WordPress has a lot of advantages as a CMS for simple websites. The admin system is pretty good for non-techies to control their site content (adding posts, pages, uploading images are all pretty streamlined processes). However, one of the areas where it falls down is managing secondary page content.

It’s great if you’ve just got a basic template with just a single column of content, but if you have a design with multiple columns, or ‘sidebars’ with global widgets and you also want to include page-specific content in these areas it all gets a bit clunky. The widget admin area isn’t particularly user-friendly and just trying to explain it to clients highlight that fact. Getting ‘contextual’ with widgets is tough work if a site has more than about 5 pages…

So, step in this little plugin to add up to 5 additional content blocks to posts or pages.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/secondary-html-content/
You can pretty easily then just add a tiny chunk of code into your theme files to pull in this extra content to any part of the page design.

The only niggle I’ve got so far is it doesn’t seem to provide the usual ‘Visual and HTML’ view options in the secondary boxes – I know most people steer clear of the visual option but some clients are more comfortable with it once things are all set up by the developer.

Since Apple launched the iPad on 3 April it has sold over 3 million of them, significantly beating the original iPhone sales for the same period. What does this mean for web design? Whilst still a small drop in the ocean in terms of web access, the lack of Flash support on both the iPad and iPhone has been much commented on and site owners and developers have been questioning Flash and its place in mainstream web design. In many cases accessible content is winning out over presentation ‘icing’, so perhaps we’ll be seeing less web animation for the time being. Alternatives such as HTML5 may change this (although a game-changing authoring tool is needed to really kickstart HTML5).

I love Tweetdeck but never seem to have enough columns, so i started thinking about how it would be useful to be able to define key search terms and access them really easily (without having to scroll every-which-way or juggle columns). This is a quick first mockup for this suggested feature. If you’re a Tweetdeck desktop user what do you think?

Click to enlarge

It could also be applied to users – so define your “top 10″ users to keep tabs on… this might help the signal to noise aspects of the main timeline…

The familiar 3-pin UK plug was designed in the 1940s but it’s the bulkiest in the world. An RCA design student has reinvented it… http://www.iconeye.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3864:rca-student-radically-improves-the-uk-plug
(I still think we should be looking at integrated DC circuits in houses – do away with all these bulky hot transformers which so many appliances use now…)

Creative Boom Bath is a blog and online community aimed at the creative industries in and around Bath. It is run by Creative Boom magazine in partnership with Highlight PR in Bath, a specialist PR agency for creative firms.
tallhatDesign is featured (Dec 1st 2009)
• www.creativeboom.co.uk/bath

And don’t forget www.creativebath.org for more creative industry news and events in Bath.

The Globe Inn at Frampton Cotterell near Bristol wanted a website that would be easy for them to update. We designed and built the site using WordPress as the CMS. We also took the photographs and build the Frome Valley Walkway Google map to help promote the pub.

• www.theglobeframptoncotterell.co.uk

Puzzles.com is now featuring two of our puzzles in it’s “expert” section. I guess that means they’re difficult…
Jigscale is a mix of tetris and a jigsaw, with the added twist that you can scale the pieces.
• www.puzzles.com/PuzzleLinks/Expert.htm

Fourbyfour is a simple grid of squares in two colours, and the aim is to get all the squares the same colour (in as few clicks as possible!)
• www.puzzles.com/PuzzleLinks/ExpertPrevious5.htm

This looks interesting: beta launch: www.fontcapture.com
Let’s you create an actual font file for Mac or PC

tallhatDesign launch an unusual ‘experience’ website to showcase the vintage products of “Miss Havisham’s Attic”. Using Flash animation, sound and an unconventional structure the brief was to create a rich atmospheric ‘environment’ to showcase both products and ethos.
http://www.misshavishamsattic.com

Logo of the day at the ‘Logo from Dreams’ Awards website. Our Seed to Plate logo was featured 1 September 2009 and our Widjiti Wines logo last year. See both here: http://www.logofromdreams.com/?s=tallhat.

http://shopifythemegallery.com has featured our Shopify design for Bibico Fairtrade Fashion. “Bibico is a UK-based women’s Fairtrade fashion shop. A clean bespoke Shopify theme designed by tallhat.com and developed in partnership with iamkeir.com”
http://shopifythemegallery.com/2009/08/bibico