Our MasterWP.guru blog recently posted WordPress Under Duress, a report underlining multiple signs of pressure impacting WordPress. The WP Tavern Posting acknowledged several signs of stress. The article cited intensive competition from other CMS systems such as SquaresSpace and Shopify, increased complexity throughout the rapidly changing WP Core and profound shortcomings in both the Gutenberg Editor …
WebPage Performance Tuning WordPress Performance Tuning is like WordPress SEO, an anointed discipline akin to Alchemy – complex practices subject to many sub-disciplines. As a result, three WordPress performance experts agree [ Adam Connel at BloggingWizrds, TomDupuis at Online Media, and Staff at WPBuffs ] that there are a number of factors that can impact …
Like the World in general, change is taking place at an accelerated pace in the World of WordPress. And WordPress Developers can see it in the first downturn in WordPress market share in 10 years. And one of the biggest drivers of change in the WordPress World is the rapid growth of its CMS market …
Within the past year there have been many reviewers claiming Gutenbrg Editor delivers faster web pages than popular PageBuilders – see Metabox*, WordPress.com[ is blind to theWYSWYG gap in the Block Editor], Jack in the Net*, Jack Cao Tests*[fails to use normal caching and media optimizations]. In sum, there is a common factor of limited information …
Are Gutenberg Editor’s Speed Results A Big Lie?? Read More »
Most of the attention in the WordPress community for the past five years has been about the effort to build a better WordPress frontend – a Visual Editor using React JavaScript that becomes an integral part of the WordPress core and runs increasing portions of the WordPress “No Coding Knowledge Required” system. But the Gutenberg …
Controling your website’s image sizes has become a top priority among Web developers Here is the reason why: As of 2017 end , HTTPArchive.org reports that images comprised 54% of the total page download size. And since response time is inversely related to page load, developers wanting to achieve 2 seconds or better response time …
Measuring the Web The Web is the20th Century’s Cauldron of Change. The Web is spilling out change that is innovative, widespread and intimidating. Innovative because with DIY- Do-It-yourself Web Development tools it is possible for individuals and teams to create online presences and services that would have been improbable before the Internet. Widespread because in …
Google has shaped content on the Web more than any other technology vendor. True, Apple has had a wide influence on the design and style of web pages. And Facebook dominates social media and messaging. And Microsoft owns the Desktop. But with its search engine leadership in all the World except China, Google shapes …
While completing a posting on the Mobile Mandate in Web Development, I ran across this excellent review of contemporary Web Development skills and tools. What makes this video compelling is that there is a natural order to the explaining the tools. Thus, the progression is from HTML and CSS to SQL,PHP and Vanilla JavaScript and …
WordCamp Toronto 2018 is coming to the North York Civic Centre at roughly the same time as WordPress 5.0 and the new Gutenberg will be released. So it should not be a surprise that the WordCamp theme is Gutenberg and the Future of WordPress. The timing could not be more fortuitous because the much delayed …
Having been badly cash-burned by Facebook and Google on their pay for click schemes, this reviewer has concentrated on 2 different SEO Marketing strategies. First, conversion lead strategies like one-time discount prices for trying a service, or free copies of tutorials in exchange for an email address or free advisories with links to other providers …
Matt Mullenweg has written a detailed post on Gutenberg, the upcoming WordPress PageBuilder plugin. Within the post is a critical commitment by Matt: WordPress has always been about websites, but it’s not just about websites. It’s about freedom, about possibility, and about carving out your own livelihood, whether it’s by making a living through your …
This post is about two fast and furious Web developments. First is the emergence of W3Schools.com as a vital tool for Web Development and the second is the proliferation of so many Javascript Frameworks for SPA-Single Page Applications. Now many of my Web Development colleagues regard W3School as the Mickey Mouse Club of Web Development. …
Over the past 5 years the aids to using HTML5 and other key Web tools have accumulated rapidly. And the need for advice when and how to use features in Web tools has not abated. First there is the continuing rapid release of new features as mobiles and the IoT-Internet of Things bring new demands on …
This website and its cohort have been underlining the rapid improvements in development tools and plugins available to WordPress Designers in their UI/UX tasks. These tools and plugins are individually accelerating WordPress Design and Development capabilities. But what we shall see is that they are also collectively revolutionizing WordPress Development because of their complimentary effects on …
TheOpenSourcery looked at the HTML5Test.com benchmarks for the major browser just 6 weeks ago but HTML5Test changed its grading [read all about it here]so lets see what has happened: HTML5 Test Dec 20, 2014 HTML5 Test Feb 6, 2015 So what has happened in 6 weeks time? First Maxathon is no longer available for browser comparisons. But like …
One of my favorite sites to go to for Web Design ideas has been CoDrops with its playful and innovative designs that are right on the leading edge of what can be done in Web design and development. Well a new Web Design website CodyHouse has appeared with some striking similarities to CoDrops – free, …
Imagine you are the Chief Technology Officer at Google Search or Microsoft Bing or Yahoo Search. You have to go to over 1 Billion websites with an average of about 250 pages per website = 250 Billion web pages and you have to rank or value those website’s content in over 100 languages for 2.4 …
WordPress has changed dramatically in the past 3-5 years. First, there is the opening up of the database to developers with custom fields, posts, pages,queries and taxonomies. This means that WordPress can now deliver any content desired. Second, and related to the swing to custom content is the adoption of sophisticated data integration beyond XMLRPC and its WP security …
Creating lively and attractive splash pages in WordPress is easier than ever to do. And the payoff is not only more visitors but also more satisfied ones because they get the info they need efficiently with easy navigation. So come to the second tutorial about Web development on Monday July 15th at the Quinte West …
The Web Doctor is in at the Quinte West Library on Monday July 7th from 5:30 to 7:30PM. The topic is website makeovers – when, why , and how. This lecture is for those who don’t have a website as much as those who do but want to do better. The surprising conclusion is that …
For the past few months theOpenSourcery has been emphasizing web tools that expedite info-intensive SPD-Single Page Designs. These tools include jQuery based routines that expedite layouts of grids/tables of images and and HTML blocks but also CSS powered layouts as well. For example, see the following reviews: Isotope.js for Grid Widget Sizzle – shows power of …
As the table below shows, HTML5 is abandoning many of the styling options of the TABLE command: Attribute Value Description >align left center right Not supported in HTML5. Specifies the alignment of a table according to surrounding text bgcolor rgb(x,x,x) #xxxxxx colorname Not supported in HTML5. Specifies the background color for a table border 1 …
This reviewer has been a Dreamweaver user since its early appearance as a Macromedia program over 15 years ago. Dreamweaver was the first IDE for HTML+CSS+Javascript with a unique Visual + Code view of a developing web page file. It also held out the promise for a tight integration with PHP+MySQL client server development with a …
In WordPress, Drupal and other Web tools there are a thousand and one JavaScript Lightbox routines. One of my favorites is FancyBox 2 because it features many different ways to popup images or html code blocks. Also FancyBox works well with various Splash page Layout routines like Masonry, Isotope, GridAccordion, and Salvattore. Finally, popular CMS …
SVG is gaining in popularity and therefore broader usage. And why not? Scalable Vector Graphics have a number of factors working for them: 1)As vector graphics, SVGs zoom, scale and generally transform with greater fidelity than bitmaps, even high quality PNG and TIF bitmap file formats; 2)SVG file formats generally are smaller in size to …
3D Transformations are applied here in CSS3 to buttons in muscular fashion. But the CSS3 3D coding is truly long and garrulous [think error prone]. Thus the attraction of CSS preprocessors like LESS and SCSS. So LESS available in the Codepen test environ was applied to the Buttons with a resulting drop from 182 lines …
Previously we covered some of the trade-offs with using Web Design SaaS tools. The major trade-off is that SaaS tool runs online and therefore always have the latest and greatest version of their tools for use. They also store on their servers all of the assests associaed with your Web widget or other design. This …
Web Design tools are going SaaS-Software as a Service whether you are designing websites with HTML pages or using a CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal or others. Here is a sampler: This is the Flipsnack Widget from Snack Tools What makes a Web Design SaaS tool? Simple – all three ingredients of the Web Design tool …
So then in 1997 to defeat Netscape Browser and Server, Bill made a promise to US Business Leaders – Microsoft in IE and IIS would implement all the W3C and other Internet standards. It is a promise he and Microsoft religiously never kept. Rather, he and his IE Troopers used outright sabotage [Java corruption; incomplete …
JavaScript and WordPress go together like oil and water – they mix but only under certain conditions. True, WordPress supports Java Script and its many attractive frameworks like DHTMLx, EXTjs, jQuery, mootools, Prototype,, Scriptaculous and others. WordPress even puts a link to the core jQuery engine right into every header. So WordPressers using jQuery scripts …
A consistent need in web display is to be able to show selectively more details of an image+description triggered by either a click or mouseEnter/mouseLeave event. True, jQuery-powered lightbox and popups can deliver the same functionality; but many of these jQuery scripts are slow to fire up or may be complex to code. The following …
Oh you have to love it when the online Gods Conspire to work against you. This error message does not appear in separate browser tab but replaces the original post and story. In presenting a story on the Daily Show’s savagely funny skit on the GOP’s scuttling of even background checks on gun purchases, ye …
Over the past 3-5 years one of the key selling point for WordPress has been the ability to say to clients that editing Pages and Post is WYSIWYG easy to do. The selling line has been “if you can edit an email or Microsoft Word document, you can easily create and edit WordPress Pages and …
Is WordPress Losing its UI WYSIWYG Advantage to Webs and Weebly? Read More »
One of the surprises in web development has been the slow rate of adoption of both Canvas and SVG. For example, among the nearly 23,000 plugins at WordPress.org users can find only one plugin each for Canvas and SVG. Contrast with the hundreds of plugins that use jQuery. Yet both tools provide a wide …
This is a story/review told in pictures of the new IE10 for Windows 7. Here is the major reason for switching out of IE9 -its abysmal HTML5 compliance: IE9 scores 138 while the leading browsers score well over 400 points For example, Google Chrome is at 468 out of 500 on the HTML5test.com benchmark. As …
Now that sliders for WordPress and general Web Development have become rich and varied in their features and reliable in their performance, it is worthwhile reviewing how sliders can be effectively deployed in your WordPress websites. Two Standard Usages First, because most sliders readily handle captions and live links for each page, they are usefulttools …
Over the past year, three online Web testing “playgrounds” have emerged which can be quite useful to WordPress and Web developers alike. All three allow users to register and then save their work for later review at no cost. Here are the test environs: JSFiddle – allows testing in 3 panels: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript …
jQuery based image slider plugins for JavaScript and WordPress have gotten so good that there are now at least 50 slider plugins that would easily pass our laundry list test of slider attributes. By the way, just 6-12 months ago, this was state of the art for the best features for WordPress slider plugins: Slider …
The people who brought the WowSlider to market are moving into forms processing with the new Formoid beta Form Generator. Now the WowSlider is fairly feature rich and economical; but not the best image slider in the market place [checkout Royal Slider or WunderSlider. But the WowSlider is very easy to use and produces output for …
Now use Scribd shortcode on a WordPress Blog. Powerpoint on WordPress self-hosted webblogs First try is with WordPress [ embed ] statement Note the Powerpoint Presentation on Scribd has been made public. Ooops – no cigar for a live embedded Powerpoint; but the link will take you to the proper page. Second try using iPaper …
If you are frustrated with the US Congress and its proclivity to kick burning issues down the road – take a look at what the W3C HTML5 Working Group is doing. This blog has been warning users and developers that HTML5 is facing major issues. So that if you want to use HTML5 for example as …
PCworld’s Nick Mediati has done one of those flawed reviews that commits huge errors of omission. This occurs when comparing the three most popular browsers – Google Chrome 21, Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and Mozilla Firefox 15. The review is so incomplete it does browser users a disservice. If you take a look at the …
jQuery deserves its reputation for being a breakthrough JavaScript framework for 4 reasons. First, it is open source in every incarnation which has accelerated its use and adoption even by major software vendors like Adobe, WordPress and even Microsoft. Second, it is the APL of JavaScript. jQuery’s selector function create a shorthand for finding all the objecrts …
ZDNet is running a series of much too early obituary articles for Firefox and Mozilla – and by implication, Opera. Ed Bott sees the money supply running out because a search sharing deal with Google [80%+ of Mozilla’s revenues] has run out and the negotiations have not produced a new accord. Steven Vaughn-Nichols picks up …
Mozilla and Opera: Signs of Open Source Problems Read More »
With Flash and Flex taking big hits as Adobe appears to be bowing under the pressure from Apple and Microsoft , getting to know Google’s Dart is going to be more important. Why? Because HTML5 is going to becarrying the load for not just Webbut also cross platform applications now that Adobe has all but …
There has been an almost complete new set of browsers released in the last two months from all the major browser vendors. So these new browsers are included in these tests using the revised HTML5Test.com 450 item benchmark. The browsers are ranked by their % compliance scores with Google Chrome the best and IE 9 …
When your total browser market share is declining by 1% per month [see wikipedia note here] and you are courting developers for your new Windows 8 OS which features HTML5 as a key developer component [the only cross platform tool of any import being offered byMicrosoft], the last thing Redmond would want to do is …
Windows 8:What is to be Learned from Build Conference The first lesson is to see how far along Windows 8 is and its Metro interface – and who better to reveal this then 100 summer interns developing Metro style apps – see here for the details . The results are impressive. But another way to …
