Category Archives: User Interface

Creating Rich Anchor Tags

The most important, and yet often under-valued tag in XHTML, has to be the anchor tag. It’s usually one of the first tags learned in XHTML, and it is usually because of its importance. Imagine if the anchor tag didn’t exist: there would be no “surfing,” users could only browse the Internet with the address bar, and ultimately the web would be a lot less interesting. There are some good practices in creating these tags, and that is the premise of this short tutorial. I want to emphasize meaningful links, accessible links, and well-formed links. Creating Meaningful Links Wikipedia has (read more...)

Links or Bookmarks?

The WordPress developers have been engaged in debate for a while now on how we should name the section currently entitled “Blogroll.” I believe strongly that “Links” is the preferred title especially to users using WP as a CMS. Regardless of what I think, there has been a vote set up to give us a better grip on what the user wants. Vote Now! (read more...)

Use TinyMCE Throughout WordPress Application

We are familiar with TinyMCE from the WordPress WYSIWYG editor, and it is a fantastic tool to quickly generate markup that is semantic and XHTML compliant. But what if what we want to offer it in other parts of our application? One noticeable example would be on single post pages so your visitors can use the editor. Here is the code to use, and it goes in your functions.php file in your current theme directory (if you don’t have one then just add it). function addtinymce() { echo ''; echo ''; (read more...)

The Average Web User

A huge task in web design is not only determining the demographics of your intended audience but also figuring out the measure of technology that they use to view your website. The W3Counter has a global report on user’s environments in order to most successfully develop for the largest number of environments. Before I give what I feel to be the “average” web user it should be noted that these statistics aren’t the best for every audience. For instance, if your site is on bleeding-edge technology then it’s pretty safe to assume that you’ll have the best in web (read more...)

The Transition to jQuery for WordPress

I was browsing the WordPress Trac tonight, and I saw a ticket to convert from Prototype to jQuery as the new JavaScript framework in the admin area for version 2.2. As discussed with Matt, he would like to see the Admin area, in 2.2, using jQuery as the Javascript library running the frontend. It is ticket #3824 if you’re following the changes. Download the bleeding-edge version from Subversion to see the changes as they roll it out. (read more...)