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.
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!
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
Celebrating 4 Years; New Theme and Big Savings!
It’s hard to believe we’ve been doing this this for 4 years! We have remained unwavering in our pursuit of RapidWeaver theme perfection. In that time we have seen a lot of developers come and go and have remained close with those who’ve stuck around. We’ve enjoyed highs and suffered lows and in the end our drive, passion and determination to be the best RapidWeaver theme developers we can be has led us to this… a four year success story that we can only be proud of!
We continually strive to improve both our products and ourselves as a company and we do it for one reason, the reason that got us here in the first place… you, our loyal customers.
So from our eternal appreciation of everything you have made possible for us we would like to offer you a discount code worth 30% off your entire shopping cart. This offer ends on December 7th so don’t delay.
Discount code: birthday2009
And what good is discount code without anything new and shiny to spend it on?
Our All New RapidWeaver Theme, GiD3OUS
GiD3OUS, our latest theme for RapidWeaver 3.6 and above, is the culmination of months of design, planning, and exhaustive testing. We believe the end result is our finest work to date.
This is a design we’ve been sitting on for nearly a year now. Chris (DEVi8) brought it to the table even before CR3ATiV3. We’ve been refining and revising it constantly — we didn’t want to even think of coding it until we knew it could be done right. That’s why much of what we’ve released in the last year has been in preparation for GiD3OUS.
We could have made GiD3OUS a fixed, graphical layout with very little flexibility, but this layout warranted more. The GiD3OUS theme deserved to be as flexible as we could manage and that meant we had a lot of new ideas to test out before hand, like work done previously on advanced systems such as 3 tier navigation, rounded corners, combination drop menus and ExtraContent … all of which we put together to make GiD3OUS the flexible, easy to use but highly polished theme that it is.
As a seyDoggy Ultimate theme, GiD3OUS comes fully loaded with powerful features, including width control, 3 tier tabbed navigation, rounded corners, ExtraContent, and a variety of others:
- 2 ExtraContent areas
- RWmultitool ready
- 10 customizable headers
- 10 customizable footers
- 3 tier hybrid-split navigation
- sidebar positioning
- comprehensive color control
- width control
- font size and style selections
Learn more about GiD3OUS (Ultimate)
See the live preview
Learn more about ExtraContent
Also Check out Some Updates
We have also dropped some minor updates to 5 other themes, badNas, Tuo, TW004, TW005 and TW006. Be sure to check those out and update your themes today.
One Finger Discount!
MacHeist is giving away six free apps this week! Joining in on the fun, Daniel Jalkut or Red Sweater Software started a movement, One Finger Discount, to offer a 20% discount on their software. But he decided to take all of us along for the ride.
There are now over 100 other developers (including us) listed at One Finger Discount and with each of them, using the “OneFingerDiscount” coupon code gets you 20% off.
Learn more at One Finger Discount.
What version are you using?
Something that you might get asked when inquiring about support issues for your favorite RapidWeaver theme or plugin is, “What version of Product X are you using?”
That’s not always easily answered if you don’t know what you are doing or where to look. RapidWeaver plugins can offer up such information in the plugin browser in RapidWeaver if you happen to have RapidWeaver open, but there is no such mechanism for themes.
If you wouldn’t mind a little help grabbing the version details of both RapidWeaver plugins and themes, we have authored a possible solution on our parent blog. It’s a little bit of AppleScript that should make the acquisition of your product version numbers a little simpler.
Showed off RapidWeaver at #kwdesignmeetup
Last night I had the opportunity to demonstrate Realmac Software’s RapidWeaver to an attentive group of web designers and developers at the Waterloo Region Web Design and Technology Group. Here is the video from that presentation. While unrehearsed and rather rough, the response was still very positive so I thought I would share it here for posterity.
New Theme, New Look!
We are proud to present you both a new look and a brand new RapidWeaver theme. seyDoggy Sleeker is a new feature-packed template that combines rich texture, sleek lines, and subtle lighting with power-user-options and an innovative hybrid-split navigation. The end result is an Ultimate seyDoggy theme unlike any other, and a fresh new look for the seyDoggy site that are proud to show off.
Every year around this time we update our look, launch some new products, and generally set the pace for the final quarter of the year. The release of Sleeker is, in a sense, the culmination of a variety of new methods and design trends we’ve been dabbling in for a little while and we thought it was time to update our site to follow suit.
We have a few new tricks up our sleeve with Sleeker that we think might be new in the RapidWeaver game: hybrid-split navigation that allows RapidWeaver users to have both a horizontal menu that hides sub-menu items in a tidy drop-down panel, as well as the option to display those same sub-menu items in a vertical navigation system in the sidebar.
I can’t say for certain whether it’s been done before in a RapidWeaver theme, but I know I have never come across it. Certainly not without the use of Javascript. I’ve been wrong before though so don’t quote me on it.
As a seyDoggy Ultimate theme, Sleeker comes fully loaded with powerful features, including width control, choice of navigation system, a selection background textures and gradients, ExtraContent, and a variety of others:
- 2 ExtraContent areas
- 10 customizable headers
- 5 navigation systems
- title, logo, and sidebar positioning
- sidebar positioning
- RWmultitool ready
- background textures
- comprehensive color control
- width control
- font size and style selections
And that’s not all! Ryan of RapidWeaver Classroom was kind enough to offer us a generous promotional code to go with this launch. Until September 30th get 25% off any subscription at RapidWeaver Classroom. All new subscribers will be pleasantly surprised at the discounts that a new subscription gets them towards other great RapidWeaver products.
RapidWeaver Classroom 25% discount code: E7A6E78AEA
expires: September 30th
Learn more about Sleeker (Ultimate)
See the live preview
Learn more about ExtraContent
RapidWeaver 4.3 Is Now Available!
Realmac Software has just announced this morning that RapidWeaver 4.3, their anticipated Snow Leopard OS X 10.6 update, has been released. Initially caught off guard when Apple released the update to the Mac operating system nearly one month ahead of schedule, the dedicated team at Realmac Software have been going full bore to get RapidWeaver to run rock solid on Snow Leopard.
RapidWeaver 4.3 comes with many new features and numerous bug fixes, some of which include:
- Snow Leopard compatibility
- Added the ability to add and edit links in Styled Text views via the right-click contextual menu
- The right-click contextual menu now exposes the default commands for searching Google & Spotlight, Dictionary lookup, suggested spellings
- RapidWeaver now uploads all the assets relating to a site, and then uploads the pages themselves to ensure that pages display correctly when published
- Google Analytics code is no longer output when previewing within RapidWeaver to prevent pageview number inconsistencies
- No longer bounces the dock icon when publishing completes
- Fix for a bug where a plugin failing to load could leave RW in an unknown state
- Shortcut keys added to link panel (command-1/2/3)
- Shortcut keys added to site setup sheet (command-1/2/3)
- Fixed a bug where editing the meta tags or page assets in the page inspector didn’t mark the page as changed
- For full details of the extensive updates read Realmac’s release notes
If you’ve recently updated to Snow Leopard then you’ll want to download this very important RapidWeaver update.
