Web Templates Set 4 in 1

May 29th, 2009

We at LayoutsPack are doing our best to bring you the most ingenious and creative solutions thus making your lives easier and more comfortable. Today we are announcing a launch of our brand new product type. Actually it is going to be several new product types with one design – Web Templates Set 4 in 1. Have you ever came across the design you loved but couldn’t work with because of the CMS? You won’t have that problem any more, LayoutsPack offers you the brilliant solution – a set of HTML, WordPress, Drupal and Joomla templates all in one design. Thus you can chose the most convenient type of web template for yourself and won’t have to edit HTML template to WordPress for instance. We’ve done it for you. Well, what are the product types we offer in this set precisely? HTML There is no need to tell you what HTML is, you all know what HTML templates are – the most common and popular website templates. The reason of their extreme popularity lies in easiness of maintainanace and customization. The majority of websites on the World Wide Web is built on HTML (HyperText Markup Language).

Building Business Website Template

WordPress

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform. You for sure have seen hundreds of websites and weblogs built with this CMS. The reason of this high evaluation of WordPress is the huge number of great features and the ease of operating it offers. WordPress is an open source, this means that it’s constantly innovated, the more and more features are added each day.

Business Website Template

Drupal

Drupal is another open source CMS platform. Offering the diverse set of features for experienced web masters it is extremely easy to use for beginners as well. PHP based CMS, Drupal is also considered to be a module framework. Many developers appreciate the great range of administrative functions and a well organized interface.

Business Expert Template

Joomla

This is one more open source CMS that is not less popular than the two mentioned above. Joomla interface is extremely simple and functional. As well as WordPress and Drupal, Joomla! is constantly being updated and innovated.

Business Company Template

The main feature uniting all CMS types is that you do not need to be an expert to operate your websites built with them, Content Management System gives you the opportunity to manage all your website content: texts, photos, music, videos, documents etc. with minimum tech skills. The choice of the CMS depends on the comfort and preferences every web master finds for himself. Now you have the widest choice to find the most convenient template for your websites. And what about the price? The price is the same – you can download every web template from LayoutsPack at once, just sign up for any of our templates membership packages.

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Posted in Releases and updates, Showcases | 2 Comments »

Make your website load fast

May 27th, 2009

No one likes websites that take ages to load. You won’t disagree that long wait always irritates. In the world of severe competition it is extremely important to make your website comfortable for the users. Make sure that your visitors won’t leave your so-very-informative page before it actually loads. What can you do to make your visitors lives more comfortable and safe their time with your fast page loading? Well, here are some useful tips for you to use on every stage of web site development – designing, programming and maintaining. Following these tips you’ll for sure make your website loading fast, more comfortable for your users and thus will leave your competitors behind.

making a website load faster

* Optimize your HTML code.
Errors, broken links, unwanted tags, all these things slow down your page load. Make sure your website doesn’t have any errors and is optimized for load time.

* Lessen the use of images, graphics and Flash.
This is the easiest and most optimal solution for designing the fast loading page. The more images you have on your web page the slower it loads, thus try to reduce the use of graphics. Of course they are important for the attractive appearance of your website, but try to be reasonable. The simpler design is better.
As for the Flash animations, well, they indeed are catching and rather useful for attracting your visitors, but if not properly utilized they can slow your page load immensely.

* Create simple icons with tables.
Do not neglect the simple ways. Using tables creatively can bring brilliant results, thus you can get not only great designs but also achieve the faster loading time.

* Use text links.
Try to reduce the use of graphic buttons. Instead use text links. To be able to make them attractive learn some CSS.

* Optimize heavy files.
Reduce the sizes of the images, Flash files and scripts if possible. You can easily do that with the help of Photoshop, Adobe Flash or Fireworks software.

* Stick to simplicity.

The minimalistic and plain designs are more and more popular nowadays, thus your website will look more modern and stylish and will load faster. Isn’t it an awesome plus to the great and professional looks?

Well, have I missed something? Feel free to add your tips on making websites load faster in the comments below.

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Posted in General Talk, How To | 13 Comments »

Best Text Editors for Programmers, Web Developers and Designers

May 22nd, 2009

If you at least once tried to code by your own you know how extremely important a good and reliable text editor is. The ease and comfort of your work commonly depends on it. The majority of you would assume that the best text editor is Notepad, if not the best than the easiest one. But Notepad isn’t a simplest solution. It lacks such useful features like a tabbed interface and search and replace functionality for instance. Many programmers and developers agree that the choice of a text editor is a matter of habit. Well if you still do not have a favorite text editor or are not satisfied with the one you’ve got, I’ve picked the most reliable text editors for you. Who knows, maybe you’ll find the most convenient tool to work with among them. I tried to include the most popular tools not only for work on Windows but also Mac and Linux as well. You’ll also appreciate that all these tools are free. Thus, here they are:

* Notepad ++
A good and very popular tool for work with Windows. Among the most useful features of Notepad ++ I can name an auto-completion feature, tabbed interface, code folding, side by side text comparison, zooming in and zooming out and many more.

* Text Wrangler
A great multi-purpose text editor for Mac. The features include built-in FTP controls, support of useful BBEdit plug-ins and function browser.

* Komodo Edit
Deservedly named one of the best XML editors, this tool supports all operating systems, thus works great on windows, mac, and linux. Has many useful features including code completion and call tips. Supports such template styles like CSS, HTML, JavaScript, PHP, Python, XML, Perl, Tcl, HTML-Smarty, RHTML, Template-Toolkit and Django.

* Smultron
A very easy to use text editor for work with Mac. The main feature that makes it so easy to work with is the plain and simple interface. Except the basic features the tool has an obility to split thus allowing you to view files side-by-side, besides you’ll appreciate the code snipplet library that allows storing your most used code blocks. But the most of you most likely will be thrilled by its full-screen mode.

* Gedit
This one is created to work with Linux, actually it’s the official text editor of the GNOME desktop. Among the features are tabbed interface, syntax highlighting, spell-checking feature and a plugin system that allows to add new features.

* Bluefish
This open source editor is quite popular among programmers and web designers that work on Mac and Linux. The main thing it’s famous for is its speedy function.

* Vim
Great tool that runs in all the major platforms, that is: Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. There is a great number of features which makes it a bit complicated to work with it.

* NoteTab Light
This is another text editor that works with Windows, Mac and Linux. It is a free Notepad replacement. You’ll appreciate its built-in FTP client, tabbed interface and a reliable search interface.

Well, what is you favorite text editor?

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Posted in General Talk, How To | 2 Comments »

Test your website for cross-browser compatibility

May 14th, 2009

It is hard to believe that not that long ago there were only few internet browsers to choose from, when today there are literally hundreds of them. Well, the technology is developing fast and we have to deal with it. While there are so many browsers for users to choose from, the presentation of your website on each of them becomes more and more unpredictable. You can say that the majority of people use Explorer or Firefox and don’t bother about the presentation of your website on the other browsers. But a website can be performed differently in the different versions of the same browser. And do you really want the users of those other browsers to go past your website? So, how do you actually check your website’s compatibility? Install all the browsers out there and check it manually? Well, I think it’s hardly possible. For those of you who prefer their websites to be perfect everywhere I arranged a list of the best and most comfortable tools for cross-browser compatibility testing. The other thing except being easy to operate you’d love about these tools is that they can be used for free.

* CrossBrowserTesting
A very convenient tool that allows a full testing of your website’s interactivity not just in screenshots. All you have to do is to log in and select a machine with the browser and begin testing.

* BrowserShots
Awesome tool that allows testing in almost any browser you can remember. The only thing that may diasppoint you about this testing tool is that it can sometimes be rather slow.

* Litmus
Tests on all major browsers and gives you a bug report to help you correct the errors if you’ve got any. Unfortunately the free version is rather limited.

* BrowsrCamp
Tests on Safari/Mac. You’ll really like the speed of rendering screenshots.

* IETester
This completely free tool tests on every version of Internet Explorer. Just download, install and specify which IE version you’d like to browse in. The tool allows to compare two versions side-by-side.

Feel free to add more cross-browser compatibility testing tools in the comments below.

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Posted in General Talk, How To | 4 Comments »

The optimal list of the most useful tools for CSS developers

May 6th, 2009

We all try to make our work as much easy, fast and productive as possible, thus here are some great tools that CSS developers might find useful. Most of these tools will be helpful both for beginners and for experienced developers.

CSS Frameworks
A CSS framework is a ready-made library packaging a number of useful pre-made options for designing a web page with CSS.

* Boks. This visual editor is a user-friendly Adobe AIR application that allows to build and fill your layout and export it to HTML and CSS. Works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
* YAML Builder. Online tool that allows you to visually create YAML-based CSS layouts.
* Blueprint CSS.
* CleverCSS.

Fonts
Fonts are powerful tool that can make your website extremely successful or a complete disaster. Thus choose fonts carefully.

* Typetester. This nice online tool allows you to compare the fonts on the screen.
* CSStxt. Generates CSS for web typography.
* 25 Best Quality License-Free Fonts.
* Font guide for webmasters.
* 100 Free Fonts.

Colors
Color along with fonts is extremely important in web design, it can easily attract or scare visitors off your website.
* CSS Color Editor.
This awesome tool allows you to replace the color scheme of your website without changing the entire CSS file. All you need to do is to choose your local file, pick new colors and download the new CSS file with new color codes automatically replaced.
* Color Palette Generator
Upload an image and have a color palette based on its main colors generated.
* CSS Color Chart.
* Web 2.0 Colour Palette.
* Colour Contrast Analyser.
* Web Color Visualizer.

Forms
* Accessible Form Builder.
Quickly and easily generates XHTML-compliant accessible forms.
* JotForm.
Very convenient WYSIWYG Form Builder

Text Wrappers
* CSS Text Wrapper
Allows to wrap your content to any shape generating HTML/CSS.
* The Box Office
Wrap, float or contour your  text around freeform images.

Accesability Checkers
Check your website for errors before launching it.

* Accessibility Valet Demonstrator.
* OCAWA Web Accessibility Expert.
* WAVE 3.5 Accessibility Tool.
* Web-based Site Usability Checker.

Optimization

* CSS Drive CSS Compressor.
Allows to choose a level of compression.

* MinifyMe – AIR Application.
Adobe AIR application that packs multiple files together

Galleries
Resources of inspiration.

* Design awards gallery
* CSSElite
* CSS-Mania
* CSS Zen Garden
* CSS Beauty

What CSS tools would you add to the list?

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Posted in General Talk, How To | 3 Comments »