I was searching the internet lately for a lightbox that is lightweight and easily customizable along with being able to group images together. I came across ColorBox which is a lightweight lightbox solution with alot of customization.

One of the main things I liked about this is that it is themable and you can use one of the already built ones which work nicely with IE6 since it doesn’t require PNG Fix because there is no transparency. The developer also take advantage of CSS Sprites to reduce HTTP Server requests, the plugin also loads ajax, inline and iframed content. For the more savy Javascript User it has few event hooks so you can manipulate the core to certain extent.

When creating a plugin for any open source system it is always good to check if what you have in mind is already created and also a good starting point is to check out other plugins already made for the system. My first Frog CMS plugin came about while browsing the forum and seeing a discussion about tags. The original plugin was created by someone else but in its early stage I joined in the thread and improved on what was originally created.  In the end Tagger was the product of the that thread.

Tagger was necessary for the original “The Hub” that was built on Frog CMS, the articles that were created on there needed a way to organise them. Now lets get started with how to approach making plugins for Frog CMS.

Continue reading “Frog CMS: Creating a plugin”

I have been searching the web for sites that are using Frog CMS to inspire others to start using it and just to show the power of this tiny but powerful CMS. This CMS does what it says on their website and even more since it is so easily extendible for any user who has intermediate knowledge of PHP.

Sam Bowler
Creative portfolio website showcasing the work of freelance web designer Sam Bowler.

Continue reading “Frog CMS websites that inspire”

It is true to say that the content of a website is of great importance, but without a good design the website could be a actual turn off. I have seen websites with vast amount of content which is helpful and good for the visitor but when this is not properly formatted thats when a user looses interest in reading the content.

Continue reading “If content is King then what is design?”

There are many CSS Frameworks around, all different but having the same goal, which is to make website development alot easier. During the process of making this website i opted to use a CSS Framework just to see how much time it would save and i was amazed that this entire website took me 7 days to complete using the CSS Framework.

Continue reading “CSS Frameworks”