Archive for the ‘Resources’ Category
Introducing LESS: a Better CSS
I don’t know about you but I’m not really satisfied with the level of control CSS gives me today. The feature set is just too restraining, and while I know how to use it to create anything I want, there is always plenty of code which I wish I didn’t need to duplicate, or I wish I could have written more elegantly.
It’s not so much the lack of fancy styling options like shadows and rounded corners, which are there in CSS3, it’s things like the lack of variables and ugly long inheritance selectors.
Can’t do much about that, right? Well, actually…
Reinventing the Color Picker
If you do any form of design work on the computer you’re probably familiar with the color picker. Whether in the form of a color wheel or a set of sliders, color pickers let you do just that — pick colors.
ColoRotate is an interesting new site that picks a novel approach to the traditional color picker design. Instead of 2D circles or sliders, ColoRotate features a 3D cone. At the core of the cone is the spectrum of colors. Intersecting that is the tint which lies on the z-axis. You can manipulate each one separately to help you arrive at your color. You can also blend two colors together.
Quince: A User Interface Patterns Explorer
Earlier this month I’ve received news of a new UI patterns library called Quince, which is a tool that I think you may find useful. The app is basically an organized collection of various interface patterns. Each pattern is part of a ‘problem’, and several examples are usually provided as viable solutions. Each of these problems is also accompanied by a bit of text describing the solutions and providing tips on things like accessibility.
10 Great Free Icon Packs for Your Website or Web App
Icons are an important aspect of a web application or even just a website — they add visual cues to different headings, buttons and sections of the site, making it easy to recognize what each element is and help users make quicker decisions. They also look great and add a professional polish to your app.
These days there are many great icon packs available for free. Here’s my selection of the top 10 free icon packs.