Designs by Seth Alling

Latest Plugin Development: No Page Comment

Seth — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 03:57:13 +0000

Over the past year, I have developed quite a few sites in WordPress. One of the common requests that I have been asked to do is to create a testimonial page, where people can leave their testimonials as a comment and then style the feed so those comments will display nicely as client testimonials.

While this has been easy to do, I have found it rather annoying at times because I then have to allow comments on that particular page, but on no others. One would think that WordPress by default would allow for this be be fairly simple out of the box, and it is, but only if you do it their way.

On the WordPress settings, you can choose to disable posts and trackbacks by default, but throughout the entire site. You can still enable comments on a page by page or post by post basis, but you can’t have it be enabled by default on posts, and then disabled by default on pages. This is the probable that I always seemed to be running into. Normally, I would just remove the comments template from pages, but once I wanted comments on just one page, I would have to add the code back into the template.

Now, I know I could just grin and bear it and remember to disable comments on each new page, or enable comments on each new post, depending on my main comment settings, but I want things done my way. I don’t want to have to remember and leave the possibility of human error taking effect, so last month I determined that I have had enough.

I finally put my mind to it and wrote a plugin to allow me to set the default comment settings individually on a page. This way I could enable the comments so they would appear on posts, but disable them by default on pages. I did this using javascript so I could then change my comment settings on an individual post or page basis. After developing it, I released it to the WordPress community. The plugin is No Page Comment.

Well, now that a little more than a month has passed since developing it and releasing it to the WordPress community, I have made some more modifications to it. It is now possible to set the default for posts, pages, and any custom post types that may be installed on your site. I found out that some people wanted comments disabled on posts only, but wanted them open by default on pages. Others saw a need to block comments on custom post types that came from third-party plugins. Because of this, I have made the modifications, and am happy to release the next version of No Page Comment. Feel free to check it out. It just may make working with WordPress a little easier for you, as it did for me.

Premium Plugin for Sale: WP FAQs Pro

Seth — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 02:48:46 +0000

Last month, my first premium WordPress plugin was released to the public: WP FAQs Pro. I have been working with WordPress for more than a year and have developed plugins before, but this is the first one that I am selling to the public.

The plugin is meant to be a simple way to manage FAQs for a website using WordPress, giving the user complete control over the way FAQs are displayed without needing any coding knowledge.

Features of WP FAQs Pro

jQuery usage and non-JS support
An optional questions index
Easy drag-and-drop question reordering
Multiple style choices
Custom CSS ability
WordPress shortcode incorporation
FAQ categories
Ability to post multiple FAQ lists on a page

A live demo of WP FAQs Pro can be viewed and the plugin can be purchased at WP Plugins for $15.

As a special in honor of my first premium WordPress plugin, the first 10 who use the code “1STPLUGIN” will receive $12 off their order, bringing the total to only $3.

Free Download: PSD Mac Hand Cursor

Seth — Sun, 01 May 2011 02:03:56 +0000

The other day I was working on capturing screenshots for a plugin I’ve been working on and every screenshot I took didn’t include the cursor. Now, on most occasions this isn’t an issue, but I needed one of the shots to show drag and drop functionality, meaning that I needed the hand cursor.

Well, after trying out a variety of different screenshot programs, I still wasn’t able to get the desired result. I was able to figure out a way to show the drag and drop functionality, but the hand cursor was still missing. In the end, I determined, that I would just have to recreate it by hand.

By zooming in on the screen (CTRL-Scroll) I was able to see the hand cursor up close, although it was a bit fuzzy. From there I could then build the hand in Photoshop pixel by pixel. With much zooming in, remembering, and then zooming out and moving into photoshop, I was able to build it.

Because it’s wasn’t the most enjoyable experience, I’ve decided that if anyone else ever needed this cursor, then they can download it from my site.

Download the PSD Mac Hand Cursor. Inside the zip file is the cursor in PSD, PNG, and GIF formats.

A 2010 Year in Review

Seth — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 02:56:16 +0000

Umm… Happy New Year.

Yes, I know it’s been a year since I last posted, and I promised to do better, but I failed. So instead of promising to do better, I’ll just post when I have time. Maybe one day I’ll be self-employed full-time, but until then posting a blog will be hit or miss.

So, in honor of my failed attempt to post regularly, I will post a quick and short review of this year.

Another Award for the BYU Football Guide

Well, I had figured that since I had left BYU and was now working away from the college, that would be the end of receiving awards for BYU, but I found out that there was one more left. The 2009 BYU Football Information Guide won the “2009 Bloodshot Eyeball Award For Best Online Media Guide Solution.”

What a mouthful! Now, even though this award wasn’t the traditional award from a normal source, it still had some meaning because of what was said at the end:

The bottom line is that BYU is and should be the model of how ALL sports organizations, professional and amateur, should design and present their information. They should not listen to what the vendors are trying to sell them. They should not listen to people saying that unless you push the technology envelope, people will not use the resource.”

We tried something innovative and had good results because of it. Additionally, it’s always nice to receive a compliment for your hard effort!

Real Estate: The Benefits of Living in Detroit

One of the benefits of moving back home to Michigan was the fact that I could actually afford a house. I figured that it would be a few years since graduating before I could actually do this, but I took advantage of the economy. Because everyone seemed to be selling, my wife and I actually got to pick the house that we liked and we got a great deal. For us, it was a great situation. Now, here’s to hoping that the Detroit economy picks up. It would also help on those freelance projects as well!

Just a Sample of 2010 Projects

As always, I was busy with various projects, including a few website redesigns. A sampling of those companies’ websites are listed below:

If you like what you see, and are looking to have some work done, feel free to request a quote.

Have a wonderful 2011 and hopefully I’ll post something before 2012.

Tech Brokers Website Development

Seth — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:14:14 +0000

Quite a few months ago I was asked to develop a site for a company known as Tech Brokers. I was given a very rough layout for the design and a few graphical elements as well.

The main purpose of this site was to have a site up for a company that was just starting out. Once they had a website in place, their investors would be able to learn more about them and eventually get the business started.

Anyways, I developed the site and got everything running. It was up for a couple months and now the site has been redesigned, so all I have online is a screenshot of what I did do. My guess is that the company must be up and running now, which is a good thing. Anyway, here is the screenshot of their former site.

If you click on the image, a full view of the first page of the former site will open up.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Fixing Internet Explorer, Absolute Positioning and Z-Indexes

Seth — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:30:27 +0000

A few weeks ago I was working on our company’s site before we launched our new design and had to fix our drop-down menu in Internet Explorer. It worked fine in IE8, but there were severe issues with IE6 and IE7. Our company doesn’t support IE6, and neither do I unless someone is paying me more, but we do support it to the point where at least all of the information is accessible even if it doesn’t look right.

Anyway, in both IE6 and IE7, I found out our main banner image was covering the dropdown menu. I could not figure out what the problem was for quite sometime, and after doing some extensive searching on Google, I was able to learn what the problem was through a variety of sources.

Because Internet Explorer 6 and 7 render absolutely positioned elements different than any other browser, they cause for elements to be overlapped in a different order. Then on top of that, if you use a z-index on the element, nothing is fixed. So, in an effort to make it easier for anyone else with this problem, I will try to explain how to hack this IE bug.

The first thank that you need to pay attention to is, what positioning you are using. My problem was caused because I was using absolute positioning throughout the header. Now this shouldn’t be a problem, but I had multiple relative positioning elements throughout that same header.

All it would have taken was a simple reorganization of my header. With everything that we had done up to that point, it was pretty much impossible, so I needed to find a different method. After a couple hours of testing various methods, I finally found something that works.

Instead of setting the z-index on the absolutely positioned element itself, just set the z-index on the parent relatively positioned element instead. That’s it. It a whole lot more simple than reorganizing your structure, and it accomplishes the task of using z-indexes on relatively positioned elements with no side effects!

Ten Free Thanksgiving Design Resources

Seth — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:50:46 +0000

What am I thankful for? In two days, I will get to fly out to Utah so I can finally be with my wife again after spending the last five weeks apart, and six weeks apart prior to that. We will be driving back to Michigan together and hopefully the weather doesn’t cause any problems. If there are no problems, I will also be thankful that we will make it back home in time for Thanksgiving.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I felt it would be appropriate to list some design freebies for the holiday. I’ve noticed in the past that Halloween and Christmas always seem to have icons, vectors, fonts, brushes and other resources available. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, is not the same, so hopefully these will come in handy to anyone who needs them. Also, a thank you to all of the designers who created these and made them available.

Brigham Young University Football Online Information Guide

Seth — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:45:52 +0000

After taking a break for the past few months from blogging, here is one of my recent works. Back in February, at Brigham Young University, we were discussing some of the ways that we could possibly attract more recruits to BYU, besides winning games, and the idea to put our media guide online was thought of.

Now, this was already not uncommon as many schools (including BYU) had pdf versions out, but we were beginning to see more interactive versions. All of these were done to the extent that they seemed like an online book involving page turning effects and hyperlinks between the pages. We liked the idea, but still wanted to be different. We noticed that no other school had actually made the guide into a fully-functioning website. Not only would this reduce printing costs, but it would also provide an interactive experience for visitors.

With today’s technology boom and the high school population becoming more involved online with social media such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter, we knew that an online source would be more effective in reaching recruits. With the amount of time that they spend on the Web, we figured that they would be more likely to look at a website than just receive a book in the mail and put it in a stack with all of the either media guides they receive. In addition, a website loads quicker and is more user friendly than an online pdf.

So without delay, I will present the 2009 BYU Football Information Guide. This online resource is filled with all of the information that can be found in the printed football guide, but is free to the public.

I had a fairly large part in the creation of this guide. Although I did not come up with the idea, I had a big part in the designing of the guide along with about three others in the office. Then from those designs, I took the photoshop files and coded every page of the guide into HTML. I also searched for various javascript functions and implemented them into the guide as well.

Amazingly enough, this was my first large web project I had done since my sad looking Detroit Red Wings fan site hosted on geocities over a decade ago. I had to relearn HTML and learn CSS, but it turned out to be well worth it for me as it gave me the knowledge so I can have my current job as a web designer.

Google Sesame Street Images

Seth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:30 +0000

Two days ago, Google finished their celebration of Sesame Street’s 40th Anniversary. I remember after seeing them, I was wishing that there was a way to download them. Like a majority of the population, I watched Sesame Street when I was younger, and seeing those images reminded me of childhood.

Well, while I was looking online yesterday, I found out that Google is now offering the Sesame Street collection for download as “high-resolution” images. To clarify the “high-resolution” word, it’s 1200×800, which means low-resolution to anyone who designs with print.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009: Big Bird

Thursday, November 5, 2009: Cookie Monster

Friday, November 6, 2009: Bert and Ernie

Saturday, November 7, 2009: Oscar

Sunday, November 8, 2009: Elmo

Monday, November 9, 2009: Count von Count

Tuesday, November 10, 2009: Sesame Street Ensemble

Now, these next few were additional images available for download which I never saw until yesterday. The behind the scenes image is just cool. I never realized how global Sesame Street was. Also, I have never even heard of these characters. I don’t know if they were only in the international shows or if more have been added since I stopped watching many years ago.

Sesame Street Ensemble Behind The Scenes

Ieniemienie (Belgium, Netherlands)

Boombah and Chamki (India)

Abigail (Israel)

Kami (South Africa)

Abelardo Montoya (Mexico)

Isn’t it amazing what kind of design inspiration we can get from Google just about every day? All you have to do it go to the home page and see what the image is. That would actually be a fun job, to just design the latest Google banner for the day.

Additionally, this may be a bit off-topic, but I realized that Google used a jpeg for the final day, but used gifs for the first six images. I guess it just shows that Google knows something about optimization.

It’s Been A While Since I’ve Been Blogging

Seth — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 00:52:16 +0000

It has been a while since I have posted anything. In fact it’s been more than four months. I guess I have some explaining to do.

I am no longer working for the Brigham Young Athletic Department. I originally thought this would happen in December or January as I was expecting to live in Provo until my wife graduated from school, but The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints put a hiring freeze on all church employment, including all non-student jobs at BYU, back in January. Because of this I was going to lose my job two weeks after I graduated in April. Instead of graduating when I was supposed to, I decided to postpone my graduation till December and go back to school for one last semester. (It’s amazing what people will do for employment these days!) Not wanting to leave my wife, I only half-heartedly looked for a job, and to my surprise, I ended up finding one back home in Michigan as a designer at a digital advertising agency known as Trademark Productions. Now that I have moved back, I have just a week and a half before I get to fly back to Utah to see her again. We will then pack up and move back to Michigan, praying that we do not get stuck in a snowstorm along the way.

Anyway, with all of this craziness going on, I have really fallen behind on the blogging. A lot of this is because of the move. More of this is because I talk to my wife every night for extended periods of time. Also, I am still working freelance and trying to brand my own company on the side. So, over these next few days, I will post some of my latest work. In addition, I am currently working on a redesign of my blog and still working on my logo (the hardest one to design will always be your own.)

Additionally, my goal is for this blog to become more useful for those that visit. Rather than just giving examples of my work, I plan on also giving design inspiration, tips, freebies and possibly tutorials. Stay tuned for more over then next few days.