2010 September | BlogmyQuery - BMQ

Archive for September, 2010

Sep/10

The Look That Says Book

by nospam@example.com under Feeds, Web Design

Hyphenation and justification: It’s not just for print any more. Armed with good taste, a special unicode font character called the soft hyphen, and a bit o’ JavaScript jiggery, you can justify and hyphenate web pages with the best of them. Master the zero width space. Use the Hyphenator.js library to bottle fame, brew glory, and put a stopper in death. Create web pages that hyphenate and justify on the fly, even when the layout reflows in response to changes in viewport size.

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Sep/10

Keynotopia Wireframing Set: Free Wireframing Templates for Apple Keynote

by Smashing Editorial under Feeds, Freebies, Web Design

in Keynotopia Wireframing Set: Free Wireframing Templates for Apple Keynote

Lately, Apple Keynote has been gaining popularity among designers as a wireframing and prototyping tool. Features like multiple slide masters, styles, grouping, animation and hyperlinks make it ideal for crafting interactive prototypes and UI narratives. Today’s freebie, Keynotopia, is a free set of interface elements for Keynote that makes it possible for anyone to create these prototypes in minutes. All elements are hand-crafted in Apple Keynote, and organized in nested groups for easier manipulation and customization. The templates can be used in Keynote 09 and 08 and are designed by Amir Khella.

Start with a blank presentation, and create a new slide for each application screen. Then copy/paste elements from the wireframe templates into your slides, and edit their labels, sizes and colors. To save time, group elements together, and use master slides to share common interface and navigation components across multiple screens. Finally, add hyperlinks to enable user interaction, and use slide transitions to create cool interface animations.

Voila! You now have an interactive prototype that you can test with users, share with team members, and present to stakeholders.

Download the set for free!

You can use the set for all of your projects for free and without any restrictions. You can freely use it for both your private and commercial projects, including software, online services, templates and themes. The set may not be resold, sublicensed or rented. Please link to this article if you want to spread the word.

[Offtopic: by the way, did you know that there is a Smashing eBook Series? Book #2 is Successful Freelancing for Web Designers, 260 pages for just $9,90.]

Screenshots

Containers and Dialogs. Large view.

Controls. Large view.

Navigation. Large view.

Galleries. Large view.

Social Web. Large view.

Browser window. Large view.

Application window. Large view.

Lightbox. Large view.

Badges and icons. Large view.

Motivation behind the design

Here are some insights from the designer of the set:

“The first time I’ve used Apple Keynote for prototyping, I was helping a friend create a product pitch for his startup idea. He didn’t have design or development skills, and I wanted to show him how he can quickly put together a click-thru demo in less than an hour, using his favorite presentation tool. He was impressed by the outcome, and I was equally impressed by Keynote’s simplicity and efficiency. I never went back to my prototyping tool since.

Keynotopia was created so that anyone with an idea can quickly test its potential, without having to spend time and money on design and development resources. It’s a simple proof that having the right mindset for prototyping is more important than buying expensive tools.

I also wanted to find a way to avoid writing UI specs. Using Keynotopia templates, I created prototypes that I annotated and shared with development teams, and the response was phenomenal! Time was no longer spent reading, staring at screenshots and imagining interactions; developers and testers were actually having fun playing with the prototypes and providing feedback. Design was finally catching up with the lean and agile development process.

I am constantly updating the website with guides, tips, and new prototyping templates.

— Amir

Thank you very much, Amir! We appreciate your efforts.

You may be interested in the following related releases:

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Sep/10

You canâ€™t reliably detect screen readers

by Roger Johansson under Feeds, Web Design

When I hold workshops on accessibility I am often asked how to detect screen readers. The answer is that you canâ€™t, at least not in a reliable way.

The main reason is that screen readers run alongside (or on top of, if you prefer) regular web browsers and do not have a user agent string of their own that you can sniff.

Read full post

Posted in Accessibility, Quick Tips.

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Sep/10

The Ultimate Round-Up of iPad Wallpapers

by vitaly under Feeds, Web Design

in The Ultimate Round-Up of iPad Wallpapers

By Aquil Akhter

Everybody is talking about the iPad. We see more creative applications designed for the iPad, and we see more magazines and publishers experimenting with the new medium. Also, we see more users interacting with the tablet, and integrating it in their daily routine. And because you may be spending more time with your iPad, you probably want to customize it, make it a bit more personal and that means put a nice iPad wallpaper on it.

However, because iPad has a special format, common wallpapers wouldn’t fit it. So in this post, we present some original and interesting wallpapers that hopefully will complement your iPad.

Animals iPad Wallpapers

SLEEPING TIGER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Clown Fish
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Guitar Kitten
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Diving Bear
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Bike Kitten
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Green Bird
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

CLASH OF THE TITANS 2
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

WHITE TIGER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Father and Son
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Feeding caterpillar
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Leopard
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Penguin Army
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Clown Fish iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Howl at the Moon
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Natures iPad Wallpapers

CANOE
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Waterfalls
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Beach
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Reflected Mountain
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

iPad Wallpaper 4
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Calm Lake
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

SUNFLOWER WALLPAPER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Dry Land
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Forest Through the Trees
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Waves
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Sunset Dusk
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Sunrise View
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

BOATS
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

RACE TO ETERNITY
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

SUN ECLIPSE
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

PURPLE FIELD
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Driftwood
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Old Boat
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

iPad Wallpaper – 34
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Helix Nebula
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Space iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 768px

Bipolar Nature iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Galaxy Space iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

iPad Wallpaper – 02
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Frozen Bridge
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Beautiful Galaxy
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

iPad Wallpaper 1364
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Dawn Tree
Download Wallpaper: 768 x 1024

Abstract iPad Wallpapers

Blue Chain
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Strange Web
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

The Escape
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

RED X
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Ocean of spot lights
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Star Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 768px

NIN: “The Downward Spiral” iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

PUMP UP THE VOLUME IPAD WALLPAPER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

WINDOWS VISTA IPAD WALLPAPER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

PAINT SPLATS IPAD WALLPAPER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

BUBBLES IPAD WALLPAPER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

COLOR BACKGROUND WALLPAPER
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

NONAME – IPAD WALLPAPE
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Dust
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

LIGHT BULB
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

The Cheshire Cat
Download Wallpaper: 1024px X 1024px

Skipping Stones
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

The Scream
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Graphite Cubes
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Color Explosion
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 768px

NIN: “Closer To God” iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Bubble Bokeh iPad Wallpaper
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

iPad Wallpaper “ASANOHA”
Download Wallpaper: 1024px Ã— 1024px

Useful Resources

The 4 Best Free Wallpaper Apps for Your iPad
LATEST IPAD WALLPAPERS
A large collection of user uploaded and iPad wallpapers uploaded from the internet.
iPAD WALLPAPERS
Your source for the best iPad wallpapers on the Internet, Browse and download thousands of wallpapers straight from your iPad.
Apple iPad Wallpapers
A large collection of high quality photographic and illustrative iPad wallpapers.
iPad Wallpapers
A Flickr Group of wallpapers for the Apple iPad.
iPad Wallpaper 1024 x 1024
Best Flickr Group for 1024 x 1024 dimensions iPad Wallpapers
Latest iPad Wallpapers
Customize the look of your new apple ipad with the collection of high definition wallpapers, themes and backgrounds.
55 Beautiful Apple iPad Wallpapers
40 Free Apple iPad Wallpaper
Beautiful Free iPad Wallpapers for your New Desktop
How to Make Proper iPad Wallpapers (1024 x 1024 pixels)

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Sep/10

JQuery (In Comparison To Flash)

by John Urban under Feeds

JQuery is a framework for JavaScript which was released in 2006. The whole framework was developed by John Resig, an American Resident, Currently working with Mozilla Corporation as a JavaScript Tool Developer. Although there are many other JavaScript frameworks jQuery has been proven best in all the frameworks. The other frameworks like MooTools, Spry, midori, qooxdoo also allow you to manipulate the client side HTML content, but jQuery became very popular among all these because of its flexibility, easy coding standards and ability to deliver robust outcomes. In simple language jQuery makes the tasks done by JavaScripts easy, fast and understanding. One can manipulate css, content, images, HTML attributes and even the server side data by implementation of Ajax with jQuery.

In simple language jQuery makes the tasks done by JavaScripts easy, fast and understanding. One can manipulate css, content, images, HTML attributes and even the server side data by implementation of Ajax with jQuery.

Before jQuery, whenever it comes to animation or sliding, the only thing came into everyoneâ€™s mind was Flash. But after jQuery, one is totally ignoring using flash wherever possible. The main reason behind this is not that jQuery is the best over flash, but the implementation of jQuery over flash is better, easy and quick. Whenever one needs to place any flash content in their website, the client browser must be supportive to show the content of the flash. i.e. A Flash player is always needed. Now, as the flash player is needed, what would happen is that the control for that content is given to the flash player by the browser and hence the third party comes into existence costing the speed of the website. So if the browser is not fully able to load the content of a web page by its own, and requires some other application to show some part of the page, it will definitely take more time to load the page. And what about the users who do not have flash player in their browser at all? They will first need to download it as an add-on and then only they will be able to serf the page fully, which definitely lessens the interest of the visitor.

Where as in jQuery every kind of animations are possible as the Flash gives and need not the third party application to load or run a code and content. It is because most of the browsers introduced till date in this world which supports JavaScript, also supports jQuery, remember – jQuery is the framework for JavaScript. Look, how easy it is! One more benefit of jQuery over Flash is that any naÃ¯ve developer or programmer can easily handle it with little sweat, but Flash is not any Tom-Dick-&-Harryâ€™s cup of tea. Hence, the ultimate benefit of jQuery is less men power, as the developer himself can create the animation and scripting. To use jQuery is also very simple, one just need to add only a single file called jquery.js (jQuery Library) and little code in the HTML page where the magic is to be done. jQuery provides slider, menu bar, image rotation, image fading, text animation, interaction between client side and server side data, and whatever you can think of.

Thatâ€™s the reason you would see the jQuery more and flash less in the recent websites. Flash is totally becoming or I can say became obsolete from the world of Web. Now days one would prefer flash only if they have a special requirement of the flash action scripts. Other than this donâ€™t expect the anymore use of the Flash in the websites now.

Few advantages of jQuery over flash are:

1) jQuery is compatible with every browser.

2) jQuery is also compatible with iPhone, iPad, cell phones etc. which Flash is not.

3) jQuery is very less in size and a single jQuery can create as many animations, sliding and other effects. But in the case of Flash you will need individual flash files for every animations and sliding.

4) jQuery is a freeware where as if one want to develop something in Flash one would need to purchase a Flash Development Suite.

5) Flash files are always large in size. On the other hand jQuery file is less than 60kb in size.

6) Flash always need the upmost skill to create even a single simple stuff, but in jQuery any one little familiar with HTML and JavaScript can easily create anything.

These are very few, but the list is very long. There are only two disadvantages of jQuery over Flash, which are:

1) jQuery does not give high 3D effects and,

2) JavaScript can be disabled from the browser which will disable jQuery too.

Few examples of the jQuery artwork like flash are given below:

1) http://webdesignledger.com/tutorials/13-excellent-jquery-animation-techniques

2) http://vandelaydesign.com/blog/web-development/jquery-animation-tutorials/

3) http://www.queness.com/post/1942/10-stunning-examples-of-jquery-animations

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BlogmyQuery – BMQ

Archive for September, 2010

The Look That Says Book

Keynotopia Wireframing Set: Free Wireframing Templates for Apple Keynote

Download the set for free!

Screenshots

Motivation behind the design

Related Posts

You canâ€™t reliably detect screen readers

The Ultimate Round-Up of iPad Wallpapers

Animals iPad Wallpapers

Natures iPad Wallpapers

Abstract iPad Wallpapers

Apple Inspired iPad Wallpapers

Film and Game iPad Wallpapers

Landmarks & others

Useful Resources

JQuery (In Comparison To Flash)

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