Over the last 2 month, I’ve built a few Magento sites during which I’ve had certain requests to add some basic extras to the site template – basic it may sound however if you have even a little experience with Magento, you’ll be aware of its complexity.

Product Reviews and Review form in a tab

1. Add the following:

2. Add

to app/design/frontend/[your_theme]/template/review/product/list.phtml

Note: For the above to work, your theme should already be using product tabs (Many tutorials are available online if you don’t have tabs)

Source: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/31712/

Show Sub-Categories (as images with text) on Category or product Pages (and sort by name)

If a category contains both products and further sub-categories, then this code can be used so such a category shows both products and sub-categories.

Add the following:

to app/design/frontend/[your_theme]/template/catalog/category/list.phtml

OR app/design/frontend/[your_theme]/template/catalog/product/list.phtml

Display RSS Feed items

Step 1

Create a file called latest_news.phtml in app/design/frontend/default/[your_theme]/template/callouts/latest_news.phtml with the following:

Step 2

Add the following:

to app/design/frontend/[your_theme]/layout/page.xml

Note: The above will add the code to the right sidebar – you can reference it elsewhere on the site

Display a product’s “quantity in stock” on your Product Pages

<?php echo $stock_count ?>

Flush/force DNS (Windows only)

Many a time, when you change the DNS records and nameservers of a domain to point to the new site, it can take up to 72 hours to propagate over the internet. Unfortunately sometimes, the client/customer/general users may see the new site before the developer and if there are any issues then the developer won’t be able to fix them until they can see the new site. Previously i used to wait like anybody else however recently a colleague showed me a method by which I can force my browser to  view the new site!

Step 1:

Open command promt (search/run “CMD” in windows)

In Command promt, type the following:

“ipconfig /flushdns”

Step 2

Go to the folder:

%SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\

For windows 7, %SystemRoot% is C:\Windows\

For windows XP, it may be a little different.

Inside the folder “etc” is a file named – “hosts”. Open this with Notepad and add the line

xx.xxx.xxx.xx www.YOUR-DOMAIN.co.uk

At the bottom of the file (where xx.xxx.xxx.xx is the ip address of the new host)

Then you will have to clear your browser cache.

Ecommerce tracking in Magento Using Google Analytics

This one is simple.

Go to System > Configuration > Google API and insert you analytics ID.

Then

• login to Google analytics
• Select the account for your site
• Click edit
• on “Main Website Profile Information”, click edit
• tick the radio button “Yes, an E-Commerce site”

Site search tracking in Magento Using Google Analytics

• login to Google analytics
• Select the account for your site
• Click edit
• on “Main Website Profile Information”, click edit
• tick the radio button “Do Track Site Search”
• insert the letter “q” in the input box

Display PHTML files in Dreamweaver

http://www.dreamweaverclub.com/dreamweaver-phtml-inc.php

Conclusion

Is there anything else you would like to do with Magento? leave a note below and I’ll see what i can do!

Nowadays, websites have become so critical to the success of practically any company.

A good website in many cases can spell the difference between a viable business enterprise and a failed disaster. It is true that a poorly laid out website can actually drive the firm or sole proprietor’s potential customers away.

With so many competitors only a mouse click away, the website in question needs to be both attractive, easy to use, and cutting edge all at once.

Ensure that the Price List is Easily Available

Customers can not purchase a company’s products or services if they are not easily able to figure out what they cost. A business or individual ought to go out of their way to ensure that it is simple for any visitors to the site to reference and understand their price list.

There are websites which actually try to conceal their price lists for their various goods. They will not give a price until a customer selects the order or buy button. Sometimes, they even make the potential customer wait until an account has been set up on the site to divulge this critical information.

Whatever the logic behind these types of actions truly is, they only harm the prospects of the seller in the end. If the visitor is only window shopping and wants to write down the price for possibly coming back to purchase it later, be sure that he or she will not hunt around the website for a long time looking for it. Rather, he or she will just go to another e-commerce website instead, one where the seller is upfront with his or her pricing information.

Remember that numerous Internet experts have claimed that the typical Internet surfer possesses the same attention span as a flea does.

Offer Both Descriptions and Pictures for All Products and Services

There has been a raging debate on this topic where company websites are concerned. On the one hand, web designers are told to keep it brief, as they will only get a few minutes, or seconds even, to impress the surfer enough that he or she stays on the website.

On the other, experts recommend that products be well described, and have pictures as well, in order to thoroughly impress a potential client. There is a happy medium ground which will meet both objectives.

Amazon proves to be an effective example of the way that this can be properly and effectively accomplished. They put up a short description, a small thumbnail type of picture, the cost of the item, and a link to see more information on the item, as well as to purchase it.

The point is that Amazon does have a full product description page for all items somewhere on the website. This sort of description and picture process is critical for a successful website. In particular, if the product being considered has many competitors offering it, or proves to be fairly expensive, then this becomes even more important.

Put simply, these product descriptions and pictures are like salesmen pushing a certain product to a walk in customer. On the top of this description page, as well as at the bottom, the vendor should have an Order Now or Buy button.

The key is to make it as simple as possible for the potential customers to complete the sale once they are convinced.

Make It Simple for Customers to Browse the Website However They Would Prefer

There are all too many websites which lock the visitor into a pre-arranged sales pitch. First, the user is forced to read the authoring company or individual’s introduction on the product itself. Once the tiring tome is completely read, a link to the next page magically appears at the bottom of this particular web page.

The message on the second page must be endured before the user is allowed to move forward, once again. Although the individual might have already chosen to purchase the product, he or she is simply not allowed to skip all of the propaganda to get to the checkout page. This is too much like a high pressure salesman tactic, and it certainly leaves a negative impression on any visitor.

Simple to Use and Intuitive Navigation

If the navigation of a website is not simple and straightforward for the visitor to figure out, then the website usability factor is particularly low. This will likely discourage anyone who might simply wish to buy an item on impulse.

A golden rule to run a company or sole proprietor website by is that the customer must not ever be made to click his or her way through numerous pages before he or she is permitted to get to the download or buy now buttons. This is the fastest way to drive away a good portion of the visitors who came to the website looking to purchase a good or service in the first place.

Keeping the Website Simple, Staying Away From Flash, and Appropriate Use of Colours

Complex websites do nothing to help a business’ cause with Internet surfers. When they are not able to quickly and easily find the features and products that they are seeking, they are likely to simply go to a competitor’s site which is easier to understand. Staying away from the use of flash is a related point.

Since everyone is using a different specification of computer and Internet connection speed, the business should avoid flashy websites which look good in theory, but in practice, may keep a potential customer from being able to quickly access the website, or even require that he or she downloads missing plug ins along the way.

A last point to consider concerns the colours used on a website. One thing that ought to be remembered for certain involves avoiding colours which clash. Do not use a dark colour on a black background, for example. This could make it hard for some users to distinguish the text from the background. Once again, anything that makes it more difficult for the user is likely to cause them to disengage and leave the site.

Conclusion

The best thing that a business’ website can possibly do is to make the majority of important links easily available from literally each and every page of their website.

In simply putting them up on the navigation bar, this is most easily achieved. Businesses must never forget that truly great customer service over the Internet begins with an simple to use website. And having a readily available and reliable business website starts with finding a trusted e-commerce hosting provider.

How the business or sole proprietor designs and maintains their website will certainly determine if a given visitor will turn into a buying customer, or go on to become the customer of a competitor, instead.

More and more people are realising the importance of Web Usability and the benefits it can bring. A quick search on Google will yield thousands of examples.

My aim for this article is not to explain usability in detail or explain it’s need and importance, rather I’m going to present some very interesting statistics of how users use a website depending on various factors.

All the stats should be self-explanatory…

*These statistics have been gathered from various sources outlined below.

Success Rates and Experience

Average Time Spent on the homepage

You only have minimum time to get the message across otherwise you will lose your visitor. Apple probably do it the best:

Page Views by the Screenful

Homepage vs. Interior Pages

Scrolling by Page Type

Most Hated Advertising Techniques

Browser Statistics (March 2002-2010)

All web developers will be glad to see IE6 on the decrease however approx 9% of users still use IE6 so if your an online business, it’s vital to have your website working with IE6.

JavaScript Statistics (January 2000-2008)

Display Resolution (January 2000-2010)

Colour Depth

Sources:

• Book: Prioritizing Web Usability
• Web: W3Schools

There’s now over a billion people online around the world, and 78% of that one billion do not speak English as a first language (Internetworldstats.com), so if you’re launching a website that’s just going to be in English, it’s worth taking into account that you’re only going to be reaching out to 22% of your potential audience.

This is especially relevant if your website is in the business of selling, because research has shown that 85% of consumers won’t buy a product from a website if they can’t access information in their own language (Common Sense Advisory, 2006). So if you’re planning to branch out with localised multilingual sites, it’s worth taking a few factors into account before you get started.

Every cultural group has its own particular cultural quirks, its own particular consumer behaviour and its own aesthetic sensibility, and this has been proven to relay into website design and e-commerce. Psychology professors Denise Park of the University of Illinois and Michael W. Chee of the SingHealth Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory in Singapore conducted research in 2007 on the ways in which Asian and American subjects processed information. Using cognitive tests and Magnetic Resonance Imaging they proved that the Asian subjects tended to pay more attention to the context, or background, of images, while the American subjects paid more attention the central or dominant feature of the image.

How does this apply to website design, you may ask? Well, it means if you’re designing a website for an American audience, you’ll want to get straight to the point, but if you’re designing a site for the Chinese market, you might want to focus more on your imagery, background and the overall message your site is sending out.

When you’re looking at building a basic site which can then be translated into a series of localised domains for different markets, it’s a good idea to consider all of your different markets and what they’ll each require before starting out. Here are a few tips that might save you a lot of time and hassle down the road.

Top Level Domains

First things first, get yourself an in-country Top Level Domain (TLD) for each target market – not only will it make you look more reputable to the customers, but it will also help with boosting your rankings with the in-country search engines.

Design

You need a design that is going to have strong branding and be instantly recognisable to link all of your localised sites together, but also flexible enough to cope with the different aesthetic demands of each different cultural group.

For instance, you might use more imagery and colour in your sites for Asian markets, while your European sites might be more minimalist, with navigation via drop down menus rather than via on-screen gifs.

Keeping your navigation bars horizontal should save you some headaches when it comes to switching between right-to-left and left-to-right languages, and remember that different character sets will mean changing your line widths and heights.

Colour

Colour is a crucial point – it can signify a lot, and can mean very different things in different countries. For instance, in the west, green is generally the colour of nature and the environment, but it’s also a special colour in Islam.

Don’t mess up like telecom company Orange did when launching in Northern Ireland and choose a colour inextricably linked with religion and conflict. If you’re after a safe and happy medium, green or blue backgrounds with black or white text have been shown to be the most universally approved.

Font

Keep it simple – Times New Roman, Arial or Verdana are generally considered the least offensive to the eye.

Imagery

Remember that your imagery will need to change between localised sites – your Indian customers don’t care to see a bunch of photos of Russian people enjoying your product, and vice versa; customers need to be able to relate directly to the product.

As always, when designing across cultures, sensitivity is key – if you’re making a site for a conservative culture, steer away from all indecent imagery. Many cultures will find certain imagery more offensive that others.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) will save you plenty of hassle by allowing table-less design and by keeping your content separate from your design – absolutely essential if you’re planning to change the language of your content between each local site.

You don’t want to have to go redesigning every page from scratch. CSS also allows for smaller file sizes, which is handy for fast page-loading.

Unicode

If you’re switching your text between half a dozen languages, you’re going to need a flexible character encoding tool. Luckily Unicode UTF-8 provides exactly that, with a unique code for every character in over 90 languages, so whether you’re called upon to switch text into simplified Chinese characters or to add in a few German ‘Eszett’ symbols (ß), you’ll be covered.

Flash

Try and avoid Flash (and Java) wherever possible – not only will Flash files slow down your page load times (which is no good for countries without high speed internet, not to mention that it’s now believed that Google has made page-load times a factor in its rankings algorithm), but text embedded in Flash files is also invisible to search engine bots, meaning it’s useless for your SEO strategy.

Translate

Perhaps most important of all – make sure that your content is correct. Web users are a savvy lot, especially when it comes to buying online, and if your copy contains spelling mistakes, or uses odd phrasing, or just feels ‘off’, then it’s unlikely you’re going to convince the customer that you’re a reliable retailer.

As tempting as it might be to save money by sticking a Google Translate widget on each page, automatic translation devices have no feel for the subtleties or the rhythm of a language – to do it properly you need to get a professional translator working into their language to translate your copy and make sure that it’s culturally appropriate for the target market.

This is especially true for your SEO keywords – the direct English translation is not always the most popular search term – a quick spot of research on a keyword search tool such as Google Adwords will help you to figure out which keywords to use prominently in your copy.

I thought it’s about time I publish a freebie on this site.

All the 10 social media Icons were design in Illustrator CS3 and are all completely vector based. (i.e. you can resize them to any size without loosing quality!)

I have Also attached the Illustrator Source files.

So, for our Free Social Media Icon Set, you get:

• 10 Icons
  (Yahoo, Twitter, Stumble Upon, RSS, LinkedIn, Google, Flickr, Facebook, Digg and Delicious.)
• Illustrator CS3 Source File
• PDF Vector
• PNG 64×64

Disclaimer

You are free to use these icons for both personal and commercial use without linking back to us (however I would appreciate if you did!).

Please Note: You are not allowed to publish these icons on any site for others to download or link directly to them.

You may direct users to this page.

Free Social Media Icon Set

Download

Contains 64×64 PNG’s, PDF’s, Illustrator CS3 Source Files

Individuals

Yahoo: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Twitter: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Stumble Upon: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

RSS: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

LinkedIn: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Google: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Flickr: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Facebook: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Digg: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Delicious: PNG (64×64) | Vector PDF | Illustrator

Credits

The Bamboo leaf’s you see in the background were designed from this tutorial at N Design studio.

Tutorial?

If you would like to see a tutorial on how to design these icons in Illustrator, let me know and I’ll write one!

Over the course of this year, I have worked with hundreds of websites and have seen some great first page Google rankings for them. However there are those few sites which didn’t rank too well until some minor changes were implement. Such small changes that most people would consider them to be worthless. In my opinion, priceless.

Note: This Article isn’t for the beginner in SEO. If you’re new to SEO, then head over to Web Designer Wall and read their SEO Guide for Designers.

Throughout this post, I’m going to use Just Search (http://www.justsearching.co.uk) as an example.

Many of you will wonder why I choose the company Just Search. Well, these guys must know the Google Search Engine quite well; Just Search is the highest ranking company in Google UK for the term SEO:

Brief History of Just Search

Just Search was founded in 2003 and has developed into the leading Search Engine Marketing Company in the United Kingdom. They gained themselves first page listings for many SEO related keywords and have also gained first page results for their clients.

Just Search was recently acquired by Get Updated – A Swedish Internet Marketing company who operate in Sweden, UK, US, France and Germany.

Their clients include the likes of Sports Direct.

Lesser known SEO Ranking Factors

1. Order of Keywords in the <title> tag

It has been noted from the SEO world that the positioning of the keywords in the <title> tag is important and sometimes is the missing factor to rank on page 1 of Google.

Other points to note involving the <title> tag:

• Try to keep this unique throughout the site
• Shouldn’t be too short or too long
• Some SEO experts consider the <title> tag to be one of the major factors Search engines look at to rank a site
• Google SERPs display about 65 characters from the title tag
• Place your most important Keyword at the beginning

Examples - Just Search:

• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/
  Just Search » Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) » Internet Marketing (10 words/58 chars)
• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/web_analytics.html:
  Just Search » Intelligent Web Analytics » Internet Marketing Solutions (10 words/61 chars)
• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/pay_per_click.html
  Just Search » Pay-Per-Click Advertising » Internet Marketing Solutions (9 words/62 chars)
• http://www.justsearching.co.uk/seo-agencies.html
  Just Search » Become a Just Search reseller » Internet Marketing Solutions (12 words/63 chars)

About 62 character and 10 words seems to be very good for the <title>. (A maximum of 90 characters is recommended).

2. Placement of the <h1> tag in a page

The <h1> tag should relatively be placed somewhere high in the HTML code and physically prominent on a page.

Example - Just Search:

Now this is a nifty trick! The <h1> seems to appear below the <h2>’s however if you look at the source code of the page or display the page with CSS switched off, you’ll see the <h1> in actual fact appears before the <h2>’s. (Uses a large CSS margin).

3. Number of IP address changes

Search engines take note of the IP address of the site, the number of times it changes and how often it changes. If the IP address of a site changes frequently, then this will lead to a loss of trust in your site and potentially a loss of rankings.

By submitting and verifying your site in Yahoo Site Explorer, you can get to know the IP history of a domain.

4. Google can read basic JavaScript Links

Using basic JavaScript to display links so Page Rank will be preserved for other pages doesn’t work anymore. Google can read and follow basic JavaScript links.

One option is to use some complex JavaScript to encrypt links from the Search Engines.

5. How often a page changes affects SEO

Changing the contents of a page in large chunks frequently can lead to search engines loosing trust in your site. This only applies to content that generally stays untouched (such as an About page or Welcome text).

Example - Just Search:

All the content on the Just Search homepage is static and seems to remain untouched with the exception of the two blog feeds above the footer.

6. Page Download Speed / Content to Code Ratio

A theory amongst top SEO’s is that the page download speed is going to become (or already is!) a ranking factor for sites. One proof of this is the fact the Google and Yahoo have both released a Firefox addon to measure the page download speed:

Google Page Speed
Yahoo! YSlow for Firebug

I personally haven’t used both in much detail but I am aware Google’s Page Speed optimises the images and CSS for you automatically!

• Stick to minimum code
• Keep CSS and JavaScript files external
• Avoid using HTML <table> tags unless you have to

Just Search have a good tool to measure the code to content ratio of any page.

Example - Just Search:

Running the Just Search homepage through their code to content tool:

Seems like Just Search are doing fairly good here!

7. Social Media

Social media is really kicking off like it has never been and there is so much information that can be gather using social media. Due to this, many SEO’s think social media will become a major ranking factor in the near future.

It has recently been noted in the SEO world that if a fresh story/page on a website gets very popular, Google will rank it high for a short period.

(There was a recent story on the Guardian website regarding BBC & SEO that gained a lo of popularity in a short time span and so was ranking at position 11 in Google for the search phrase “SEO” for a short period!!)

Example - Just Search:

Just search have some nifty looking web 2.0 Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn icons:

And on their blog, a Sphinn and TweetMeme button:

8. Contextual Backlinks have more value than standalone ones

A link to your site that appears within a related paragraph is better than a link on it’s own.

Example - Just Search:

Well, the link in this post to Just Search is a good contextual link!!

9. First Anchor text only

If there are two links pointing to the same page on your website, then Google will only value the first Anchor text. If you nofollow the first, then Google will use the second.

Example - Just Search:

The first and second link to http://www.justsearching.co.uk/seo.html is:

Learn more about SEO

More on Search Engine Optimisation

Google will place more relevance on the first and thus the Keyword SEO

10. Geo-location of the host

A site hosted in the UK trying to rank high in Google France would be better hosted in the UK.

Four situations can arise:

We assume you want to rank for Google UK

1. TLD of a URL is the same as the country where a site is hosted
   a .uk domain hosted in the UK
2. TLD is right but the Geo-location of host is different
   a .uk domain hosted in Germany
3. TLD is different and the Geo-location of host is right
   a .de domain hosted in UK
4. Both TLD and Geo-location of host is different
   a .cn domain hosted in China

Google places more importance on the TLD than the host.

If you are looking to rank in the UK then a .uk domain is highly recommended. If the TLD is right, the host is not too important but still recommended.

If you don’t have the TLD but the host is right then you should ideally get a new domain otherwise register on Google Webmaster Tools and set the Geo-location of your site to the country you wish to rank for.

For situation 4, the best solution is to purchase a new domain and move host’s to the UK.

Example - Just Search:

Flagfox is a Firefox plugin that shows the country where the host is located.

We can see Just Search have a .uk domain hosted in the UK:

11. Position of text/links on a site

Keywords that appear in the sidebar and footer have less value than those appearing in the main body and centre of the site. So if you want to rank for a particular keyword, be sure it appears high in the centre and primary sections of your page!

Example - Just Search:

Just Search have some very good content at the outset of the site:

Conclusion

The best time to begin SEO is before even a site has been designed.

We can see from the Just Search website, the design of a site is important in terms of SEO.:

• Where is the content going to be placed?
• Social Media icons?
• <h1>/<h2> tags?
• Location Blog Feed?

These are just some of the questions to ask when it comes to designing a new site.

Then comes the development of the new site:

• Are you going to use a CMS? Ensure it fulfilled all your SEO requirements
• Content to Code ratio
• SEO friendly URLs
• Make sure the test site doesn’t get indexed!
  (Disallow: /)
• No hidden text in any form (such as black text on black background!)
• Avoid keyword stuffed alt tags

Then the ongoing, continuous, SEO:

• Unique <title>’s and Meta Descriptions throughout site?
• one <h1> on every page?
• Duplicate content?
• Quality Backlinks?
• Updated XML Sitemaps?

The 11 items mentioned above are not known to many and take time to master but once perfected, results will be great!

Bonus

Here’s an RSS icon I designed in Illustrator just for fun:

Download: Illustrator | PDF (vector) | JPG

Use it however you like. Although do let me know what you think of it and if you would like more!!!

HI Guys! I thought it’s about time I give you an update on how Web Designer Online (WDO) is progressing.

WDO was launched on the 9th of July and so it’s been around a little over 4 months.

General Progress

The site is doing great and much better than I expected!! I’ve had to upgrade my hosting package to cater for the increasing traffic.

Thanks to you guys, of course!

Popular Posts

Many of my posts have proved to be very successful in the web design world. Here’s a few of them:

10 Advance jQuery Scripts to take Your Website to the Next Level

This has been my most popular and was very well received. Current stats:

• Gained first Page on Delicious
• 435 Delicious Bookmarks
• Page Rank – 4 (Contact me if you’re interested…)
• First page on Google for “jquery scripts” and many other Keywords
• I think it even got first page on DesignMoo

Subscribe to 75+ Awesome Design Blogs in 2 minutes with this file via your RSS Reader

This was another popular post which attracted the top members in the design community and was tweeted by the likes of @creattica @FreelanceSw @ilovetypography @FreelanceFolder etc.

Subscribers

We’re almost at about a thousand subscribers!

Looking for Writers

I would like to offer all of my readers quality articles very often and I cannot do this without your help.

If anyone is interested in writing for Web Designer Online, please get in touch and we’ll figure something out.

What’s Next?

I have some big plans for Web Designer Online. Many new features will materialise soon.

• In terms of posts, I’ve got some great ones lined up!
• Great Competitions
• More user interaction and functionality
• Maybe a forum and member profile pages?
• Further Social Media enhancements!

If you have any suggestions for improvements, be sure to let me know!

Daily, we see blog posts written on WordPress Themes that 327 people have featured, 974 people have linked to 34,883 times. I’m sure you get the idea!

Well, it may seem we’re doing the same!!?! No, we’re not. Here, we are featuring 16 themes and plugins that can be applied to your WordPress admin interface to improve functionality and usability! We all know the standard look and features of the WordPress admin interface and it can be good to spice it up a little. With the following, you can do just that!

16 Awesome WordPress Admin Themes and Plugins

Fluency Admin 2.1

For WordPress 2.8.x

WP Tiger Administration

For WordPress 2.0.x

JS Style

For WordPress 1.5.3 – 2.0.3

Leopard Admin

Compatible up to: 2.5

WPhone

Requires WordPress Version: 2.1 or higher

Phone / Mobile Admin

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.2.2 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.3

Baltic Amber

Ability to change colour scheme (even randomising it!).

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.5 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.6

Planet X7

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.1
• Compatible up to: 2.3

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

Requires WordPress Version: 2.8 or higher

Lighter Menus

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.5 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.6.5

Retro Dashboard

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.5 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.5.1

Simple Tags

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.3 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8

WordPress Admin Bar

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8

Admin Management xtended (Scroll down for English version)

The plugin requires Wordpress 2.5+, supports 2.6 and 2.7 (from plugin version 2.0).

Allows you to edit certain post/page properties without going into them.

Pop Menus for WP-Admin

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.7 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8.3

Custom Login Page

• Requires WordPress Version: 2.0.2 or higher
• Compatible up to: 2.8

Most people in the web development world are under the impression that phpMyAdmin is the only MySQL client out there for websites. Going a step further, some users are aware of alternative however assume that phpMyAdmin is the best.

Now, I agree that phpMyAdmin is one of the best out there and is is very user friendly. I myself also used phpMyAdmin much until recently… I got introduced to another program which within an hour became my favourite and also this led me to research others out there. Thus, this post!

10 great Alternatives to phpMyAdmin

Adminer (formerly phpMinAdmin)

A full-featured MySQL management tool written in PHP. Does more or less everything phpMyAdmin however consist of a single file only that is ready to upload to your servers and connect to the DB.

Navicat

This, in my opinion, is the best MySQL client out there. It does everything you want from a very user friendly interface. However, it doesn’t come free. There is a small price tag to it but is well worth it!

Sequel Pro

One for the Mac users.

SQLWave

SQLyog

BlueSQL

Free web based DB management tool.

SQL Buddy

DBDesigner 4

SQLGate

HeidiSQL

Conclusion

Navicat and Adminer are probably the only other MySQL Clients you need in addition to phpMyAdmin. The rest? I’ll leave them to you to discover which is best suited to you.

I’m going to skip the long introduction to CSS Sprites as they have been discussed in detail (see ‘Detailed tutorials’ below) many times across many websites.

This post is primarily here to only showcase websites that use CSS Sprites.

What is an Image Sprite?

Basically, an image sprite is one big (master) image that contains many smaller images. Part of this master image is then used in different places on a webpage.

Ok, so why should I use this? Basically, it helps load web pages quicker as the server only needs to make 1 image request to the server as opposed to 27, say.

It’s tough to implement and not needed for a small site however for the larger ones, it’s strongly recommend.

You’ll have to see the showcase below to fully understand them.

CSS Sprites showcase

Please note: I was going to display the image sprites on this page but due to their large size, thought it best to link to them directly.

Google

http://www.google.com/images/nav_logo6.png

AOL

http://euhp4.aolcdn.com/os/repos/p/skn/blue_v1/12-blue_skin.png
http://euhp4.aolcdn.com/os/repos/logo/1-uk_logo_sprite

Microsoft

http://i3.microsoft.com/en/shared/…/cspSearchComponent/sprite2.png
http://i3.microsoft.com/en/shared/…/cspMscomNewsBand/NB_ltr.4.png

Yahoo!

http://d.yimg.com/a/i/ww/met/gsprite_071309.gifhttp://d.yimg.com/a/i/ww/met/pa_icons/uk_pa_sprite_063009.png

Xing

http://www.xing.com/img/v/header_r3.png
http://www.xing.com/img/s/button_r3.png

Apple

http://images.apple.com/global/nav/images/globalnavbg.png

CNN

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/2.0/global/icons/share_sprite.gif

Digg

http://digg.com//img/menu-current.gif

Dragon Interactive

http://dragoninteractive.com/lib/i/navigation/sprite.jpg

Bing

http://www.bing.com/fd/s/a/j.png

Amazon

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/gno/…/navPackedSprites_v12._V222883957_.png

YouTube

http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/master-vfl117997.png

MySpace

http://x.myspacecdn.com/modules/common/static/img/header/searchBg.gifhttp://x.myspacecdn.com/modules/common/static/img/header/header001.png
http://x.myspacecdn.com/modules/splash/static/img/cornersSheet.png

BBC

http://wwwimg.bbc.co.uk/home/release-34-2/img/bgsprite.gif

Firefox (Thanks to Esteban)

http://www.google.es/images/firefox/sprite2.png

If you know of any other, please post them in the comments!

Detailed tutorials

CSS Sprites: Image Slicing’s Kiss of Death
The Mystery Of CSS Sprites: Techniques, Tools And Tutorials
CSS Sprites: What They Are, Why They’re Cool, and How To Use Them

CSS Sprite Generator

Please don’t complain, I’ve never used any of these!!

http://printf.ru/spritr/

You can upload multiple images using this tool and then generate the CSS code for the sprite.

http://www.floweringmind.com/sprite-creator/index.php

This tool is awesome. Upload your CSS Sprite image and then create the code for the various areas. (Difficult to get pixel perfect though)

http://spritegen.website-performance.org/

http://www.csssprites.com/

Conclusion

The big question. Should you use CSS Image Sprites?

For most people, the answer is NO. It won’t make a difference to most websites and will only waste your time.

If your website receives hundreds of thousands of hits daily then you should consider using CSS Sprites to ease user experience.

For web design agencies, I would say it’s a must to attract large contracts.

Well, in the end, it’s your choice. It probably good do use CSS Sprites at least once to get a good feel for it.