Create a Nice, Lightweight JavaScript Tooltip
Editor’s note: This tutorial was written by Michael Leigeber, a web designer and .NET developer who runs the Leigeber Web Development Blog – a blog that’s setting the blogging community buzzing with his beautiful, lightweight JavaScript solutions.
25 Excellent Ajax Techniques and Examples
Ajax allows for rich-internet applications that mimic the responsiveness and complex user interfaces typically associated with desktop applications. Moving applications to the web browser opens many possibilities, including the ability to save user data, connecting with other users for collaboration and sharing, and making deployment and using the application easier since web browsers are standard-issue with most computers regardless of operating system.
If you’re interested in expanding your understanding of Ajax techniques and practices, check out these 25 hand-picked Ajax articles and tutorials that outline various methods and concepts involved in the development of Ajax-based applications. Though most are geared for budding and intermediate developers, veterans might find a trick or two they haven’t encountered before.
1. Ajax RSS reader
Build a simple RSS reader that takes remote XML data from RSS feeds using Ajax, PHP, and MySQL. This example allows users to view feed content from multiple sources in one page. At the bottom of the article, you’ll find an animated demonstration of the RSS reader.
Fantastic, Free Calendar and Datepicker Scripts
Web applications often require a calendar or datepicker functionality. Whether it’s a web form that requests the user’s date of birth, a content management system that needs to display a calendar of events on a side column, or an application that charts data as a function of time – there’s never a short supply of demand for calendars or datepickers.
To write a custom solution yourself is one option, especially if you have the time, and your requirements can’t be met by freely available scripts. But if you’re the type that wants to save some time – check out these brilliant, free calendar and datepicker scripts available for download. You can use them for inspiration, incorporate them into your project as they are, or modify them to suit your needs.
Calendar: a Javascript class for Mootools
Where to Go to Find Design Inspiration
What’s the best remedy for "designer’s block"? Easy – visit design gallery websites to get you back in the creative groove. There are many wonderful sites out there specifically to help inspire designers, and here are just a handful of them.
Best Web Gallery
30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development
I’ve made it a goal to learn at least one useful thing each day so that I can stay sharp and well-versed on the topic of web development and design. To that end, here’s some of the websites I keep track of to find new techniques, resources, and news about building websites.
Most of these sites are updated frequently, so there’s never a lack of new content that fills up my Google Reader.
Because the role of the web developer is ever-expanding, I’ve also included a variety of sites that covers fields relating to web development – such information architecture, user interaction, and web/graphics design.
1. NETTUTS
NETTUTS is a recently launched blog/tutorial site that provides "spoonfed web skills". There are already plenty of useful and detailed tutorials that range from offloading static content to Amazon S3 to creating a beautiful tabbed content area using jQuery. NETTUTS is perfect for developers just starting out, since the tutorials are very thorough and in a "step by step" format. For more advanced developers, it’s an excellent source of inspiration and learning new techniques.
Using Paper Clips in a Web Design: Examples for Inspiration
A designer’s creativity is often showcased in the little details and touches that he or she incorporates in a design. Using common, familiar objects as design elements to accent and ornament a web page is a wonderful way of showcasing one’s attention to detail.
For inspiration, I explore the trend of utilizing paper clips by providing excellent examples to showcase how designers make use of them.
These People Comedy.com
Realistic paper clip used as a design ornament.
20 Useful Tools to Make Web Development More Efficient
There are many available tools to help make web development projects quicker and more productive. Aside from a handy text editor or WYSIWYG editor like Dreamweaver, you can find plenty of tools and utilities that can greatly increase development speed, reduce debugging and testing time, and improve quality of the output. The tools described below are a variety of utilities, optimizers, testing, and debugging tools aimed towards helping developers create websites more efficiently.
1. CSS Grid Builder
