Recently I shared my thoughts on Drupal 7's new administrative interface on my companies blog. I wanted to share the post here as well.
Drupal 7 has finally been released after nearly 2 years of development. This latest version of the popular content management system boasts many great enhancements for both users and developers. Personally I am very impressed with the enhancements to the user experience in the administrative interface. This in my opinion was the weakest area of past Drupal releases.
Drupal 7 is in Alpha 1 release currently and isn't recommend for production sites. However, I'd like to give a quick walkthrough of the new administrative theme "Seven" as it will give you something to look forward to for the first completed release.
Before the release of Drupal 7 I was seriously considering a move to Wordpress. I installed a local copy and started poking around. I was really impressed with the CMS but was a bit overwhelmed with how much I was going to have to learn if I were to be a good Wordpress designer.
Within a few hours of playing around I had a really simple but very basic Wordpress theme up and running. But I knew that I was only beginning to harness all the features of the CMS. Then a question popped into my mind, should I give up on 2 years of Drupal experience and head down the road of mastering Wordpress?
I ultimately decided to stick with Drupal, mainly because of their latest release of D7. However, I wanted to share some advice for new web designers or anyone looking to learn a CMS. In the video I talk a bit about choosing a CMS and sticking with it, and why it is a good idea to do so.
Sorry for the low audio, this was recorded out doors on my iPhone.
The company I work for, HiDef, is distributed throughout the world. Since we don't get to see each other that often we all participate in a show and tell video series. In our latest series we took the opportunity to share where we have lived and where we are currently living. Below you'll find my show and tell video, hope you enjoy.
Giving users feedback is one of the most important things to get right if you want to have a successful website or application. Today I uploaded my first video to YouTube and was more than impressed with the multiple forms of feedback I was receiving. There was never a point when I felt lost, out of control, or confused about what was happening, how it was happening, and how long it would take. My experience was a reminder that good sites help you to complete a task as simply as possible while being easy to use.
I just logged into Facebook and was surprised with the new design of my home page view. I thought I would take the opportunity to share my first impressions of the redesign. I'm interested in your thoughts as well, leave a comment with a "like it" or "hate it."
Icon design is a fascinating niche that requires its own bag of tricks and techniques. One popular technique I've been seeing around lately is a perforated metal texture. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch take a look at the Settings icon. If you look closely you will see a very subtle but wonderful perforated metal background. Textures such as this add a level of polish and detail that can set your icons apart and can help make you a leading icon designer. Today I'll walk you through how this texture is created using simple shapes, basic gradients and easy to master transformations.
Read the rest of this tutorial and watch a video demo over at HiDef's blog.
I've been spending that last few days taking a close look at Drupal 7 and I have to say I'm blown away with the improvements. Over the next week or two I'll be moving my site over to D7 even though it isn't recommend in its current dev form.
My name is Brian. This is where I share my thoughts on design and creativity. I'm a designer, cheese enthusiast, and first time Bonsai grower. Thanks for visiting.
