NEW THEME: Flavorite Ultimate – Smart Themes for Smart Times
Getting Smarter All the Time
It’s been over a year since we introduced our first ExtraContent enabled theme. That is how long we have been including jQuery in our Ultimate themes … but until now we have not truly harnessed the power and smarts that jQuery has to offer.
A number of years ago, RapidWeaver 3.2 introduced theme options. They were a great advance in template based web design, but the options were more or less limited to CSS, notoriously lacking the dependencies of language that allow for dynamic capabilities. Flavorite now adds some smarts to those options, opening up a new world of possibility.
As theme developers, we have always been limited in what we can offer in our products. It’s been a juggling act to get a certain number of options to cascade in just the right flow. With our new approach in Flavorite, we aim to break down those barriers.
Meet Flavorite, our smartest theme ever.
“smart: (of a device) capable of independent and seemingly intelligent action”
That about sums up our approach to Flavorite, our smartest theme ever. Flavorite Ultimate harnesses the power of today’s web without sacrificing the ease of use that RapidWeaver has always been known for, by giving you the ability to do things like:
- create a slideshow from your custom headers with the click of a button — no code required (IE8+)
- turn rounded corners on or off with ease
- enjoy your content, sidebar, ExtraContent — even individual blog posts — all wrapped in their own pretty boxes
All of these intelligent features are included at no expense to the variety of other great and flexible features like layout width, header heights, variable width sidebar, and fonts galore. In fact, the advanced features in Flavorite are actually aware of each other and their standard feature counterparts.
The best part for you is that it looks and acts the same as any other RapidWeaver theme we’ve made. It just works for you … intelligently.
As a seyDoggy Ultimate theme, Flavorite comes fully loaded with powerful features, including a built in slideshow, 2 tier split navigation, rounded corners, ExtraContent, and a variety of others:
- selectable slideshow
- 4 ExtraContent areas
- RWmultitool ready
- 10 customizable headers
- header height adjustment
- 2 footer modes
- 2 tier, split navigation
- sidebar width
- sidebar positioning
- comprehensive color control
- width control
- font size, style and line height control
30% Discount code (valid until March 12, 2010): vwII7CDdZtCd
Learn more about Flavorite (Ultimate)
See the live preview
Learn more about ExtraContent
Important Notice About Internet Explorer 6
The Preamble
As the web matures and operating systems continue to forge ahead we are constantly at a crossroads in our work, between modern techniques and backwards compatibility. Our products are not nearly as advanced as they could be and this is primarily because we must also consider how to make our RapidWeaver themes render on older browsers.
But consider this for a moment — the ONLY browser that gets backwards support is Internet Explorer. We ensure the proper functioning and relatively good rendering on three versions of Internet Explorer (IE 6, IE 7 and IE 8). We do this with no other browser; not Safari, FireFox, Opera or Chrome. In all modern browsers we support only the most current versions.
The reason for this is simple. There is no reason or excuse not to be using the latest version of these aforementioned modern browsers. None. So why then do we excuse Internet Explorer users? Some say that other browsers may not be allowed in the corporate workplace or that those who are stuck on IE 6 don’t know any better. I think it’s because we don’t give them any incentive to do so.
Why upgrade to the latest version of Internet Explorer when the internet looks just fine the way it is in IE 6?
We have been enablers for those who are unwilling or supposedly unable to update their browsers, bending the web backwards to make it look just right in a 9 year old browser!
Just last week, Google announced that support for Internet Explorer 6 on their web apps will be phased out by March 1st. This is great news, as the number and stature of those web services that are choosing to take this path is increasing by the month. Already sites like YouTube, Digg and many others have begun to issue warning to users of IE 6 that they need to upgrade to a newer browser to take full advantage of their services.
We would like to follow suit.
The Announcement
As of August 27, 2010, Internet Explorer 6 will officially be 9 years old, and that is old enough for us. So on that date, seyDoggy Systems and seyDesign Themes will be discontinuing all support for Internet Explorer 6 (IE 6) and focussing only on Internet Explorer 7 (IE 7) and 8 (IE 8).
The Reasons
The biggest, most important reason is that Internet Explorer 6 poses a serious security risk to all who use it — including those of us who have to test our products with it. With the recently exposed exploits and Microsoft’s continual insistence that users should leave IE 6, we see no reason why we should expose our own systems to such threats anymore. We are just as vulnerable to IE 6 exploits as the rest of the world and if Google can be effected by such exploits, so too can we.
And then there is the matter of how IE 6 looks. Internet Explorer 6 is nearing 9 years of age… the web was a different place back then. IE 6 is incapable of performing many of todays web tricks and common standards. It renders the web horrendously and the hacks and workarounds required to make web pages look half ways decent can some times take as long to develop as the page itself.
This is neither fair to us as developers or you as end users who would like to see the latest and greatest the web has to offer, not some dumbed-down in-between stage of the web that looks ok in all browsers.
Usage
According to StatCounter, IE 6’s market share has dropped to below 15% worldwide* — that’s more then 6% lower then its contemporary, IE 8, on the worldwide stage. If more people are using IE 8 then IE 6 then I see no reason to slow that trend down and will gladly assist IE 6’s timely demise by any means necessary.
As IE 6 users find it increasingly difficult to take part in many web services and find that the web looks more and more hideous as 2010 rolls on I suspect those still on IE 6 will migrate to newer versions of Internet Explorer (or other modern browsers) faster and faster.
* North American figures show that IE 6 sits at just below 6% while IE 8 has earned a whopping 27% market share.
Summation
While I can certainly understand that some of you may have reservations about us ceasing support of IE 6 in August, we can assure you that this is the best way forward for us, our end users and the web as a whole. It is time to move on from browsers built in another decade and focus on the future. It’s time that we focus on standards compliant, forward thinking browsers that enhance the web and not cripple it.
We may meet with some trepidation over our decision to stop supporting Internet Explorer 6 and in turn you may decide that our products are not for you. This is a calculated risk that we feel is necessary for the future of our company and the continued quality of our products.
We hope others in our industry will follow our lead as we have followed those before us. We feel this is the only way for the web to move forward.
11 seyDesign Themes Are Now Open Source
To heck with spring cleaning, we’re going for mid-winter cleaning and chucking out a bunch of old stuff that’s been sitting around collecting dust… well… not chucking out, per say… just giving it away for free now!
That’s right, we have added 11 more themes to the “Free” pile to bring our collection of open source themes to a count of 14.
These 11, newly open sourced themes will continue to be supported for another year. They include: dogPress, Fade, Neato, OS, RetroFilm, Tagg, Tuo, TW001, TW003, TW005 and TW006.
When we open source our themes, we’re spreading the love to you, so please, if you make a better, cooler version of these themes, be sure to share them back with us. These works by seyDoggy are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
THEME UPDATE: Sleeker Gets Another Speed Boost for IE6
Well it was back to the drawing scripting board when Tuesdays Sleeker update didn’t quite have all the desired effects I had hoped for. So I took a step back and reworked the code from r2 in hopes that I could gain IE6 load speed another way… and I could… so I did.
Give the update a spin on your favorite IE6 machine and let me know if that does it for you.
Theme Update: Sleeker Speeds up for IE6
Sleeker has had a quick little update to help improve load times for IE6 users. We’ve removed some lines of jQuery that the ol’ beast of a browser was thinking too long and hard about. I should have known better then to make IE6 actually think.
Anyhow, we’ve sped things up a bit for IE6, the senior citizen of the browser world. Get the update here.
THEME UPDATE: TW005 and Creamux Get a Patch
We have two updates for the start of 2010 to fix two little glitches in a pair of themes.
The first is a little trouble with TW005. Internet Explorer 7 — so it seems — is not a fan of letter-spacing and, as such, was acting up when trying to handle successive line breaks. Well… it wasn’t handling them at all… line breaks, that is… and so I fixed it. Go download it now.
The second update goes to Creamux and this really came down to a battle of wills. For a long time now, Creamux has been going head to head and with any JavaScript library that makes use of LightBox — or at least a particular version of it. Creamux was in the right but alas I dare not take the battle any farther. I have changed the single identifier in the Creamux theme that was causing LightBox-like scripts to make big nasty black screens. May virtue rest in peace and let it be known that I fought the good fight… uhh… eh-hem… sorry about that… You can get the update here.
BoxingBundle – Get All seyDesign Themes For $68
The Boxing Day Sale is Now Over
What would Boxing Day at seyDesign be without some wild and crazy discount? So why should this year be any different? I don’t know if this is the turkey talking or if I’ve taking one too many passes under the mistletoe, but this year I am going ALL OUT!!
For ONE DAY ONLY (that would be boxing day, December 26th) you can get the ENTIRE seyDesign collection of themes — all 34 — for only $68!! That is just $2 per theme!! That is a savings of $475!! (If I use any exclamation points I am going to lose my voice!!)
Get the BoxingBundle today only, NO EXCEPTIONS, for just $68!! It will be gone tomorrow!
NEW FREE THEME: seyDoggy Holiday09
It’s almost Holiday time and I am sure a lot of you are scrambling to get your Holiday cards out. Or perhaps, like me, you don’t send cards, in favor of a more environmentally approach… like a web card! That’s exactly what I was creating yesterday when it dawned on me… why not make this a RapidWeaver theme for all to enjoy! So I did.
It’s not much, doesn’t have many feature and it’s not supported… but it’s free! Who can argue with free? They say Christmas is a time for giving. I say they’re right!
seyDoggy Holiday09 is a very basic RapidWeaver theme designed for a basic holiday greeting to your friends, family, colleagues, clients or customers. Holiday09 includes just a few options to get you going — Width (600px to 1000px), Navigation Hide/Show for a very basic, single level navigation system and Sidebar Right/Left/Hide.
Holiday09 is free and open source (with attributions) under this license. Do what you like with it but remember where it came from and give credit where credit is due. Holiday09 is also provided AS IS. We will not be supporting this theme. It’s pretty basic, doesn’t include much and isn’t likely to cause any issues. That said, should you find any issues, feel free to let us know, just don’t expect a solution right away.
A Pair of seyDesign Desktops for Download
I don’t do this very often (perhaps I never have, I can’t say for sure) but I was inspired this morning. I made a pair fairly unassuming desktops to remember us by when you’re at the office. Enjoy!
Theme Modification With CodeCutter
For some time now Chris from Varsis Studio has been working on a new RapidWeaver utility to allow users to quickly and easily modify the CSS in their themes. The idea was born out of my frustration with trying to support user modified themes. I asked Chris if he could make an application that could help users modify their themes the right way — in a non-destructive manner — and in such a way that users could keep their mods even after the themes developer updates or upgrades that theme.
Here is a quick look at what Chris has come up with. It’s code named “CodeCutter” for now. If you like the idea, please get on board and take the alpha out for a spin and help Chris get this application closer to completion.
The Video Transcript
[00:00:00] Hello, this Adam from seyDoggy.com. I want to give you a brief introduction to an exciting new application in the works at Varsis Studios. This new application is a RapidWeaver utility that will allow users to modify the style of their themes in a non-destructive manner and will also allow users to retain those modifications through future developer issued updates.
Theme Editing Today
Lets first look at how themes are modified today:
Hack the Theme
[00:00:25] The most common, and arguably most problematic way to modify a theme is to open the themes contents and edit the style sheets within. The success rate will often vary since the modifications placed in one file may or may not be overwritten by another file further down the line.
[00:00:41] If you look at these results you can see my font changes made to the blockquote were effective, but the color changes were not recognized in the blockquote, the h1 tag or the link.
Modifications done this way can cause a lot of damage to theme and may create havoc for the developer when supporting it in the future. In fact, lots of theme developers will not support modified RapidWeaver themes.
Custom CSS Box
[00:01:11] The second, more ideal approach is add custom css to RapidWeavers own CSS field. This will result in the most successful style modifications but they are not carried over from page to page, making it necessary to copy your custom css to each page in your site.
CodeCutter method
[00:01:32] So what’s the solution? Varsis Studios has come up with a way to browse your themes CSS code, modify it and save it to it’s own style sheet directly in the theme. The application is code named CodeCutter and is a RapidWeaver utility with one purpose in mind, to help you modify your themes the right way. Lets have a look.
[00:01:49] Upon opening Code Cutter you’ll notice some familiar buttons. Let’s start by selecting the theme we wish to modify.
[00:01:58] Notice how the left-hand column gathers all of the style sheets used within the theme. It does so in the order that they appear on a published site. This important for recognizing the style sheet hierarchy. You can either browse through each sheets entire contents, or by expanding the sheet you can chose each selector individually.
[00:02:17] Once you have found the selector you wish to change, simply click the “Add To CSS” button, and your selector is now copied to the lower panels. This is where your custom CSS sheet is created.
Make some changes… and those changes are reflected in the theme preview.
[00:02:39] Remember how those styles I added directly to the themes contents didn’t work? Notice that there is nothing getting in the way of them working in Code Cutter. Also notice that the changes now effect every page in your site.
Always in Sync
[00:02:59] But here is where the real power of CodeCutter comes into play. All too often users will modify a theme only to have those modifications deleted or overwritten the next time the developer updates their theme. CodeCutter is smart enough to sync your changes back up if it detects that you customizations have been lost!
[00:03:30] And here is the other beautiful thing about CodeCutter; remember I said it’s non destructive? This means that CodeCutter doesn’t modify your themes built in style sheets. This makes it easy for developers to still support their own themes. Your theme modifications can be found in a single, easy to identify, CSS file. This makes it quick and easy to rule out, or remove your modifications all together. Getting to the root of the problem is now as easy as flipping a switch.
Wrap up
[00:03:59] I hope you’re as excited about CodeCutter as I am. It has a way to go still and Varsis Studio is looking for testers to help make this app become a reality. If you are interested in getting involved please visit dev.varsisstudio.com
