tallhatDesign - UK web and branding design studio » News

Extending WordPress – adding more content blocks

chrisd — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:28:37 +0000

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.

3 million Apple iPads sold in 80 days

chrisd — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 08:23:18 +0000

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).

2thebay.co.uk Holiday Apartment

chrisd — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:19:21 +0000

If you want to ride the famous “Sea Tractor” this is the place to go… Bigbury-on-Sea! We designed and built this straight-forward site for a Devon Holiday Apartment. The aim was to keep the design very simple and uncluttered; to really place the focus on the photography. We also used JQuery to allow the images to be presented in a dynamic and easy-to-use way. (We’ve also visited the property, and can vouch for the amazing views and location.)

• www.2thebay.co.uk

Highlight PR

chrisd — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:27:55 +0000

We designed the new branding, stationery and website for this Bath-based PR company. The website is based on the popular WordPress platform, which was already familiar to the business owner, and provides a great way to keep the site content up-to-date and ‘in house’. A bespoke WordPress theme was designed and developed. We also designed materials such as Twitter backgrounds, adverts, avatars and presentation templates.

• www.highlightpr.co.uk

Telly Traffic

chrisd — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:21:58 +0000

We designed and produced this Flash-based website for a London TV admin services company. We also designed their brochure and stationery. Although the site is Flash-based it still functions on mobile devices such as the iPhone (and new iPad) by reverting to standard HTML format. This is also an important consideration for search engine marketing and accessibility.

• www.tellytraffic.com

An idea for Tweetdeck

chrisd — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 13:50:46 +0000

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…

New UK plug design

chrisd — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:43:30 +0000

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…)

Boom! A new creative resource in Bath

chrisd — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 10:21:11 +0000

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.

Website launch for The Globe Inn

chrisd — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 10:17:03 +0000

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

We’re on puzzles.com again

chrisd — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:43:55 +0000

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