ELATED New Stuff to Love

The Continuum: The Connected Web of Art, Business and Love

Mon, 13 May 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Graphics and Multimedia

The scene: The mid-nineties, somewhere in rural Bedfordshire, UK.

The twentysomething me is sitting on the floor of a house having a quiet epiphany. It's the house of the manager of my band and I'm reading art books from her collection, while someone strums a guitar nearby. The manager's cooking something intriguing for tea while on the phone she's organising an installation for the artist sat on the sofa to my right. Someone's just brought round a very early PowerBook and we're thinking how cool this gadget is and how we might use this thing called PageMaker to do better flyers and posters for the band.

This was the first period in my life where I consciously understood a thing I now call the continuum. This flash of intuition has guided almost everything I've done since then, and revolves around the idea that everything is connected, and all art, business and relationships are essentially components of a single entity.

HTML5 Template Giveaway: Win a Copy of Type and Grids Pro

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

It's giveaway time again here on Elated! This week, you can win a copy of the Pro version of Type & Grids, a lovely responsive HTML5 template that makes it really easy to build a great-looking, responsive layout for your websites. We have three copies of this template to give away.

jQuery Mobile 1.3: What's New?

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

jQuery Mobile is a handy JavaScript framework that makes it easy for you to build mobile web apps and mobile-friendly websites. jQuery Mobile 1.3 came out last week, and it has all sorts of lovely new features and improvements over 1.2.

In this article you'll get an overview of these changes, and see how to use jQuery Mobile 1.3 to enhance your websites and web apps even further.

Looking After a Website? 9 Words of Wisdom

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Management

So you've been given the job of looking after the company website. Where do you begin?

In this article, Simon Meek lays down the law as to what you should be able to do if you've been put in charge of your organisation's website. You'll learn 9 useful skills that you'll need to have, including using your browser effectively, good copywriting technique, image manipulation skills, and more!

PHP Anonymous Functions: What Are They, and Why Use Them?

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Published in PHP Functions

In this tutorial you'll explore anonymous functions in PHP. Anonymous functions are a PHP feature that you probably won't use that often; however, they can be really useful in certain situations, as you'll see.

You'll learn how to create and call anonymous functions; how to assign them to variables; how to use them to create callbacks and closures, and lots more!

Introducing Sketch: Is Photoshop Now Old Hat?

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Graphics and Multimedia

A few months ago, Simon made the switch from Photoshop to Bohemian Coding's Sketch 2 as his design tool of choice.

In this article, Simon introduces a few of Sketch's key features and tries to explain why they make life easier for him as a designer, compared to using Photoshop.

Is Sketch the future of web design apps? Is Photoshop now redundant in the web design world? Read on and see what you think!

Our jQuery Mobile eBook: Third Edition Out Now!

Tue, 16 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

We're delighted to announce that the third edition of our eBook, "Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile", is now out!

The third edition is fully updated for jQuery Mobile 1.1 and 1.2, including all the data attribute changes, API changes and other improvements to the framework since 1.0. Some of the great new features covered in the book include:

- Vastly improved toolbars and transitions

- A brand new popup widget

- Mini form elements

- A new, more customizable loading spinner

- Slider and listview improvements, and

- An improved ThemeRoller tool.

We've also updated the CityChums app in Chapter 13 for PhoneGap 2.1, Xcode 4.5 and the new 4-inch Retina display on the iPhone 5, and we've tweaked it so it runs more smoothly.

Find out more and grab your copy today!

Using Twitter to Turn a Crisis into a Save

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Marketing

Many firms are very scared of social media, fearing that they will be rubbished in front of the whole world. The truth is, you can expect a certain amount of criticism when you open yourself up on social media, but you have to regard it as an opportunity to interact with and better get to know your customers. Done right, it can enhance brand loyalty like no other medium.

In this article, Simon Meek shows how a firm can turn a really grumpy, publicly moaning customer into a happy, more loyal one, using nothing but the power of Twitter!

Web Design State of the Nation: One Designer's Journey

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

In this article, Simon looks at how web design and build workflows have changed for him over the last eighteen months.

From visual design tools to wireframes, responsive design and working with live data, the landscape has changed significantly in terms of tools, focus and workflow.

Read about how these and other changes have affected Elated's in-house designer.

Build Responsive Sites Quickly with Foundation

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

While a responsive layout isn't too hard to create, things can get fiddly once your layout starts getting more complex. On top of that, there are cross-browser issues to deal with, as well as setting up nice defaults for typography, colours, buttons, forms, menus, and so on.

This is where frameworks like Foundation come in. Foundation gives you a responsive grid, cross-browser CSS, and good-looking default settings for all sorts of page elements.

In this introduction to Foundation, you'll get an overview of Foundation's features, and see how you can use the framework to rapidly prototype and build your next website. Enjoy!

Knockout Tutorial: Build Dynamic, Interactive Web Pages Easily

Mon, 25 Jun 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in JavaScript

JavaScript is a great language, but building complex user interfaces for websites and web apps using JavaScript alone can get tedious and fiddly. For this reason, a large number of useful JavaScript libraries have emerged in recent years to make your job as a JavaScript coder easier and more fun.

One recent library that's growing in popularity is Knockout. Using Knockout, you can build complex user interfaces in a fraction of the time that it would take you to code everything by hand.

In this tutorial, you learn Knockout from the ground up. You explore the key concepts behind Knockout, and learn how to create interactive web pages quickly and easily. At the end of the tutorial, you work through a complete "product selection" example that shows how to use Knockout in practice.

How to Add Image Uploading to Your CMS

Thu, 31 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in PHP

Since publishing Matt's tutorial Build a CMS in an Afternoon with PHP and MySQL last year, many readers have asked how to add an image upload feature to this CMS.

In this tutorial, you learn how to do exactly that. You'll modify the CMS code so that an image can be uploaded for each article. The CMS then displays the image when viewing the article page, and also creates smaller thumbnail images for the article list pages.

Along the way, you'll learn all about how file uploads work in PHP, and how to manage uploaded images on a server.

The tutorial includes the full CMS code - including image upload support - as a downloadable zip file.

eBook Giveaway: Win a Copy of The Best 365 Websites Around the World

Mon, 07 May 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Design and Style

It's giveaway time again here on Elated! This week, you can win a digital copy of "The Best 365 Websites Around the World (2011)" from the lovely folks over at Awwwards. We have five digital copies of this beautiful eBook to give away.

Enter now for your chance to win a copy!

Easy HTML Templates with Mustache

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Development

Templates are a great way to separate your website's code from its design. In this tutorial you'll explore Mustache, a relatively new and very simple template system that you can easily use to create HTML templates.

Along the way, you'll see plenty of code examples that show you how Mustache works. At the end of the tutorial, there's a complete example that uses Mustache, along with jQuery, to create a simple Ajax-based product list page.

jQuery Mobile 1.1: Smoother, Faster, Nicer

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

The latest version of jQuery Mobile, 1.1, has just hit the streets, and it has some great new features and improvements over 1.0. In this article you'll get a quick run-down of jQuery Mobile 1.1, and all that it has to offer you as a mobile web developer.

You'll look at improved fixed header and footer toolbars; enhancements to page transitions; new transition effects; loading spinner improvements; cute mini form elements; and lots more!

Ajax with jQuery: A Beginner's Guide

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

Many modern websites - and practically all web apps - use a technique called Ajax to provide a smooth, fast experience for the user. From apps like Gmail and Google Maps through to JavaScript frameworks like jQuery Mobile, Ajax is a popular way to fetch data from a server in the background and update the page dynamically.

Writing Ajax JavaScript code from the ground up can be fiddly. However, many JavaScript libraries, including jQuery, have excellent high-level support for Ajax, making it easy for you to build Ajax-driven websites and apps with minimal hassle.

In this tutorial, you'll learn the basics of making Ajax requests using jQuery.

Enjoy!

Responsive Web Design: 5 Handy Tips

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

In Matt Doyle's previous article Responsive Web Design Demystified, he explained the concepts behind responsive web design, and showed how to build a simple responsive layout from the ground up.

In this new article, you learn five additional techniques that will help you build great responsive layouts. You'll put each technique into practice as you build on the responsive layout created in the previous article.

Enjoy!

How to Add Article Categories to Your CMS

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:00:00 GMT

Published in PHP

Since Matt published his tutorial Build a CMS in an Afternoon with PHP and MySQL, many readers have asked how to add more features to the CMS, such as article categories and a visitor comments system.

In this tutorial, you learn how to add article categories to the CMS. Categories give your site more flexibility: you can create separate section pages of your site, with each section page listing the articles belonging to a particular category.

The tutorial includes the full CMS code - including category support - as a downloadable zip file.

Our jQuery Mobile eBook: Second Edition Out Now!

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

We're very pleased to announce that the second edition of our eBook, "Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile", is now out!

The second edition:

- Is fully updated for jQuery Mobile 1.0, including all the data attribute changes, API changes and other improvements to the framework since Beta 2.

- Includes a whole new chapter that shows how to build a native iOS app using jQuery Mobile, PhoneGap and the Google Maps API. You can use these techniques to build native apps for iOS, Android and other platforms that you can then sell through stores like Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market.

- Contains a new section on the excellent jQuery Mobile ThemeRoller, which lets you easily create a unique look for your apps.

- Now has a Table of Contents embedded in the PDF, making it easy to navigate around the book.

The second edition has over 100 new pages, yet it is still the same price as the first edition, making it even better value.

Find out more and grab your copy today!

Business Card Giveaway: Win 250 Free Cards from UPrinting!

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Graphics and Multimedia

It's giveaway time again here on Elated! This week, you can win 250 great-looking die-cut business cards to impress your clients. UPrinting's unique-looking cards are available in different sizes with various rounded corner styles. You can even print oval or circular cards!

As part of the giveaway, UPrinting is generously offering free shipping for the prize, no matter where you are in the world. So if you win, your 250 cards are 100% free.

Enter now for your chance to win!

jQuery Mobile Masterclass: Build a Simple, Attractive Twitter App for iPhone

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

jQuery Mobile is a great framework for building mobile web apps, and as the 1.0 release gets nearer it's really starting to mature into a stable platform.

In this tutorial you'll delve deep into jQuery Mobile. You'll build a simple, nice-looking, easy-to-use iPhone Twitter app called "CloseFriends" that displays your closest Twitter friends' latest tweets.

Along the way you'll explore a variety of topics, including jQuery Mobile's API, the Twitter API, HTML5 local storage, app theming, media queries, and lots more!

Responsive Web Design Demystified

Fri, 30 Sep 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

Responsive web design is a hot topic these days, especially as websites need to adapt to the growing number of mobile devices with their relatively small screens.

However, the whole topic can be somewhat bewildering at first glance. Responsive design is a relatively new idea, and it is rapidly evolving. It's full of rather confusing terms, such as responsive layouts, adaptive layouts, media queries and viewports. Where to begin?

In this article, you get a gentle introduction to the world of responsive web design, and learn how to create a simple responsive website layout.

5 JavaScript Libraries You'll Love

Fri, 09 Sep 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in JavaScript

As you start to use JavaScript to build larger and larger web apps with complex data structures and rich user interfaces, it becomes clear that the JavaScript language alone is not really up to the task.

Fortunately, some great JavaScript libraries have sprung up in recent years to make your life as a web developer much easier.

In this article, Matt Doyle focuses on five fairly recent libraries and technologies that are starting to gain traction: Backbone, Underscore, Knockout, Sugar, and CoffeeScript.

MySQL for Absolute Beginners

Thu, 25 Aug 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Development

A database is an essential part of most websites and blogs, but setting up and using a database can be a daunting task for the beginner web developer.

In this tutorial you learn - in simple terms - how to install, set up, and use a MySQL database on your computer. This will give you a good grounding in MySQL that you'll find useful when you start developing database-driven websites using PHP, Ruby, or your language of choice.

Make a Rotatable 3D Product Boxshot with Three.js

Fri, 12 Aug 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in JavaScript

Three.js is a fantastic JavaScript library that lets you create realistic, animated 3D scenes, right in the browser. However, while Three.js is relatively easy to use, it can still be daunting if you're not familiar with the concepts involved in computer-generated imagery.

In this tutorial, you get a gentle introduction to Three.js's features and concepts, and you then put your new-found knowledge to practical use by creating a rotating 3D boxshot scene.

Enjoy!

Now Out! Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile

Fri, 05 Aug 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

We're delighted to let you know that our new eBook, "Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile", is now available!

Matt's new book teaches you how to quickly create great mobile web apps using jQuery Mobile. This comprehensive guide has been fully updated for the latest release of jQuery Mobile: Beta 2.

You'll learn how to:

* Get up and running quickly with jQuery Mobile

* Build pages, buttons, toolbars, dialogs, forms and interactive list views — using nothing but HTML

* Theme your apps to give them a unique look and feel

* Integrate your own JavaScript code with the jQuery Mobile API

* Create a fully-functioning, multi-user task manager app using jQuery Mobile, PHP and MySQL

Find out more and grab your copy today!

Markup-Service Giveaway: Win $300 Credit for Your Next PSD to HTML Job!

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

We have a great new giveaway for you this week! By entering, you have a chance to win this fantastic prize: $300 credit to spend on your next PSD-to-HTML conversion over at Markup-Service.com.

Using a PSD to HTML service like Markup-Service is a great way to save time with your site builds, freeing you up to work on other areas of your business.

Enter now for your chance to win!

7 Lovely Things About HTML5 Markup

Tue, 12 Jul 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in HTML

HTML5 has been creating quite a stir over the last couple of years, as more and more browsers implement the latest and greatest HTML5 features.

HTML5 is quite a broad term, encompassing everything from the revised markup specification through to new API features such as audio, video, canvas and geolocation.

In this article, Matt Doyle focuses on the markup language itself, and looks at 7 ways that HTML5 markup is nicer than HTML4.

Object-Oriented PHP: Autoloading, Serializing, and Querying Objects

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in PHP Objects

Welcome to our fourth object-oriented PHP tutorial!

In this tutorial, you're going to tie up some loose ends and look at some other useful OOP-related features of PHP. You'll find out how to load classes automatically on demand; convert objects to strings (and back again); and use special PHP functions for discovering useful information about classes and objects.

Redesigning a Site For Mobile: What's Involved?

Fri, 17 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Design and Style

How do you take an existing website, and design a version that looks and works great on mobile devices?

In this article, Simon Meek shows how you might redesign an existing site for mobile, using (what else?) the Elated site for inspiration. You'll see how the process of paring down features can produce a clean and elegant mobile design.

Stock Photos Giveaway: Win a Cutcaster Account with Free Credits!

Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Graphics and Multimedia

It's giveaway time again on Elated! This week, we have 2 stock photo accounts on Cutcaster to give away. Each account is loaded with 50 free credits (worth $45) that you can use to purchase and download any stock photos and vector art files from Cutcaster.

Enter now for your chance to win!

10 Ways the Mobile Web is Different

Fri, 03 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Website Authoring

As mobile web browsing becomes more common, it's increasingly important to design websites for mobile use as well as for desktop browsing.

How do you make a website work well on a mobile browser? It helps to think about how the mobile browsing experience differs from desktop browsing. In this article you'll touch on 10 important factors that make the mobile web different, and find out how you can use those factors to influence your mobile site design decisions.

Coming Soon: Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

We're pleased to announce our first book! Master Mobile Web Apps with jQuery Mobile shows you how to build great-looking mobile web apps easily using the up-and-coming jQuery Mobile framework.

This 250-page book is packed with useful info, including a detailed markup and API reference, theming tips, and a "getting started" guide. There's also an in-depth tutorial showing you how to build a complete to-do list web app using jQuery Mobile, PHP and MySQL.

As well as the book, you get a zip file containing all the source code, so you can easily follow along with the examples in the book.

We're looking to publish the book in July. Enter your email address on the book page, and we'll send you an email the moment we publish it.

Have fun!

Object-Oriented PHP: Working with Inheritance

Thu, 26 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in PHP Objects

Welcome to our third object-oriented PHP tutorial. In this tutorial you'll explore the idea of inheritance in object-oriented programming, and how inheritance works in PHP. With inheritance, your objects and classes can become much more powerful and flexible, and you can save a lot of time and effort with your coding.

The tutorial covers the concept of parent and child classes; overriding methods; final classes; abstract classes, and interfaces. It includes lots of code examples to help explain the topics.

Happy coding!

LESS Is More: Make Your CSS Coding Easier with LESS

Wed, 18 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in CSS

CSS stylesheets are becoming longer, more complex, and harder to manage. It's not uncommon for a typical stylesheet to run into hundreds of lines of code, with a large number of interdependent rules.

For this reason, various dynamic stylesheet languages are starting to spring up. These allow you to write your CSS rules using a more flexible, powerful language that is then turned into regular CSS for the browser to interpret.

In this article you'll learn how to use LESS, an increasingly popular dynamic CSS language that you can use to streamline your CSS coding, saving you time and effort.

Stock Photos Giveaway: Win a 1-Year StockedPhotos Membership Worth $99.99!

Thu, 12 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Graphics and Multimedia

Time for another great giveaway here on Elated! This week, we're giving away two 12-month stock photo accounts over at StockedPhotos.com. This account lets you download as many pro-quality, royalty-free stock photos as you like during the 12-month period. No daily limits, and no per-photo fees. Nice!

Cover Flow Remade with CSS and jQuery

Fri, 06 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in jQuery

If you've used a Mac or iTunes at all, you've probably come across the Cover Flow view. This shows you a series of album covers, photos, or other documents in 3D, allowing you to flip between them by clicking them, dragging a scrollbar, or using the arrow keys.

It's a nice effect, but it requires a fair bit of processing power to accomplish. I thought it'd be a fun challenge to recreate it as closely as possible in a browser using CSS and JavaScript. At the start I had no idea if this was even possible, but I'm pretty happy with the result!

Elated Joins the Smashing Network!

Mon, 02 May 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Misc

We're delighted to announce that Elated is now part of the Smashing Network! This means that our best content will now appear on Smashing Magazine's curated network posts page.

This move will be a great way to introduce more readers to our content, and it will also ensure that we're motivated to keep creating very high quality articles and tutorials for you here at Elated.

Object-Oriented PHP: Delving Deeper into Properties and Methods

Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in PHP Objects

Welcome to the second article in our series on object-oriented PHP programming.

In this article, you're going to delve a bit deeper into properties and methods in PHP. You'll explore constructors and destructors; static properties and methods; class constants; type hinting; and the __get(), __set(), and __call() magic methods. We've included lots of code examples to help you learn the concepts.

This article will give you a solid grounding when it comes to using objects in PHP, before we move on to more advanced topics such as inheritance in later articles.

Ultimate Designer Toolkit Giveaway: Win a VIP Account Worth $99!

Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Published in Web Graphics and Multimedia

Time for another giveaway, dear readers! Today, we're offering 3 one-year VIP accounts for Ultimate Designer Toolkit, worth $99 each. Ultimate Designer Toolkit is a collection of resources to make your life easier as a web designer or coder.

A VIP account gives you access to over 60,000 premium resources, with more being added each day.

Enter now for your chance to win!