Update: I’ve removed the archives widget in favor of a dedicated page/section. The widget was a fun experiment, but never really worked the way I wanted it to. I’m leaving this article up for posterity and so others can still use and adapt the widget if they so desire.
You may have noticed I rearranged some elements of Geek & Mild over the weekend. Or maybe you didn’t.
The biggest change is the location of the archives widget timeline thing, which I moved to the opposite side of the window. The reasoning has to do with Fitt’s law and the widget sharing vicinity with the browser scrollbar. I was never comfortable with how close the two interface elements were.
I’m still unsure if the widget works for its purpose, but since I haven’t gotten any particularly negative feedback about it, I figure it must do its job adequately.
The widget itself — the code, I mean — is so simple I thought I’d share it.
The HTML (plus ExpressionEngine)
<ul id="archives">
<li id="now"><a href="/"><span>Now</span></a></li>
{exp:weblog:month_links}
<li id="a{year}-{month_num}"><a href="{path=index}"><span>{month} {year}</span></a></li>
{/exp:weblog:month_links}
</ul>
The CSS
#archives {
position: absolute;
top: 185px;
left: 0;
width: 75px;
margin: -20px 0;
padding: 20px 0 20px 0;
overflow: hidden;
list-style: none;
font: bold 10px/1 ‘helvetica neue’, helvetica, sans-serif;
text-transform: uppercase;
list-style: none;
z-index: 2;
}
#archives:hover {
width: 150px;
}
#archives li {
margin-left: -120px;
}
#archives:hover li {
margin-left: -10px;
}
#archives li a {
display: block;
position: relative;
width: 120px;
height: 6px;
margin: 0 0 4px;
padding: 0 4px;
text-align: right;
color: #ededed;
background: #ccc;
border: none;
-moz-border-radius: 2px;
-webkit-border-radius: 2px;
}
#archives li a:hover {
height: 10px;
margin: -4px 0 0;
padding: 2px 4px;
color: #ededed;
background: #222;
z-index: 2;
}
#archives li a span {
visibility: hidden;
}
#archives li a:hover span {
visibility: visible;
}
Then I stick this in the <head> of the index page:
{if segment_1 != "entry" && segment_1 != ""}
#archives #a{segment_2}-{segment_3} a {
width: 130px;
margin-left: -5px;
background: #222;
}
{if:else}
#archives #now a {
width: 130px;
margin-left: -5px;
background: #222;
}
{/if}
There you have it. Feel free to reuse and repurpose the widget for your own project or website. Let me know if you do, I’d love to see how it’s adapted.
(Thanks to Coda for the code formatting via ‘copy-as-XHTML’ function!)
Some good friends of mine have released a new game for the iPhone called Helvetication [iTunes link]. Pick it up, if you dare to test your Helvetica-versus-Arial muscles. ✓
Pixel & Tonic is Brandon Kelly’s new company specializing in ExpressionEngine addons. Brandon is the author of the indispensable FieldFrame extension. ✓
February 23, 2010 RIP iPod
Here’s why I think the introduction of the iPad spells certain doom for the iPod line of products: Apple ‘skates to where the puck is going to be’. Meaning the touch OS is the future of mobile computing, and despite the iPod’s success, future mobile devices from Apple are not going to be running the iPod software.
One reason for this is there’s really no one at Apple championing the iPod anymore. Ever since Tony Fadell stepped down as VP of the iPod Division (remember Fadell took over the job from Jon Rubinstein, who’s now at Palm) we’ve seen very little advancement in the product line. Certainly the evolution of the iPod has slowed over the last 18 or so months.
Perhaps better support for my prediction, though, is Apple’s history of replacing their own successful products with newer or different models, even at the height of their popularity. They did it with the iMac, iPod Mini, original Nano, etc. Apple rarely leaves a product on the market long enough for it to become stale.
There’s also the marketing perspective. Killing the iPod is a genius move. After all, it is one of the most decorated consumer electronic devices of the last decade. What the iPod represents culturally might even outweigh what it represents technologically. Killing it would create a virtual black hole of headlines.
From the consumer’s perspective, I don’t see a compelling reason to keep the iPod around. If presented with the option of either an iPod Classic or Nano model or a touch OS device for the same price, I suspect 19 out of 20 people would select the Touch.
(And before you race to the comment box to remind me that iPods are great for exercising or that your 49TB music collection won’t fit on an iPod Touch, let me just ask one question: what’s stopping Apple from making a ‘Touch Shuffle’, or a higher-capacity/HDD-based version of the Touch? Just because those product don’t exist today doesn’t mean they won’t be introduced in September, in time for the Holiday lineup. Plus, those segments of users are fringe, not median.)
But there’s another reason Apple would want to do this that seems so obvious to me. Doesn’t it make sense for Apple to kill the iPod to force people to upgrade to the touch OS? Think about it. The only iPod able to purchase and download content direct from the iTunes Store is the Touch. The touch OS represents opportunity for continued profit like no other Apple product. Where you might have one or two Macs in a household, it’s not unrealistic to think every member of that same home could own a touch OS device — maybe even two. Business-wise, there’s a lot to be gained from the death of the iPod. Why wouldn’t they kill it? Sentiment?
Really, it’s not that bold to say the iPod’s days are numbered. Even my prediction of 1-3 years seems a bit conservative. Especially if you know how Apple thinks: different.
This ‘TPS report’ on the Twitter blog is unreal.
Tweets grew 1,400% last year to 35 million per day. Today, we are seeing 50 million tweets per day—that’s an average of 600 tweets per second.
Amazing. ✓
Marco Arment on Apple removing adult-themed content from the App Store:
This is one of those difficult decisions that leaders of censors and gatekeepers must make, accepting any negative feedback as a cost of being leaders, for the good of their domains.
He agrees with the decision but not its timing or how it was made.
I agree with the decision also. What’s unfortunate is how quickly these type of apps shot up the charts and were being developed and downloaded by the droves. Apple probably wouldn’t have need to change their policy if the marketplace itself kept these apps buried by ignoring them.
And I’m willing to cut Apple some slack on these types of issues. They’re pioneering a new marketplace and economy — as well as attempting to protect their brand and customers’ experiences. ✓
Engadget’s Windows Phone 7 Series hands-on has a video walkthrough that shows off the daring and unique new user interface.
I really tried to watch with an open mind, but after using an iPhone for almost three years, it’s hard to not compare with my experience. While the interface aesthetic is creative, it looks like they have a long way to go in terms of interface engineering. (E.g. watch for how many times the demonstrator mis-taps.) ✓
Sources offer peek at Adobe Creative Suite 5 for Mac. AppleInsider:
The casual Photoshop user won’t recognize too much of a difference in the software over the existing version, [the sources] say. Instead, the enhancements will play to designers who work with relatively large files, manipulate 3D objects, and work with video.
This is the first update of Adobe’s Creative Suite that I may not immediately jump on. ✓
Mr. Noah Stokes has already announced his fiendish intentions for Google’s new fiber network. He’s gonna “Ajax the crap out of every server out there”.
Google is inviting us to imagine with them, what we’re going to do with all that bandwidth. Wheew. Man, oh man, I can think of some stuff … wheew. ✓
Music Labels See Slower iTunes Sales Growth in Wake of Price Increases. Gee, I bet no one saw that coming.
According to the report, Warner CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr. claims that the pricing increase has been a “net positive” for the company […] but acknowledges that raising music prices 30% during a recession may not have been a smart move.
Think of all the “net positive” they could have had if they’d kept the prices the same and removed DRM. ✓
I’m late linking to this one, but Michael Johnston is right that we don’t need general purpose multitasking on the iPad. He very astutely observes that most demand for multitasking centers around music and socializing.
This is one thing I’ve been curious about. Since it seems clear Apple isn’t going to enable background processes on the touch OS — at least any time soon — I wonder if they would, instead, make it possible for developers to use specific background APIs, such as audio playback (and/or recording). ✓
Steven Frank is on fiyah:
Do we really have to continue to baffle and frustrate millions of people because a handful of people just can’t live without their 4-way virtual desktop window manager? ✓