Posts Tagged ‘css’

Including CSS & JavaScript in wordpress posts using Custom Fields

custom_code

If you have ever tried to include code in a wordpress post you may have gone through hell trying to get it to output correctly; Wordpress’ built in functions for formatting text (autop and texturize) mangle your code making it non-functional.

I’ve tried many solutions in the past, such as disabling wordpress’ formatting functions, however, this is not ideal -especially if you rely on them to clean up your text and properly encode characters. On top of that its not even valid to include certain things such as CSS in the body of a xHTML document.

The solution? Custom fields. This post will show you how.

Continue reading Including CSS & JavaScript in wordpress posts using Custom Fields»

Creating ‘Web 2.0′ Layouts using strips

November 13, 2008 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , , 9

Creating Layouts using strips

I’ve seen the ‘web 2.0′ layout (full width background, centred content) done in some pretty wacky and different ways, the worst being a background image and then fixed height sections laid on top (if the content wraps or the text is resized…bam..broken layout).

Because of this I am going to demonstrate the method I use – content strips. Hopefully this will be useful to CSS beginners who want to code this type of layout.

Continue reading Creating ‘Web 2.0′ Layouts using strips»

miniXFN Icon set & XFN CSS implementation

February 14, 2007 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , 5

XML mini Icons

XFN (XHTML Friends Network) is a microformat which represents relationships between people with hyperlinks and the use of a simple HTML tag.

They can represent colleagues, contacts, sweethearts, friends and more!

Based on the XFN icon set by Wolfgang Bartelme I have created a small set of mini icons (9×10 pixels) to represent these links between people. I have also made a CSS file which shows the relevant icon when the correct XFN rel tag is present.

Continue reading miniXFN Icon set & XFN CSS implementation»

Using Image replacement techniques

Image ReplacementThis week Ive been trying out a lot of image replacement techniques in main headings, and their are quite a few available. If you have a graphical header logo on a website, with the sites name, often you wont want to have another heading as plain text. Yet, you should want to have the heading readable by screen-readers, and you also want the SEO benefits of the heading.

Ive rounded up my favorite methods, and this entry will show you how to use them, and when to use them.

Continue reading Using Image replacement techniques»

Experiments with floats: whats the best method of clearance?

October 4, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , 17

Clearing FloatsWhen developing websites there is one thing I have never kept consistent; the method of clearing floats. It seems every project I take, I seem to do it a different way, well Its about time I sorted it all out in my mind.

For those with no clue about what I’m rambling on about, with CSS layouts, when you have a float inside an block-level element, it will collapse in most browsers, since floats have no dimensions. So for instance, if I had a div container with a blue background, and a float inside it, the blue background would not surround the float (and the floats contents), due to the div ignoring the height of the float.

To fix this you need to ‘clear’ the float, so the container recognises the fact the float is there, and adjusts its height accordingly.

There are many methods of doing this, personally in the past Ive used most of them, so in this article I will compare the main ones and rate them in terms of:

  • The extra markup
  • The Amount of CSS
  • Cross Browser compatibility (I’m limited to IE5-7, Opera 9, Firefox)
  • Ease to implement

Continue reading Experiments with floats: whats the best method of clearance?»

Going elastic with ems, layout techniques

September 7, 2006 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , , , 1

Image of a lensMost sites on the web are coded using pixels for widths, which is acceptable, however these sites make it harder for users with poor eyesight to increase the text size whilst keeping the layout in place and usable.

That is where ems can help. This guide will explain ems, and show you how to convert a layout to utilize ems.

Continue reading Going elastic with ems, layout techniques»

How to…use conditional comments

August 5, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , , 7

Conditional comments have been part of internet explorer since version 5, but a lot of programmers ignore them.

This article teaches the basics of using conditional comments, and shows some examples of their uses.

Continue reading How to…use conditional comments»

My day of buggy hell with IE – a css story

July 30, 2006 | Published in: Browsers & Hacks | Tags: , , , , , 7

As you may well be aware, this has been a pretty hectic week for me, trying to finish all my projects before I leave to go on a well earned holiday.

The main thing on my agenda was the blue anvil redesign I’ve been working on. It all went pretty smoothly, excluding the few set-backs I encountered (see my last blog entry), but all in all it went well and the website was looking fairly nice…in firefox.

Yes, I left the cross browser stuff until last, it would only take an hour or two, right? How wrong was I. This was my day from hell and I have the coffee breath and bad temperament to prove it. With any luck the problems and solutions I used may be
helpful, and save others from a hellish day that I experienced.

Continue reading My day of buggy hell with IE – a css story»

Web design tools listings

June 26, 2006 | Published in: Web design Tools | Tags: , , , , 0

This article has a wealth of links to web design tools and utilities you WILL find useful. These are tools I have found, and use myself, not ones I have created! All these tools run in the browser, and don’t require you to download any files.

Continue reading Web design tools listings»

About this site

Blue Anvil is the online web design journal & portfolio of , a web designer from Norfolk, England. Read More »
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    • MiniCard 1.1.7 Update

      I have just uploaded 1.1.7 of MiniCard here and to the WordPress theme directory. This updates includes:

      • New networks; xing, gowalla, yelp, foursquare, mobileme, google buzz
      • A way to change link text and define multiple links of the same network
      • A way to define your own custom links + icons
      • Improved admin panel

      Hope you like it, and don’t forget you can show your support by purchasing the premium pack from here.

    • Switched: From Shared to VPS

      It’s been about two weeks now since I made the transition from a shared reseller hosting account to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) account – impressions so far, excellent performance but fiddly to configure.

      The reason I wanted to change from shared hosting was the fact the server was always being hacked (even though ALL my scripts were secure), there was frequent downtime, support blamed me for problems every time, and it was slow as hell.

      Those used to a shared hosting environment would probably not know where to start when faced with configuring a VPS. Luckily, a lot of it was pre-configured when I received my account – certainly some of the major security holes were patched. I was not satisfied with those however. As a victim of hacking in the past (previous host swears it was not there fault, something I don’t believe) I took extra care to secure it as a much I could – configuring brute force detection, the firewall, installing mod security (excellent rules for that here: http://www.atomicorp.com/wiki/index.php/Atomic_ModSecurity_Rules) and going though multiple guides (like this one: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=468168) with a fine-tooth comb.

      The result? My pages are loading at least 6 times faster, I have had no down time (or at least have not noticed any), and I feel in control and happy. No longer am I at the mercy of shared hosts :)

      If your interested, I chose ServInt as my provider as they offered a great deal, as well as being a managed service (so I’m not on my own if I screw things up). I was tempted by the bells and whistles of Media Temple, but felt the ServInt service was better value.

    • Download Monitor 3.2.2 Maintenance Release

      Download Monitor has received some more love and has been updated. Here’s the change log from the new version:

      • Small bugfix in uploader.php – cat ID
      • Changed stats graph calculation – thanks lggemini
      • Changes to headers in download.php to avoid caching
      • File Browser fixes – $root was clashing with something….
      • exclude_cat works in all sections of download_page now
      • Removed hardcoding of /uploads/
      • Added action to download.php – should be able to use it to stop a download if you want – maybe limiting downloads per day or something? Whatever you want…
      • Made it so if you post new file on ‘edit’ screen, the post date is updated.
      • Fixed the ‘blank meta’ section which blanks out custom field values when nothing is set.
      • Moved ‘allow_url_fopen’ check.
      • Someone said downloads don’t work with spaces in the name. They do! Wasting my time sonny…
      • All work and no play make jolley a dull boy
      • Had to rename capabilities so they work. Apologies if you have to set this up again! Cheers to Mark Dingemanse.
      • {category_ID} custom format tag added. Useful if you want to send someone to its category on the DL page I guess. Also added {category_other} so when no category is set “other” is shown – this is because the download page can show an ‘other’ section if you want it to.
      • You can now manually edit the post date on the edit download screen.

      If you have edited capabilities for download monitor user permissions, you’ll have to again sorry! This is because I named them too long. Also, you should check your forced downloads still work because there was a logic error meaning they may not have been forced after-all…

      Enjoy.

    • Mahousive update to Download Monitor (3.2)

      Today I completed the update for the Wordpress Download Monitor Plugin – many tweaks, fixes, and features added. There were no changes to the database structure so people upgrading should be fine. Here is the list from the change log:

      • {user} tag added for custom formats
      • ‘autop’ option fix
      • Download page buttons applied with CSS so they are easier to customise/translate.
      • Fix for pagination bug after editing a download
      • Category output fix on edit downloads screen
      • Category urls on download page use ID rather than name to prevent errors when cats have the same names.
      • exclude_cat added to download_page shortcode
      • Localised ‘hits’ ‘date’ ‘title’ on download page
      • Option to disable the download logging
      • Read file ‘chunked’ some people found large files were corrupted so this should help (fingers crossed)
      • Added show_tags option to download page – displays x amount of tags on the download page.
      • File Browser root setting and download.php logic/mime types modified thanks to Jim Isaacs (jidd.jimisaacs.com)
      • Interface Improvements
      • Bulk edit categories, custom fields, tags, member only downloads
      • Added roles for download monitor admin – should be able to use with a role manager plugin if you want anyone other than admin to access the admin section e.g. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/capsman/
      • Change redirect after add
      • Edit Cat names/parents
      • Dedicated tags and thumbnails fields (they still use meta table though)

      And yes, those category link bugs are fixed at long last, and you can edit category names finally. Phew!