Hundreds of ecommerce systems exist, but very few can match the power of Magento. In this screencast, I’ll demonstrate how to download and install Magento to a local host, configure some of the site options, and create simple and configurable products and categories for our test e-commerce site.
Easy Development With CodeIgniter
Jun 25th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayIn this week’s 30 minute screencast, I’m going to show you how easy it is to work with the MVC pattern and CodeIgniter. This video is aimed at beginners who have no experience with a PHP framework.
For demonstration purposes, we’ll be building a simple image upload utility. We’ll then perform some validation, save the file to our uploads folder, and automatically create a respective thumbnail. With raw PHP, this can be somewhat time-consuming. However, with CodeIgniter, it’s simply a matter of referencing the correct library, and passing in some configuration options! Let’s dive in.
How to Make AJAX Requests With Raw JavaScript: Part 2
Jun 2nd in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayA few weeks ago, I demonstrated how to make AJAX requests with raw JavaScript. In today’s screencast, we’ll take things a step further as we use PHP to query a database, convert it to the JSON format, and use Javascript to asynchronously request this information and display it on the page. If you’re just getting started with these sorts of concepts, this is the perfect video for you!
How to Make AJAX Requests With Raw Javascript
May 8th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayJavascript frameworks have turned simple AJAX functions into one-liners. This is quite incredible, considering the fact that it would require more than twenty to accomplish the same thing with raw Javascript. Nevertheless, it’s important to learn what’s “under the hood”.
A Crash-Course in WordPress Plugin Development
Apr 24th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayDespite an extensive codex, many WordPress users remain unfamiliar with how to create their own custom plugins. In today’s screencast, we’ll start from scratch and build our first usable plugin. For this example, we’ll write a simple “tuts formatting” function that allows a blog editor to more easily format articles.
Fun With CSS Shapes
Apr 2nd in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayI bet a bunch of you don’t realize that we can create the illusion of shapes by using 100% CSS. By utilizing the border property in creative ways, we can make some really interesting polygons. In this week’s screencast, we’ll figure out a way to create speech-bubbles without resorting to background images.
The Easiest Way to Use Any Font You Wish
Mar 24th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayCSS 3 is on the horizon, and we’re all getting excited. Thanks to the latest browser updates, developers can begin working with time-saving new properties - such as @font-face. Unfortunately, the availability of these features is limited to a tiny fraction of our overall userbase. At least for the next year or so, we’ll need to continue utilizing the Flash and Javascript alternatives when embedding fonts.
Luckily, a new contender, Cufón, has made the process unbelievably simple. What makes it different? Rather than Flash, it uses a mixture of canvas and VML to render the fonts. In just a few minutes, I’ll demonstrate how to use any font you wish in your web applications. Excited?
How to Build a Super Duper News Scroller
Mar 19th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayThis week, we’ll learn how to combine PHP, SimplePie, and jQuery to build a simple news scroller widget for your website. It’s much easier than you might think; so let’s begin.
Professional Frontend Engineering
Mar 15th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayLast night, long after I should have fallen asleep, I came across a fantastic overview of “frontend engineering.” This is a must-watch video, presented by Nate Koechley. Many designers will get more from this video than an entire book. Nate covers everything from underused html tags, to doctypes, to proper naming conventions. I highly recommend watching it.
Diving into PHP
Mar 12th in Screencasts by Jeffrey WayAs some of you might know, I’ve been running a weekly video series on the ThemeForest Blog that teaches new developers exactly how to work with PHP. Once or twice a week, I release a new “episode” that builds upon the previous days. To expand our viewership, I’ve decided to release “Day 13″ here. Be sure to subscribe to In the Woods to stay up to date on each new release.
Why do it this way? Because people don’t always have the time to watch sixty minute videos. By posting short ten minute episodes, beginners can easily digest each lesson, rather than become overwhelmed with more information than their minds are able to consume. If you’re new to PHP, and are not familiar with this series, I hope you’ll subscribe and become a new viewer.
