I have been recently working in the development/redesign of a website that was previously using static HTML files but now I am moving it to WordPress as a CMS. After doing my homework I decided that the best way to go was to take one of the existing WP Frameworks as a base to develop the website and the chosen one was Thematic.
Thematic according to the site is:
a free, open-source, highly extensible, search-engine optimized WordPress Theme Framework featuring 13 widget-ready areas, grid-based layout samples, styling for popular plugins, and a whole community behind it. It’s perfect for beginner bloggers and WordPress development professionals.
I tried a lot of frameworks, even used a commercial theme as a base for my tests but in the end I decided that Thematic was the best of all because it has the best documentation, is usually updated, is free and open source.
So if you need to build a site around WordPress, you don’t want to start from scratch, you feel comfortable with PHP and coding then Thematic is for you.
I have been looking for an application to sketch the UI of an application I am working on and I finally have the perfect solution for me:
- Application – OmniGraffle for OS X.
- Stencil – Konigi.com OmniGraffle Sketch Stencils.
I am currently using the OmniGraffle trial version but I will definitely buy the commercial version as soon as the trial expires although I still don’t know if it will be the standard or pro version. This app is like Visio for OS X but better.
The Konigi.com stencils that I am using are not free either but the price is really cheap, only US$10 bucks. They have a free version but is not as complete as the paid one and it only contains one sketch stencil and a few others that are not really sketches. The customer service is also great as yesterday I sent a suggestion to request a couple of controls that are missing and I received an answer today with the answer I was expecting – the controls are going to be included in the next version. I recommend these stencils for anyone that design/develop UIs and needs an easy and fast way to do draft prototypes.
I know I can use paper but I don’t like wasting it when I can do it in my PC and only print the draft when needed.
BTW in my previous work they should have used something like this instead of NetBeans which is what A&D used to create the sketches that we, the developers, received to start our development tasks.