Half way through the development of my last site I decided to use PHP files for CSS. I had a few stylesheets, and I found I was constantly going from one to the other to copy and paste hex colour codes. And then later, if I wanted to change a colour, I’d have to change it in all those different places. That really is no way to work.
The answer to this, of course, is variables (or constants), so that you can define your colours in one place. Trouble is, CSS don’t got none. In fact, CSS is lacking in several important ways. What it boils down to is that we struggle to get around the fact that CSS doesn’t work … read on »
Posts Tagged ‘php’…
A Nice and Simple Photo Gallery Solution for MODx
My third MODx site is about to launch. It’s relatively simple (no forms!) so I had the chance to really concentrate on refining my architecture, and the work I’ve done will stand me in good stead for a while (unless I give in to the enticements of SilverStripe or ExpressionEngine, or just ditch the PHP altogether and finally get up-and-running with Django).
“Refining his architecture? What does he mean?” For me, learning to use MODx well has been about working out how to combine templates, template variables, chunks and snippets in a logical and efficient structure. A good application – a small one, at least – should have a shape that you can envision (if you’re the kind of person who … read on »
The Magical MODx ManagerManager Plugin
My first MODx-powered website went live today (Pinnacle Telecom Group plc), and my intention now is to share some of my experiences. From a development point of view MODx is so flexible that there are several ways of doing most things, so if like me you constantly fret about your architecture and constantly refactor your code for re-usability, you might be confused about just what is the best way of doing things, especially if you’re just starting out. So in this and forthcoming posts I’ll be discussing some of my development techniques.
This post is mainly an introduction to the ManagerManager plugin written by Nick Crossland. In my opinion it is absolutely indispensable, unless you’ve come up with your own way … read on »
A Paradigmatic Project: Building a Flickr Gallery with PHP, jCarousel and Lytebox
Don’t re-invent the wheel. That’s a motto that every good programmer and web developer lives by. If we’re being creative or original it’s usually in knowing which components and scripts to combine, amongst all those that have been created by other people; and in knowing how each of those components can be tweaked and configured to produce a good solution.
In web development this amounts to a synergy of languages, APIs, engines and interfaces working in blissfully ignorant harmony to provide rich functionality. This is the beauty of web development in the age of its blooming youthfulness, following the awkward stumblings of its infancy.
Incidentally, I think this is the characteristic of this kind of work that conventional programmers, or software engineers … read on »
©2010 Alistair Robinson