Mortfiles Evolved

Adding posts into a page

// July 23rd, 2009 // Comments // Development

My plans for adding posts into a Jquery tabs area had to be revised a bit because it was more difficult than I thought to get to work  the way I planned it…

Using custom fields to filter out posts was a bit tricky since it does not work to parse out an input field inside a function as i hoped, so instead I will use the AJAX function of Jquery to automaticly add contents from posts. It means I’ll have to add the post URL and a custom title field, but it works and it does not cause more headache

This makes it possible to manage all sidebar tabbed areas from the core blog as well, which is a great bonus!

Going wordpress mu

// July 14th, 2009 // Comments // Development

After some toying this weekend I have decided to go for a setup using Wordpress mu, the Wordpress multiblogsystem.

There are many reasons for choosing Wordpress mu and for me the biggest reasons was that it will allow me better flexibility, more focused plugin usage to avoid speed degradation and the fact that it will make my life a whole lot easier. The fact that I can later plugin community functions are just the icing on the cake

My first step will be to install Wordpress mu and setup the Main blog area to be the entrypage and then transfer the Support area so I can redirect my clients  there. The support area will actually be the most blog-heavy area of the website where I look forward to building the entire FAQ using Wordpress mu. This will be a truly versatile FAQ database indeed where I will take good use of the many possibilities of Wordpress.

Once the entry page and support area is complete I’ll start working on the main blog again to build up the bulk of the website using pages and posts side by side with the use of custom fields if things work out as planned. The thought is to add custom fields to each page where I can input the ID of posts I want included in a section that is tabbed up using Jquery UI. That way I can manage all content separate, which is a bit like I have worked before with include files…but now it will be so much easier to manage!

After that I will setup my blog again and “simply” import all the data from the old database and work with that a bit. I will rework the blog a bit to make it easier to work with for me and to leave room for outside participation…I’ll write more about that later. The reason for adding the blog before I add things like the portfolio is that I have a serious itch about writing!

After the blog I will add the Portfolio and then the company section before I start pondering on other things. I have some scetchy plans about adding a dedicated downloads section and a blog just for status about the hosting to make them independent and easy to manage. I also have thoughts about setting up a forum (ipb) and use that for authentication purposes, but I am not sure…maybe I’ll just stick with bbpress which ties in well with Buddypress that is the next step (maybe) or skip it alltogether…we’ll see how that evolve.

Working with custom fields

// July 7th, 2009 // Comments // Development

How to use Wordpress customfields is always useful to know and I found this on the very informative website perishablepress.com, so all credit to them for putting this together!

Source: http://perishablepress.com/press/2008/12/22/wordpress-custom-fields-tips-tricks/

Display values of a specific key

To loop through and display the values of a specific key, place the following within the loop of your choice, and change the “mood” value to that of your desired key value:

<?php echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'mood', true); ?>

Display multiple values of a specific key

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It’s on now!

// July 1st, 2009 // Comments // Development

The new server has finally arrived and I am finally able to get busy with this project, that is really starting to burn a hole in my head…

In the next few days not much will happen than setting the new server up and configure things the way it’s supposed to be. This is all handled by the great team of ConfigServer that I always use for new server setups, which leave me some time to focus on my upcoming 48 hour PHP exam this weekend and for my other 48 hour Javascript exam in a few weeks. In between I’ll also continue working on my webdesign projects.

I have had some time to scetch this project up and while I have some very cool things planned for this design I think the most interesting aspect will be to build a subcontentbox that will automaticly use subpages to the current page and put them into tabs using the jQuery UI widget. I’ll get plenty of use for my PHP skills trying to get that to work for sure. The second task that feels a bit daunting is to code the dropdown menu for the clientarea and make sure it work with WHMCS…

Starting to come together

// June 30th, 2009 // Comments // Development

I am pretty happy with my new design so far and I am adding both the TweetBoard and the counters for digg and Tweetmeme as default.

Adoption a design I saw some time ago (atebits.com I think) I have added a sidebox that can use the jQuery library to load tabs of information and still look very clean. This will allow for several uses such as list subcategories, special notices, information andprettu much everything else you can think of.

With 2 ordered VPS’s I hope to be able to get started on this project soon…I am itching!!

Always trying new things…

// June 30th, 2009 // Comments // Development

I barely have time to sit down before I find all these new things to enjoy and today I found TwitterBoard and something as scary as a cloud VPS service called VPS.net.

Twitterboard you can see here to the left and it’s a nifty thing that I really like and one that takes the Twitter experience out of the tabletop applications and into the web in a very nice way. This could prove a really nice product for the future indeed!

VPS.net is my second find of the day and it’s one of the best looking websites I have seen in a very long time combined with really nice products indeed. VPS.net is basicly a VPS version of the cloud reselling industry where you buy “nodes” with specific sets of allocated RAM, CPU, Harddrive space and so on. Starting at only $20 for the first node its cheap considering all the benefits you get from cloudhosting such as pretty much always stay online, instant recovery and the very easy to use system to rebuild nodes unlimited times as you see fit with different configurations.

The only downside is that the upgrades are a bit steep and if you want to toss in WHM/CPanel you pretty much need 2 nodes right away and end up in the mid $50 region right away. It would have been nice if there could have been some middleground there with 384RAM for $25 + $10 for Cpanel. This was the only reason I stuck to Geekstorage and their $35 VPS deal that include Cpanel and comes with 512MB RAM, free daily backups and support.

VPS.net are building a WHMCS module and as soon as that is ready I will check it out and see if I can include that into Mortfiles Evolved. Even if I did not pick VPS.net today I will certainly use them in the future…unless something better comes along!

Starting this project…now.

// June 28th, 2009 // Comments // Development

Today I ordered a new server and a new domain name that will be setup during the day. This is the starting point for this project which I hope will be ready in a few months.

The first step was to get a new server and a new domain name so I can start working on the design without messing with the websites of Mortfiles.se and Mortfiles.com. Once the server is setup it will need a finetuning with suphp, mod_security, suhosin plus litespeed and a security sweep before I move on to setting up the actual website. I will start with a wordpress installation and go from there until I have everything ready for setting up the WHMCS section and build the headermenu.

At that point I will move the WHMCS license from Mortfiles.se and add the clients from Mortfiles.com and then add both domains to the new account so that all domains point towards the same account. The whole process will then be complete…I hope

Speed and pageloads

// June 27th, 2009 // Comments // Development

Loading times are always important so speed and pageloads is high on my list of things to do, not just for this project, but also as part of my further development as a webdesigner.

For this project however I will try some, for me,  new things and see how they effect the website’s performance.  The first thing to do will be to consider http requests and see how to make them as few as possible. This I plan to do by taking the three categories CSS, Javascript and Images and rework them slightly so that I hopefully will get very few http request.

For javascript, which I will have a few of, I want to bundle the scripts into one, or possibly two http request. This is done by adding the different calls into one combined call that hold all the javascripts required.  All javascripts will of course be minified to make them as small as possible and I will carefully look over the plugins to make sure redundant javascript is not added by them. I am considering adding the jQuery library from Google repository, but I’ll have to play with that a bit to see how that work out and what the benefits will be when combined with my other time saving efforts.

For CSS I will use a similar setup, taking advantage of the code written by Rakaz that allow the same combination of files  as for javascript files, reducing the CSS files into one single http request. I will use the minified approach here as well and we’ll see how much this will speed things up.

For images I will use sprites, which is essentially one big picture with many images that is used instead of many smaller ones. This will seriously reduce the number of http requests and I will use this throughout the website. The sprite itself will of course be minified as much as possible without reducing the experience. All images are of course plced in the CSS and not in the actual HTML code.

This is all good and it will reduce the number of requests alot, but I can do more.  Javscripts that are not essential should be placed at the end of the document which means that altough it att a second javascript http request it should increase speed for the visitors as it is added after the page loads. The actual pageload will be a little higher due to the second http request, but it will feel faster.

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Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong

// June 26th, 2009 // Comments // Movies

What Will You Learn?

Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong! is an eye-opening exposé on CSS as we know it today. You’ll discover a fresh approach to coding Cascading Style Sheets where old hacks and workarounds are just a distant memory.

You’ll learn how to start taking full advantage of the very latest CSS techniques while still catering for older browsers and discover what’s put the final nail in the HTML table-based layout coffin.

CSS was conceived in an age when web-site design was simple; its creators never anticipated the intricacy of designs that it would be asked to deliver today.

Clever designers figured out ways to make CSS do what they needed, but by using techniques so convoluted it became unpredictable and difficult to master. CSS just became too hard…

The good news is, that’s all about to change, and this book will show you how!

Doing this right

// June 25th, 2009 // Comments // Development

As part of my education I have a class this summer where one examination point is to create a project style guide and I figured it would be nice to merge that assignment with the remake of Mortfiles.

This examination point require that I write a paper on the design of Mortfiles Evolved in the same manner as a style guide we have received as guide. The paper is required to describe the Mastergrid structure, 2 different pagegrid structures for subpages, navigation structure, masthead, color scheme, fonts, content organisation and graphical elements.

This will be a great oppertunity to really do things right for this project and to take advantage of the class I attend this summer. I will start working on this in a few days and once done I hope I will be able to get the Mortfiles Evolved project ready for release very quickly.