Design Links
A bunch of design and development links for you today. The majority (90%?) of these links came from [etc][via] the past couple of months.
* [Create really cool new windows][1] using [prototype][1a]. You can then use [script.aculo.us][1b] to have the sexy effects on the window. You _must_ try the demos.
* [24ways][2] really deserves it’s own post. It’s got [24 great tutorials/posts][2] on how to do things. Things such as:
* [Swooshy Curly Quotes without Images][2a] is great for pullout quotes.
* [Improving Form accessibility with DOM Scripting][2b].
* [An explanation of ems][2c].
* Russ Weakley shows us how to create [simple, accessible external links][3]. He uses a class in this example, but I’ve seen the same thing done using a Regex parser to loop through all the links. But that’s probably a bit much.
* [Tagcloud lets you create and manage clouds][4] with content you are interested in, and lets you publish them on your own website.
[1]: http://blogus.xilinus.com/pages/javawin
[1a]: http://prototype.conio.net/
[1b]: http://script.aculo.us/
[2]: http://www.24ways.org/
[2a]: http://24ways.org/advent/swooshy-curly-quotes-without-images
[2b]: http://24ways.org/advent/improving-form-accessibility-with-dom-scripting
[2c]: http://24ways.org/advent/an-explanation-of-ems
[3]: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/external/
[4]: http://www.tagcloud.com/
[5]: http://komodomedia.com/blog/index.php/2005/08/24/creating-a-star-rater-using-css/
[5a]: http://www.gr0w.com/articles/code/php_5_star_rating_system_using_hreview/
[6]: http://www.formarchitect.com/index.php
[7]: http://www.dragon-labs.com/articles/octopus/
[8]: http://www.skimcss.com/skimlist
[9]: http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/comment-showcase.html
[10]: http://paularmstrongdesigns.com/weblog/css/navigation-magnification
[10a]: http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
[11]: http://print.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/css-beautifully-numbered-lists/
[12]: http://alltheheroesaredead.com/weblog/archives/2006/02/external-related-links-on-mt-blog
[13]: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/dd_valid.html
[14]: http://www.mapsurface.com/
[15]: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/one_page.html
[16]: http://pro.html.it/niftycube/
[16a]: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/boxes/snazzy.html
[16b]: http://www.spiffycorners.com/
[via]: http://www.fortysomething.ca/mt/etc/
* Create a [Star Rater using CSS][5]. This doens’t cover the back-end coding to store the rating, but rather the CSS to manage the stars. There is a [another tutorial on using PHP for the code behind the stars][5a].
* The [Form Architect][6] is brilliant. It’s an online editor that lets you create complex HTML forms without using tables, nor coding.
* The [Octopus Engine][7] is an attempt to unify all the techniques for rounded corners, drop shadows, custom borders and faux corners. It’s not pretty not bad.
* [SkimmCSS][8] wants to be Digg for your development efforts.
* The [Comment Showcase][9] is just smart. It’s what it sounds like, a showcase of how people show comments. I find comments are a difficult thing to display, and this works nicely.
* [Navigation Magnification][10] is a cool little effect. It mimics the OS X Dock magnification on your list. Sure, there are a [ton of documented issues with this type of effect (see #4)][10a], but it is fun.
* You ever want [beautifully numbered lists?][11] Now you can.
* Having a collection of [external links on a MT blog][12] is difficult. But there is a decent walkthrough for this, using no Perl of PHP coding skills, there are enough plugins to provide all necessary funtionalities.
* A [cross-browser drop-down cascading, validating menu][13]. Why you would want a menu like this, with no JavaScript, I don’t know. But the important thing is that __it can be done__.
* [MapSurface][14] is pretty amazing. It’s s web page activity widget that helps you quickly see how people find, navigate and value the pages of your web site. Go to the site, and hit alt + x. Like I said, pretty amazing.
* More pure-CSS proof of concepts. Here is a [Tabbed Page with embedded links and pictures that is fully-cross browser compliant][15].
* [Rounded Corners][16] have been making the rounds recently. We have [Spiffy Corners, using only CSS][16b]. We have [Spiffy Corners Cube, using only Javascript][16]. And we can put [borders on those spiffy corners][16a]. It’s rounded corner overload!
[1]: http://blogus.xilinus.com/pages/javawin
[1a]: http://prototype.conio.net/
[1b]: http://script.aculo.us/
[2]: http://www.24ways.org/
[2a]: http://24ways.org/advent/swooshy-curly-quotes-without-images
[2b]: http://24ways.org/advent/improving-form-accessibility-with-dom-scripting
[2c]: http://24ways.org/advent/an-explanation-of-ems
[3]: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/external/
[4]: http://www.tagcloud.com/
[5]: http://komodomedia.com/blog/index.php/2005/08/24/creating-a-star-rater-using-css/
[5a]: http://www.gr0w.com/articles/code/php_5_star_rating_system_using_hreview/
[6]: http://www.formarchitect.com/index.php
[7]: http://www.dragon-labs.com/articles/octopus/
[8]: http://www.skimcss.com/skimlist
[9]: http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/comment-showcase.html
[10]: http://paularmstrongdesigns.com/weblog/css/navigation-magnification
[10a]: http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
[11]: http://print.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/css-beautifully-numbered-lists/
[12]: http://alltheheroesaredead.com/weblog/archives/2006/02/external-related-links-on-mt-blog
[13]: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/dd_valid.html
[14]: http://www.mapsurface.com/
[15]: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menu/one_page.html
[16]: http://pro.html.it/niftycube/
[16a]: http://www.cssplay.co.uk/boxes/snazzy.html
[16b]: http://www.spiffycorners.com/
[via]: http://www.fortysomething.ca/mt/etc/