog post reflects my experience pretty accurately. Overall, it came as advertised and mostly did what it was supposed to do. There were little little annoyances throughout the OS: inconsistent button behavior, lagging button responses, odd screen and phone behavior. On their own they sounded like minor nit-picks, but taken as a whole it led to an overall unenjoyable experience.

The things that Android had that the iPhone didn’t ended up not being so great. For example, I found home screen widgets cool in theory, but in practice they were both screen and battery hogs. And the one thing Android did have that I would miss on iOS — voice dictation — has been added to the iPhone 4S.

True, I could (pretty accurately) be called an Apple fanboy. But after only a week with the iPhone my phone now “just works” — no UI annoyances that get in my way of just using my phone the way I want.

Posted in Android, Apple | Comments closed

Recent Site Launches

Published September 2, 2011

I notice that I’ve been pretty bad about announcing new site launches and updates that I work on…in fact, it’s been over a year since my last one! (I sometimes make such quick announcements on Twitter.) So here’s a quick list of some of the sites I’ve been involved with — some with design, some development, and some with both:

recentwork-aug2011

Earth Networks
Women Run site & store
GF Rhode Construction
Veveo, Inc.
Exoprise
Genero Search Group
Joie de Vivre Hotels
The Providence Institute
Joyce’s Interiors
Blue Milk Special
kieranchapman.net

…plus numerous non-public UI projects (web, iPhone and iPad), icons, custom email templates, dashboards, and even some ad work. I’m lucky to get to work with such various clients from a large corporations to small businesses, from hospitals to web comics. It makes my job a lot more interesting.

Posted in KCD, Releases | Comments closed

Most-Used WordPress Plugins

Published August 30, 2011

wp_plugin There are thousands of WordPress plugins available, but there’s only a few that I use pretty regularly. Every WordPress developer has his own favorite plugins, and here are the ones I use most:

Advanced Twitter Widget
Some WordPress themes come with a Twitter widget built in, but if yours doesn’t then Advanced Twitter Widget is a simple plugin that lets you add your tweets to your site. (And while it’s true you can use Twitter’s own widgets, I prefer to style the tweets to better match the site’s style.)

Contact Form 7
Contact Form 7 is a simple but useful contact form. Lets you easily create multiple custom forms and send to various email addresses.

Exclude Pages
Exclude Pages lets you create public pages that don’t appear in the navigation. This is useful for public pages you’d like to remain hidden, landing pages you don’t want to appear in your site’s navigation, client pages, and for themes that don’t allow you to use custom menus.

Lightbox 2
Lightbox 2 automatically makes any linked image display in a lightbox-style popover, rather than just open the image in a browser window.

Widget Logic
This is one of the most useful WordPress plugins, and it gives you a lot of control over how sidebar widgets appear on your site. While many WordPress themes allow for different sidebar content for various pages, some have a single sidebar for all pages. And even for those themes with multiple sidebars, you might want more control over what widgets appear on specific pages. Widget Logic lets you control exactly what widget appears on what page. That sounds vague, but once you learn how the conditions are written it’s powerful and easy to have widgets appear exactly where you want them.

WP-DB-Backup
It’s always a good idea to make backups. WP-DB-Backup makes backups of your MySQL database and saves, emails or downloads it. You can also schedule automated backups to be sent to an email address.

WP Super Cache
John Gruber is infamous for trashing WordPress sites he links to: often such sites are overwhelmed with traffic, and WordPress can’t handle high levels of traffic very well. Enter WP Super Cache: this plugin creates cached versions of your site’s pages instead of having to hit the database each time a page is accessed. If you expect a lot of site traffic, WP Super Cache is a must-have.

WordPress SEO by Yoast
Another no-brainer plugin. WordPress SEO gives you control over page titles, descriptions, and keywords on a per-page basis. A nice feature is the “Google result preview” that shows how the page would appear in Google based on your current settings. Also, WordPress SEO generates a Google sitemap XML file as well (which eliminated the need for a no-longer-must-have plugin, Google XML Sitemaps).

Posted in CMS, Development, WordPress | Comments closed

Taking Screenshots on Android

Published August 16, 2011

As a designer, I often have to take screenshots of apps, often for reference or as a starting point. When working on iOS apps, taking screenshots is very simple: on your iPhone/iPod touch/iPad, press the power and home buttons at the same time and the screenshot is added to your Saved Photos.

With Android phones, it’s a different story. There are Android apps that let you take screenshots if you root your phone, but I didn’t want to do that. So I had to download and install the Android SDK and Java JDK, set my phone to use USB Debugging, connect my phone to my Mac, then use an app to take screenshots of the screen. And while this has worked in the past, I wasn’t able to get it working at all today.

Luckily, I found an app that actually works: No Root Screenshot It. While you still have to connect it to your Mac/PC to get started, once you do it’s simple to take screenshots, which you can then save or share (email, bluetooth, or other various options).

I found the best method was to save the screenshot to my Dropbox, which is then nearly-instantly synced with my Mac. In that respect, it’s easier than iOS for getting screenshots from my phone to my Mac — no cables needed!

Posted in Android, Mobile | Comments closed

iPad RSS Reader Roundup

Published May 6, 2011

Finding a great RSS reader for the iPad hasn’t been as easy as I hoped. There are a lot that are pretty good, but none quite do everything I need/want. What I’m looking for is a reader that lets me quickly view headlines, then (if I’m interested) the article post/summary. Synching with my Google Reader account is a must, since I also read my many (too many?) feeds on my Mac (with NetNewsWire, if you were wondering). And finally, Instapaper integration is pretty much a requirement, too, since I often read articles later.

Many have additional features that I don’t use (tagging, quick blogging, sharing via social networks, saving/pinning/favoriting articles, etc.) so I won’t go into every app’s feature list. With that, here are quick reviews for some of the iPad RSS readers I’ve tried:

Flipboard

One of the most-hyped readers, Flipboard displays RSS feeds in a magazine-like layout. While not really an RSS reader by definition, I had to try it anyway. It’s cool (with page-turning UI), is well-done, and if your feeds regularly have good photography you end up with a very nice-looking “magazine.” While I find Flipboard nice to look at, I find that I tend to flip though it (much like a magazine) which doesn’t let me take in a lot of feeds quickly. It does sync with Google Reader, but going through them in Flipboard is tedious. If you just have a few RSS feeds and like the magazine format, Flipboard might be for you.

FLUD and Pulse News

Flud (free) and Pulse (free) both display your feeds in a boxed format: categories run across the top, your feeds for that category are displayed horizontally (with photo, if available). While neither sync with Google Reader both apps can add feeds from your Reader account, but only Pulse lets you save items to Instapaper.

Like Flipboard, these seem to work better if you have fewer feeds to follow. Despite their similarity, I give the edge to Pulse: it’s a little easier to browse a feed while viewing an article (it allows you to see two items in the sidebar vs. Flud’s one) plus it supports Instapaper. But for what I want in a feed reader, I end up doing too much tapping with both Flud and Pulse to keep up with my feeds.

Feeddler

Feeddler (free; a $4.99 pro version is ad-free) requires Google Reader and is a more standard RSS reader: after logging in, you see a list of your categories on the left and the latest items on the right. Tap a category to drill down and view the feed; tap a headline to view the summary. It’s basic but gets the job done. Feeddler would be my RSS app of choice if not for one minor but important thing: it’s a bit hard to quickly read through a feed since tapping a headline opens the article in an overlay window. You then have to either close it before selecting another article, or simply go to the next or previous article — jumping around can’t be done quickly. (The free version also lacks Instapaper support, but the pro version has it.)

Reeder

Reeder ($4.99) opens with a somewhat strange screen of category boxes. You then either tap the category box to view the all items of the category’s feeds, or pinch & zoom to view and select the individual feeds in the category. It’s kind of a neat UI, but I think a more standard menu selection (like Feeddler’s) would be easier and quicker. However, once you’re viewing a category or feed, it’s great: article headlines & short summary are displayed along the left column, which you tap to display in the main section. You can tap the article headline to view the web page, or save to Instapaper (or other service). And you can easily browse headlines and still keep the article visible.

The Feed

The Feed (free) is a somewhat strange reader (to me). Folders are somewhat hidden and are accessed by tapping the Feed icon in the bottom left, horizontal-scrolling and selecting the folder you want, then the feed you want. Articles are then displayed in large gray boxes (which can be zoomed out to view more at a time). By not showing just the headlines, however, you have to do a lot more scrolling. Again, this app might work better for a small number of feeds, but this was my least favorite.

My Pick

If you’re like me and follow a lot of RSS feeds and want to be able to quickly scan, read and save articles, I recommend Reeder. You can scan your feeds (singular or by category) quickly without having to open and close windows or be forced to use just previous/next navigation. If you’re more interested in a UI and layout more fitting of your cool iPad, definitely try Flipboard. But for filtering, reading and saving a lot of information as quickly as possible, Reeder is the way to go for me.

Posted in Apple, Mobile, Tools | Comments closed

Android First Impressions

Published February 5, 2011

I’ve been a longtime Apple user, so it was something of a surprise to my friends (and, honestly, to myself) that I recently got an Android phone (especially with the iPhone coming to Verizon this month). But for work reasons I ended up with an HTC Incredible. The reasons I went with the Incredible over other Android phones is because of HTC’s reputation for attention to detail in the UI, and they have a good track record for updating the OS on a timely basis.

Anyway, my initial reactions after using it for the past two weeks are that it’s fast and the UI is better than I expected. It has most of the major apps you’d want to have, and most recent iPhone apps are available for Android, too, though many apps do lack the polish that iOS apps have. Still, the Android OS is very cool. Widgets are pretty useful (vs. having static buttons to apps); unfortunately you can’t have too much widget action without adversely affecting battery life. Initially I didn’t like the multiple buttons on the phone (home, menu, back, search) since I was accustomed to a single home button on the iPod touch & iPad, but I have gotten used to them (and even rely on the back button).

What don’t I like?

It doesn’t sync nicely with my Mac. If you use Google for everything you’ll be fine, but otherwise it’s kind of a pain to sync from my Mac to Google to phone. My contacts are set up now, but I still don’t have my iCal calendars synced.
The email app is merely OK. Compared to Apple’s really good mobile mail app, it’s annoying. Luckily I don’t use my phone for mail very much, and the Android mail app will likely keep it that way.
Taking screen shots on the phone — something I need to do for my job — is clunky. Turns out you can’t on an unrooted phone, so I need a desktop app to take screenshots. Probably not an issue for typical people, but an annoyance for me.

Overall I think the Android is a very good mobile OS and so far I do like the Incredible. But if I had a choice between an iPhone and an Android phone, I would definitely choose the iPhone.

Web and user experience design by Kieran Chapman