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.
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.
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.
ExtraContent; it’s as easy as 1, 2, 3
There was a small bit of confusion recently about the use of ExtraContent and whether it actually required a coders knowledge to make use of. We set out to debunk any misconceptions about ExtraContent’s relative ease of use with a new movie that demonstrates exactly how easy it is to use ExtraContent and how it requires no knowledge of code at all.
Give it a watch and tell me what you think. There is also a large version if you have trouble seeing the content.
seyDesign and Med-Designs bring back RetroFilm
It recently came to our attention that Med-Designs had closed up shop. Being one of the original RapidWeaver theme developers, Med-Designs has been one of those names you’ve gotten used to seeing in RapidWeaver circles, so you can imagine our surprise to see that kind of institution shutting it’s doors.
I promptly contacted Scott of Med-Designs and asked him what he had planned for his theme library. Before long we had struck up a deal to bring the works over to seyDesign.com and breath some new life into them. So it is with great pleasure and a certain amount honor to bring you the legendary theme, RetroFilm
RetroFilm, a highly stylized RapidWeaver theme from Med-Designs gives you the sense you are looking at a salvaged bit 35 mm “Safety” film. For the movie buffs, this old stock of a theme should fit your movie blogs or review sites just fine. Tickets please!
RetroFilm has been totally reworked to bring it up to date with RapidWeaver 4 and has also had a few feature enhancements. We’ve made all of the headers and footers RWmultitool. We have also added the much asked for width feature, which is fully compatible with all headers and footers. Enjoy this old theme like it’s new all over again.
Updates at a glance:
- upgraded to RapidWeaver 4 compatibility
- refined code to validate
- added Info.plist for end user version tracking
- added release.txt for developer bug tracking
- added IE 6 png transparency support
- added RWmultitool ready headers and footers
- added fully functional width options
- refined color picker features
- added large preview image
- updated small preview image
- added keywords
- and much, much more…
THEME UPDATE: wideNas r3 fixes footer links
wideNas for RapidWeaver 4.0 has been updated to r3 to correct a small issue where links in the footer were not clickable. We have also tweaked or added a few other bits here and there such as Info.plist which allows end users to easily view the themes version from Finder. We have also added support for release notes which will allow both developers and end users to keep track of the changes made to the theme over time. This will better allow us to track what version the user is using and help us deliver the best support possible.
For a complete list of the changes, go to the wideNas updates section or download the update directly.
THEME UPDATE: Acumen r2
seyDoggy Acumen for RapidWeaver has been updated to r2. The changes are only slight with an improved print style sheet and a few tweaks here and there. One invasive change, however, is the removal of the copyrighted header images that accidentally made their way into the distributed version of this theme. If you relied on these images then this might be an aggravation to say the least, so I recommend you make backup copies of the images so you can reinstate them after the update installer runs.
Get your free update here.
New site. New theme. New ideas.
In this post: The New Site | The New Theme: wideNas | Two Theme Updates | Free Themes
The New Site
Welcome to seyDesign 2008, our biggest and most ambitious site porting ever. We have taken every single inch of our massive website and turned it inside out, all in the name of delivering to you the most effective RapidWeaver theme store and resource possible. You’ll find everything about the new site familiar, yet much more fluid. You’ll no longer have to jump from page to page to find out theme features, download more styles or get the latest theme updates. Each theme page is now it’s own mini site with all of your needs and wants answered on a single page.
The New Theme: wideNas
Although a new site design is always cause for celebration, there isn’t really a whole lot in it for you. That’s why we are proud to present our latest theme, wideNas. Inspired by our popular badNas theme for RapidWeaver, wideNas takes the tabbed theme idea out of it’s little box. The wide open layout of wideNas makes it ideal for just about any style of site, from high-tech to corporate or blog to boutique.
wideNas is what we now refer to as a Pro theme (more on such distinctions at a later date) who’s pro features include such things as custom headers, width control, full color control, font selection and much, much more.
Learn more about wideNas | Preview wideNas
Two Theme Updates
viEw r3
We are excited to tell you about two updates to two great themes. The first one I want to tell you about is viEw, one of my personal favorites. viEw r3 is now available, bringing it up to speed with RapidWeaver 4.0, adding the large preview and keywords to assist in theme browsing and searching respectively. Learn more about viEw | Get the update
Tuo r4
The second theme I want to tell you about is Tuo, a RapidWeaver theme that changes the face of RapidWeaver theme development everywhere back in 2006. Tuo has had another radical change, rebuilt from the ground up to optimize performance, clean up code and extend functionality well beyond previous versions. Some of the new features include enhanced color control for all aspects of the layout (including top level navigation bar and the sidebar area), width variations, font selection and more. Learn more about Tuo | Get the update
Free Themes
What happens when a theme gets retired? It use to go in this lonely place on my hard drive called “_discontinued” but after having recently retired another theme, waVy, I could stand the thought of this theme rotting away until file corruption finally takes it’s last whispering breath away. It’s a perfectly good theme, and we like it a lot (I even use it on RapidWeaved.com) but it’s just not popular enough to invest anymore time into further development of it.
So here is what we’ve decide to do with waVy and other themes like it; we have started a new section on the site, under the THEMES category, called Open Source. There, governed by the laws of Creative Commons, users can download, use, share, post back to seyDesign.com and redistribute our open source themes, absolutely free.
Conclusion
All in all I would say that this was a rather action packed blog post. Look for more exciting news in the coming weeks.
FlipSide5.com launches
Our parent company, seyDoggy has been hard at work lately, as usual, and has recently been able to share their latest work with the world, FlipSide5.com
From tip to toe, seyDoggy took care of the whole package for FlipSide5; the graphics, web design, game icons and pieces, logo, etc… they did the whole thing. But enough about us…
Reston, VA—May 27, 2008—FlipSide5, Inc., makers of the popular web editions of Tic-Tac-Touch and 4InARow touch are now launching versions to download and install, allowing players to own these games on their iPhone and iPod Touch. Both these products, Tic-Tac-Touch and 4InARow touch, are designed to be amazingly “simple, fun and wow”, refreshing these ageless classics for today’s generation.
Go to seyDoggy.com to read all about it.
