The use of rounded corners on website has becoming very popular. Many websites are starting to kill the sharp edge and go with rounded corners in their buttons, navigation bar, header, banner, etc. Just how easy these rounded corners images can be created? I’m here to show you few which I think are few of the good ones.

1. Google Rounded Corners Generator

This google script generates a PNG format rounded corners for you on the fly. Simply copy the scripts below into a browser and hit enter.

http://groups-beta.google.com/groups/roundedcorners? c=999999&bc=white&w=4&h=4&a=tr

Tweak the following parameters to get the rounded corners of your choice.

Parameters:

2. Spiffy Corners

Spiffy Corners creates you rounded corner without using images. It make use of CSS and HTML to create a rounded corner effect that works well in both Internet Explorer and Firefox. Visit Spiffy and generate your codes.

3. Cornershop

Cornershop is rather a combination of both. You fill up your requirements in the textfield, and your desired corners (in images) will be generated, together with CSS and HTML.

Designing and coding a sponsors page is part of the developer’s life (at least the lucky developer’s life, if it is about a personal site of theirs). It, however, follows different rules than those for the other pages of the site. You have to find a way to fit a lot of information and organize it clearly, so that the emphasis is put on your sponsors, and not on other elements of your design.

We are using PHP, CSS and jQuery with the jQuery Flip plug-in, to do just that. The resulting code can be used to showcase your sponsors, clients or portfolio projects as well.

Step 1 – XHTML

Most of the markup is generated by PHP for each of the sponsors after looping the main $sponsor array. Below you can see the code that would be generated and outputted for Google:

demo.php

<div title="Click to flip" class="sponsor">
	<div class="sponsorFlip">
		<img alt="More about google" src="img/sponsors/google.png">
	</div>

	<div class="sponsorData">
		<div class="sponsorDescription">
			The company that redefined web search.
		</div>
		<div class="sponsorURL">
			<a href="http://www.google.com/">http://www.google.com/ </a>
		</div>
	</div>
</div>

The outermost .sponsor div contains two additional div elements. The first – sponsorFlip – contains the company logo. Every click on this element causes the Flip effect to be initiated, as you will see in the jQuery part of the tutorial.

Maybe more interesting is the sponsorData div. It is hidden from view with a display:none CSS rule, but is accessible to jQuery. This way we can pass the description and the URL of the sponsoring company to the front end. After the flipping animation is complete, the contents of this div is dynamically inserted into sponsorFlip.

Sponsor Flip Wall

Step 2 – CSS

We can start laying down the styling of the wall, as without it there is no much use of the page. The code is divided in two parts. Some classes are omitted for clarity. You can see all the styles used by the demo in styles.css in the download archive.

styles.css – Part 1

body{
	/* Setting default text color, background and a font stack */
	font-size:0.825em;
	color:#666;
	background-color:#fff;
	font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
}

.sponsorListHolder{
	margin-bottom:30px;
}

.sponsor{
	width:180px;
	height:180px;
	float:left;
	margin:4px;

	/* Giving the sponsor div a relative positioning: */
	position:relative;
	cursor:pointer;
}

.sponsorFlip{
	/*  The sponsor div will be positioned absolutely with respect
		to its parent .sponsor div and fill it in entirely */

	position:absolute;
	left:0;
	top:0;
	width:100%;
	height:100%;
	border:1px solid #ddd;
	background:url("img/background.jpg") no-repeat center center #f9f9f9;
}

.sponsorFlip:hover{
	border:1px solid #999;

	/* CSS3 inset shadow: */
	-moz-box-shadow:0 0 30px #999 inset;
	-webkit-box-shadow:0 0 30px #999 inset;
	box-shadow:0 0 30px #999 inset;
}

After styling the sponsor and sponsorFlip divs, we add a :hover state for the latter. We are using CSS3 inset box-shadow to mimic the inner shadow effect you may be familiar with from Photoshop. At the moment of writing inset shadows only work in the latest versions of Firefox, Opera and Chrome, but being primarily a visual enhancement, without it the page is still perfectly usable in all browsers.

styles.css – Part 2

.sponsorFlip img{
	/* Centering the logo image in the middle of the .sponsorFlip div */

	position:absolute;
	top:50%;
	left:50%;
	margin:-70px 0 0 -70px;
}

.sponsorData{
	/* Hiding the .sponsorData div */
	display:none;
}

.sponsorDescription{
	font-size:11px;
	padding:50px 10px 20px 20px;
	font-style:italic;
}

.sponsorURL{
	font-size:10px;
	font-weight:bold;
	padding-left:20px;
}

.clear{
	/* This class clears the floats */
	clear:both;
}

As mentioned earlier, the sponsorData div is not meant for viewing, so it is hidden with display:none. Its purpose is to only store the data which is later extracted by jQuery and displayed at the end of the flipping animation.

Flipping Animation

Step 3 – PHP

You have many options in storing your sponsors data – in a MySQL database, XML document or even a plain text file. These all have their benefits and we’ve used all of them in the previous tutorials (except XML storage, note to self).

However, the sponsor data is not something that changes often. This is why a different approach is needed. For the purposes of the task at hand, we are using a multidimensional array with all the sponsor information inside it. It is easy to update and even easier to implement:

demo.php – Part 1

// Each sponsor is an element of the $sponsors array:

$sponsors = array(
	array('facebook','The biggest social..','http://www.facebook.com/'),
	array('adobe','The leading software de..','http://www.adobe.com/'),
	array('microsoft','One of the top software c..','http://www.microsoft.com/'),
	array('sony','A global multibillion electronics..','http://www.sony.com/'),
	array('dell','One of the biggest computer develo..','http://www.dell.com/'),
	array('ebay','The biggest online auction and..','http://www.ebay.com/'),
	array('digg','One of the most popular web 2.0..','http://www.digg.com/'),
	array('google','The company that redefined w..','http://www.google.com/'),
	array('ea','The biggest computer game manufacturer.','http://www.ea.com/'),
	array('mysql','The most popular open source dat..','http://www.mysql.com/'),
	array('hp','One of the biggest computer manufacturers.','http://www.hp.com/'),
	array('yahoo','The most popular network of so..','http://www.yahoo.com/'),
	array('cisco','The biggest networking and co..','http://www.cisco.com/'),
	array('vimeo','A popular video-centric social n..','http://www.vimeo.com/'),
	array('canon','Imaging and optical technology ma..','http://www.canon.com/')
);

// Randomizing the order of sponsors:

shuffle($sponsors);

The sponsors are grouped into the main $sponsors array. Each sponsor entry is organized as a separate regular array. The first element of that array is the unique key of the sponsor, which corresponds to the file name of the logo. The second element is a description of the sponsor and the last is a link to the sponsor’s website.

After defining the array, we use the in-build shuffle() PHP function to randomize the order in which the sponsors are displayed.

demo.php – Part 2

// Looping through the array:

foreach($sponsors as $company)
{
	echo'
		<div class="sponsor" title="Click to flip">
			<div class="sponsorFlip">
				<img src="img/sponsors/'.$company[0].'.png" alt="More about '.$company[0].'" />
			</div>

			<div class="sponsorData">
				<div class="sponsorDescription">
					'.$company[1].'
				</div>
				<div class="sponsorURL">
					<a href="'.$company[2].'">'.$company[2].'</a>
				</div>
			</div>
		</div>

	';
}

The code above can be found halfway down demo.php. It basically loops through the shuffled $sponsors array and outputs the markup we discussed in step one. Notice how the different elements of the array are inserted into the template.

Step 4 – jQuery

The jQuery Flip plugin requires both the jQuery library and jQuery UI. So, after including those in the page, we can move on with writing the code that will bring our sponsor wall to life.

script.js

$(document).ready(function(){
	/* The following code is executed once the DOM is loaded */

	$('.sponsorFlip').bind("click",function(){

		// $(this) point to the clicked .sponsorFlip element (caching it in elem for speed):

		var elem = $(this);

		// data('flipped') is a flag we set when we flip the element:

		if(elem.data('flipped'))
		{
			// If the element has already been flipped, use the revertFlip method
			// defined by the plug-in to revert to the default state automatically:

			elem.revertFlip();

			// Unsetting the flag:
			elem.data('flipped',false)
		}
		else
		{
			// Using the flip method defined by the plugin:

			elem.flip({
				direction:'lr',
				speed: 350,
				onBefore: function(){
					// Insert the contents of the .sponsorData div (hidden
					// from view with display:none) into the clicked
					// .sponsorFlip div before the flipping animation starts:

					elem.html(elem.siblings('.sponsorData').html());
				}
			});

			// Setting the flag:
			elem.data('flipped',true);
		}
	});

});

First we bind a function as a listener for the click event on the .sponsorFlip divs. After a click event occurs, we check whether the flipped flag is set via the jquery data() method. This flag is set individually for each sponsorFlip div and helps us determine whether the div has already been flipped. If this is so, we use the revertFlip() method which is defined by the Flip plugin. It returns the div to its previous state.

If the flag is not present, however, we initiate a flip on the element. As mentioned earlier, the .sponsorData div, which is contained in every sponsor div, contains the description and the URL of the sponsor, and is hidden from view with CSS. Before the flipping starts, the plug-in executes the onBefore function we define in the configuration object that is passed as a parameter (line 29). In it we change the content of the sponsorFlip div to the one of sponsorData div, which replaces the logo image with information about the sponsor.

With this our sponsor flip wall is complete!

Conclusion

Today we used the jQuery Flip plug-in to build a sponsor wall for your site. You can use this example to bring interactivity to your site’s pages. And as the data for the wall is read from an array, you can easily modify it to work with any kind of database or storage.

Original article from http://tutorialzine.com/2010/03/sponsor-wall-flip-jquery-css

Grid-based layout is probably the more preferred way to style up a webpage to give it more magazine-like look and feel. This tutorial is about how to use CSS and Javascript to create a fluid grid-based layout (See demo here). The algorithm/procedure used in this tutorial is very simple and straightforward. There are more advanced algorithms out there which can handle multiple scenarios. But the purpose is to understand the basic logic on how to create such layout. You go to this site for details.

喜欢清新简单的设计，可是这样的设计一点也不简单。从webdesignerwall上看到其收集的很多minimalist design sites，值得参考，很受启发，需要慢慢来实践。Less is more!

Hot Meteor

Vitor Lourenco

Arty Papers

Mark Boulton Design

Vesess

Design Work Plan

Made by Sofa

Shift px

Frank Chimero

80/20 Studio

Somme

Aen UI

HUGE

Rustin Jessen

Subtraction

Information Architects

Wilson Miner

The Man in the Sea

Built by Buffalo

CRW

Concentric Studio

Rikcat Industries

Studio Mikmik

Andy Rutledge

Mezzoblue

Simplebits

Chama Inc

Kind Company

Jon Tangerine

Mark Wieman

Winnie Lim

Matt Bango

David Sutoyo

Jason Santa Maria

Rodrigo Galindez

J. Bradford Dillon

Alpha Bros

Joni Korpi

Grow (flash)

Clearleft

Polar Gold

Maxvoltar

Tictoc

Mark Dearman

Odd Web Things

Lift

Jason Duerr

72 Dots

Poccuo

Wonderful Union

Original article comes from webdesignerwall.

在我们初学网站设计的时候，会遇到很多关于显示的问题，然后，最终我们会发现很多都是由一些CSS暗含的小技巧来解决的。每个网站设计人员都会碰到这样的问题，花费了很多时间，我们查找原因、查找解决办法，找到答案的时候，我们就会希望：如果早知道~~

这篇文章就是关于这些你该掌握的CSS技巧：

Resets & Browser Inconsistencies
Box Model — Margin, Padding & Borders
Dimensions — Width, Height, Min & Max
Floats & Clearing
Conditional Comments
Overflow & Zoom

原文链接: http://www.noupe.com/css/css-techniques-i-wish-i-knew-when-i-started-designing-websites.html

We have so many posts in different categories or tags. Sometimes we may need to provide some special CSS style layout to some named posts, categories or tags. If that’s what you want to achieve, the wordpress template function post-class() can help.

To use this function in a theme, you will simply add it to the Loop in a place that makes sense. Most themes encapsulate every post within a DIV of some sort. That DIV usually has a class=”post” or something similar. Instead of that class, just add a call to post_class instead. Like so:

<div id=”post-<?php the_ID(); ?>” <?php post_class(); ?>>

The post_class() outputs the class=”whatever” piece for that div. This includes several different classes of value: post, hentry (for hAtom microformat pages), category-X (where X is the slug of every category the post is in), and tag-X (similar, but with tags). It also adds “sticky” for posts marked as sticky posts. These make it easy to style different parts of the theme in different ways. Read the Wordpress documents about post-class() here.

Wordpress 2.7 after versions provide the “stick post” feature, that is, for those posts you’ve published before , now you can place them at the top of your homepage without editing the timestamp, only by checking “stick this post to the front page” in WordPress post edit panel. Here this article explains in deep details on how to style a stick post.

In the same way, you can also give special styling to named categories or tags. Another tutorial talks more about it.

This article is a summary of a 3 fast and easy CSS techniques you can use to display only a portion of an image in your content. All techniques explained here actually need only couple of lines of CSS. However, it is not cropping in a real sense of the word, we are not cutting the image down to a certain size (CSS can’t do that yet) we are merely hiding the “extra” and displaying only a part of the image we want. These techniques can be very helpful if you need to keep images at a certain size, i.e. thumbnails in the news section or something similar. Being able to use CSS to control which portion of image to display is a great bonus.

Click here to read the original article.

Let’s face it: the classic blog post is boring.
Barring the text and images, each one generally has the exact same layout. We see little originality from one post to the next. Of course, consistency and branding are extremely important to consider when designing a website or blog, but what about individuality? Does a blog post about kittens deserve the same layout as one about CSS hacks?

Let’s now look at three people who exhibit all four qualities.

Click here to read more details.

As designers, we all know that a minimalist design can achieve beautiful results.
Still, many designers have trouble creating one; either they have a hard time making a page with so few elements look good or the final result just doesn’t look “complete.”
There are many articles on the Web about minimalism and this article aims to help you achieve a minimalist designthat is beautiful but not bare.
To top it off, we’ll present a small showcase of minimalist designs, so that you can analyze why some designs work and others don’t.

click here to read more details.