I’m currently building a WordPress site that requires a plugin to feature posts on the home page.

I did a little research and came across this list which seems to be a great place to start:
5 Plugins For Creating EyeCatchy Featured Content Section in Wordpress

Most likely I’ll use one of the plugins that use javascript and can be updated via the admin interface instead of the flash one so that in case I need someone else to update it, I won’t have to teach them XML etc.

Seems like the Featured content gallery plug in is a good candidate. Many people have used it and they seem to be happy.

In case you need multiple instances of that module -like I do- here’s a good tutorial that would show you how to do it step-by-step: Multiple Featured Content Galleries

Today, I had a need to create a hover state for a button. I knew how to do that easily if it were an image. I could just use the onMouseOver attribute and insert a little javascript to swap out the image on hover.

That doesn’t work for input field.

I thought about using javascript, but that feels like an overkill and whenever possible, I try to avoid writing script.

Then I came across the following tutorial on applying a sprite technique to the input field.

It’s a really easy to follow tutorial. I got it working in less than 30 minutes. If you want to learn about this technique, you should give this one a try.

As part of the prototype that I’m building, I need a js to hide and show a layer.

I did a little search on that and came across this nice page that tells you how to do it and also provide the code that you can copy and paste to your own code.

Enjoy! Showing and Hiding a DIV using CSS and Javascript

I’m currently building a prototype that requires a modal view for one of links. So I did a little search and I came across this list(Which Lightbox is right for you?) of various lightbox/modal window solutions out there with description for each.

The description is very helpful for me since I’m looking for a solution for HTML content while the lightbox solution I used in the past only works for images.

I just installed zen cart, one of the free e-commerce applications, to explore the possibility of selling my art online.

The default 3 columns layout is so busy and I need something much simpler than that. This tutorial shows exactly that: http://www.imakewebsites.ca/zen-cart-layouts/

I’ve been working on a web site for a photographer friend of mine.

She would like to show her photos in a nice slideshow with fading effects and thumbnails.

To minimize the maintenance effort, I need a simple web app that would do most of the work for her so she won’t need to touch the code at all. Ideally, she’d just dump a bunch of pictures to a folder, and voila! the slideshow is populated with the new pictures.

The Smooth gallery 2.0 by JonDesign looks promising.

I’ll give it a try and report back.

A cool UI component for in-page browsing. here’s the link to the page where you can learn and grab the code from: http://billwscott.com/carousel/

A really cool tutorial on creating gradient text fill using css from one of my favorite blogs: http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/css-gradient-text-effect/