Alex Hardy

Lights Off bills itself as “the first native iPhone game”:

The objective is to switch all of the lights out. Tapping a light toggles it, along with the four adjacent lights. Once you switch all of the lights out, you’ll advance to the next level!

It looks simple and fun, exactly the kind of game that works on a portable device. Installing it looks like a nightmare. Where does this leave Apple? With their heads stuck in the sand, that’s where…

Apple needs to release an SDK for iPhone. Their justification for saying “just build a website” is that it is essential to preserve the stability and security of the device. I suspect the truth is that they simply haven’t built one yet and they’re stalling for time.

But here’s the fact of the matter: Enterprising hackers will fill the breach. Emulation and video conferencing on iPhone, RSS reading on AppleTV etc are fledgling realities, whether Apple likes it or not.

If there’s money or kudos in it, then developers will find a way to build whatever they want. Without proper tools, documentation and support they are liable to make a mess. Apple needs to legitimise and embrace native iPhone development. An iPhone Software Store must surely be inevitable?

In a riveting bit of non-news, Apple and Microsoft have extended their deal which allows Apple to supply core Windows fonts (such as Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana) with Mac OS X. In a joint statement the two companies said:

Apple customers, developers and web designers can safely specify fonts knowing that their documents, presentations and web pages will appear as they are meant to be seen on screen and in print.

While this is obviously good news (ie: any other decision would be unthinkable), I can’t help but feel like an opportunity has been missed. With Windows Vista only just released, and Mac OS X Leopard almost here, is consistency through mediocrity the best we can expect in the year 2007?

Must we resort to CSS image replacement or sIFR to create a simple heading?

Granted, Verdana is OK (at small sizes) and Georgia is nice too. Arial however is a sorry substitute for Helvetica and in widespread use simply because it was cheaper. Instead of a handful of “web safe” fonts, why don’t we have hundreds? Surely billion dollar corporations can take a font licensing fee on the chin to elevate design across the web? Helvetica, Gill Sans and Futura would be a good start…

While we’re dreaming of changes let’s ban Comic Sans

My good friend Stephen Meehan has relaunched his d3creative website. It includes his portfolio as well as details of his new packages, which he offers in addition to his freelance services:

Website Essentials £649.99

“Everything you need for a professional web presence, designed, built and published by d3creative.”

Newsletter Plus £359.99

“The perfect way to collect information via your website and distribute a highly targeted e-newsletter to your customers.”

Hosting Essentials £44.99

“Managed hosting for 12 months, domain registration, web space and email setup all in one simple package.”

Take a look. Stephen is not only a talented graphic designer but gives real thought to helping his clients devise and execute a strategy that will deliver return on their investment. If you need a designer for your next project he could well be your man.

One of the best things about small developers is that they can be more responsive to their customers. The year-long waits for progress from the likes of Adobe, Apple and Microsoft do not apply. Coda has been available for a little over a week, and already we have an update.

Delivered by a slick little auto-update mechanism, we get the expected round of bug fixes and some welcome new features. Minor interface niceties and a useful keyboard shortcut to publish your changes (I’d been wishing for this myself). There are also new language modes for ActionScript, JSP-HTML and Smarty templates.

ActionScript support is a pleasant surprise; a feature I have found useful in Dreamweaver when working on Symphony. I figured that Panic would consider this to be outside Coda’s scope as a web code editor, but it seems not

Two more reasons for me to stick with DW bite the dust. This is a program to watch.

As promised, here is an update on the contact system that I alluded to previously.

I’ve given it the working title of simpleContact. Depending on how it fares, I have lots of ideas for improvements, which include a snappy name (TBC) and branding for version 2.0. So I’ll get to the bad news first:

The bad news

I’ve made a great deal of progress, but due to other things in life which take precedence, it’s not finished.

The good news

It’s very nearly finished! To tease you, here are some screengrabs of the inbox, message view, recipients and automatic response email setup pages.

Remaining tasks

In the interests of transparency, I will list the remaining tasks:

1. Contact form options page
2. Installer and admin account creation
3. Browser testing
4. Web page on this site to present the application

See? I told you there wasn’t much left to do The next post I write will announce its availability, and I will cross out tasks on this post as they are completed.

[UPDATE] Contact form options are done (9pm, 3rd May)

[UPDATE] Web page visual done. Tested A-OK with Safari, Firefox, Camino, Opera and Netscape on Mac (4pm, 4th May)

[UPDATE] Everything fine in Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox, Opera and Netscape on PC. That’ll do (5pm, 4th May)

[UPDATE] Got the installer script done (phew that was a slog). Just need to add admin account creation and I’ll send it to my crack squad of testers… (8pm, 13th May)

[UPDATE] Done and sent. I should have a downloads page live on here in the next week or so (10:30pm, 14th May)

[UPDATE] Everything is done and ready to go live. It’s not a great idea to launch something on a Friday though, so I’ll fix the navigation to make it available on Monday (11am, 18th May)

Having considered the options, we just bought an upgrade license (for me) and a new full license (for Ian) to CSSEdit 2.5.

It really is a fantastic piece of work, made doubly so by the fact that it is the work of just one developer. It makes a total mockery of Dreamweaver’s CSS tools and outdoes Coda and Style Master. At least for now

Panic have celebrated their 10^th birthday and released Coda in time to submit it for the Apple Design Awards. As a long-time user of Transmit and fan of Panic, I didn’t waste any time in downloading the trial.

In a nutshell, Coda aims to smoothen your web development workflow by replacing your HTML editor, CSS editor and FTP client with one slick, unified app. It’s inexpensive at only $99 (£49.50).

My own process comprises of Dreamweaver 8, CSSEdit 1 and the aforementioned Transmit. I’m very fond of both CSSEdit and Transmit, with DW being my main stumbling block to adopting Coda.

I use only a fraction of DW’s bloat functionality. I don’t use the sites list, behaviours, FTP functionality (after a couple of bad experiences I don’t trust it)… I use it as little more than a HTML/PHP editor with colour coding and predictive input.

DW finds itself on my Mac more for the company it keeps than its own merits. I need Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash and Adobe CS3 is the most economical way to buy them. DW comes in the box, so I augment it with CSSEdit and Transmit and get to work. Ironically this means that buying Coda would be an additional expense.

If a new tool or approach makes you more productive then $99 is nothing, so I’ll note a few of my observations. I base my opinion on the functionality I need. I manage quite happily with my software trio and don’t dream of one do-it-all app, quite the opposite in fact! My favourite thing about shareware is that the best apps do one job well, rather than trying to be a jack of all trades…

Eye candy and other cute features

• The little sticky pages that represent sites are sweet, as are the 3D effects that open them. I’d like the option to turn this transition off, because I’m sure the novelty will quickly wear off.
• Tabbed windows are most welcome, but CSSEdit’s implementation is better.
• Coda remembers the state you left your project in (ie: what files were open), a nice touch.

Searching

• Search CSS in visual editing mode filters the selector list in a similar manner to CSSEdit. Disappointingly it doesn’t work in edit mode though, you have to call up the Find panel. This feels clunky.
• Search Files looks only at file names (not content) which isn’t terribly useful. It only operates in the directory that you are viewing.
• Find & Replace only works within a document or a selection. DW can also operate on all open documents, selected files, a specific folder or the entire site.
• I’d like to be able to save Find & Replace operations. I use saved F&Rs in DW to expand and collapse XML files for a Flash app I work on.

HTML editing

• Just about everything I want is here, good job Panic!
• It would be nice to be able to browse for images as you embed them.
• DW is aware of the classes and ids in your CSS files and suggests them as you code. I’d like to see Coda implement something similar.

CSS editing

• The visual tools are well thought out, but I couldn’t find a way to resize the selector list. I have one pane wasting space and one that I can’t fully see
• No simple way to add comments.
• I miss CSSEdit’s ingenious system for defining ’subfolders’ within a CSS file.

FTP

• Panic have incorporated their new Transmit Turbo engine for whizzy-fast FTP.
• The Publish All button is a cool feature for when you’ve updated multiple files and want to upload them all.
• I’ll have to experiment with this a bit to overcome my misgivings. I tend to feel like I’m losing control of my files…

If I was a freelancer on a tight budget I’d seriously consider Coda. I’ll be sticking with my current toolbox for the time being, but I look forward to future versions.

[rating:3.5]

There is a common notion that the Content Management System (CMS) is the ideal solution to keeping a website current. It saves the client money by relieving their dependency on the designer/developer. Sounds great on paper…

I think this is a misconception.

“Off the shelf” or custom-built, a CMS is a just a program. Content production is the heart of the matter. This is a creative process that no machine can automate. If you’re starting from scratch then forcing template structure onto undetermined content seems rather like putting the cart before the horse.

You don’t know what your content will be until you write it.

Only the client can decide what messages they want to put out. They are the expert in their field. A pro-active designer or copy writer should be able to support them by advising on tone and terminology. They could go so far as to suggest messages (such as an opinion piece on an industry development), but the onus is on the client.

You don’t know how much you will be able to write.

A business whose website I have worked on has produced five news stories in almost three years. They couldn’t have known at the start of the project that they would be so infrequent. It may be that they just don’t have much to say.

Mr client, do you really want to update your own website?

A client should be too busy doing more urgent things like pursuing sales and supporting customers. There’s value in helping them move workload from their desk onto yours. We often build systems for our own convenience, because the client returns to us to update the website.

For many projects that an independent developer or small company would take on, I’d suggest the following thought process:

1. Consider building the website in static form.
2. Set a milestone where that approach becomes undesirable. If this milestone is reached quickly (or immediately), then so be it.
3. Review the content. Get your crystal ball out and do your best to foresee requirements. Accept that you can’t anticipate everything.
4. Evaluate off the shelf options eg: Could my news section be built on a system like WordPress?
5. If not, build and populate a database that delivers the content. One dynamic page and a database table is easier to maintain than a hundred HTML pages.
6. If the client wants to get hands-on, then build a CMS. Keep it simple, with minimal functionality.

Am I trying to talk myself and other developers out of work? Hardly! There’s no satisfaction or long term gain from selling someone something they don’t use. What I recommend is looking after your clients by helping them to not spend more than they need to at a point in time. I’ve found that the goodwill and trust it creates will benefit your relationship and the courses of actions that you do advise will be taken that much more seriously.

I’ve finished the work I was doing for Stephen on Uncover Egypt, so my extra-curricular development efforts are full-time on my project now.

First task: I want a slick little enquiry form with client-side validation using jQuery (no nasty validation pop-ups for me, nosir) and some nice server-side validation in PHP to catch the little tricksters that sidestep the first line of defence.

Marvellous.