Recent Musings of Tristan Blease

Sanity check: how do you organize your web projects?

2011-02-05T17:25:44Z

This past week, I was handed a Joomla site developed by someone else, and I was asked to clean up and update a few sections on the site. At first glance, I just about died. The file system was a mess—multiple Joomla installs, assets spread across different directories, everything out of place—and the internal structure (database) was no better. We tracked down the correct files using WebKit's developer tools, but we could have saved significant time if the site was better organized.

Everyone already knows that keeping your projects well-organized streamlines development. makes collaborating with others easier, and allows you to keep your sanity should you have to come back to a project weeks, months, or even years, after completing it. Right?

How do you keep your project folders organized when creating web sites/apps? Read on for my organization strategy, and then leave yours in the comments.

An easier way to build forms in EE2

2010-10-26T06:44:40Z

There's no question about it, forms suck. But with ExpressionEngine 2, a few add-ons, and a little elbow grease they can suck a little less. Read on for my technique on how I used NSM Transplant, PT Matrix, Solspace's FreeForm, and Low's FreeForm field to make flexible forms that can be created/updated through the EE control panel.

Looking for a front-end web developer in Chicago, IL

2010-09-30T17:32:54Z

The agency I work full-time for is looking for a front-end web dev to work on-site for 2-3 days a week at our office in River North of Chicago, Illinois.

Generating a pubkey on Mac OS X

2010-08-23T12:19:15Z

Read on for a quick tutorial on how to generate an SSH pubkey using Mac OS X. This should work for just about any version of Mac OS X and be useful to create public keys for services like Codebase.

I don’t fit neatly into a box

2010-05-25T11:58:37Z

And I like it like that.

I am a visual designer, an information architect, a web developer, a copywriter, an animator, a marketer, an art director, a manager, an accountant, an account executive, a content strategist, a ...

I can stop now, I think you get the point.

iPad First Impressions

2010-04-05T02:49:04Z

I knew immediately that I was going to get an iPad after Apple made the announcement, but I didn't plan to buy one on launch day. Originally, I had planned to hold out for the 3G version. After talking it over with Clay on Friday night, I came to the conclusion that the extra $130 and $15/month contract wouldn't be worth the ten minutes a month I'd actually spend using the 3G service. I went to bed early that night, but still had no intention of waking up early the next morning to wait in line.

Drop down navigation in EE2 CP

2010-02-17T09:45:55Z

Below is a small snippet to add above the closing body tag in your CP theme footer that will enable the top navigation menus to drop down on rollover instead of click. It's nothing fancy, but figured I should share in case someone else was annoyed at the default top navigation menu behavior.

I originally wrote an extension to do this, only to find that they've stripped out show_full_control_panel_end out of the hooks list for EE2 after I finished whipping it up. I guess we'll have to live with modifying the CP themes directly for changes like this from now on.

View the snippet

EE2 Compatible Flickr Tools

2010-02-16T05:40:27Z

To get the flickr sidebar working on my site, I had to update Solspace's excellent Flickr Tools plugin to work with EE2. I tweeted at them earlier this morning asking if it'd be okay to share, so hopefully I'll be able to post it here after I've heard back from them.

And we’re back.

2010-02-13T23:54:15Z

After a brief hiatus, my web site is now back online.

While everything was offline, I took time to tweak content on the site and convert everything over to Expression Engine 2.0. In the coming months, look for more news and updates relating to EE as I've got a few add-ons I'm working on..

Thanks for holding tight, it's good to be back.