Journal
HTML5 and CSS3 Mac Animation Tools
Here’s the current landscape of Mac based (although many of these also offer other platform versions) HTML5 /CSS3 animation tools. Some of these apps take a very similar approach to the animation process and toolkit. Many use a layout very similar to Adobe AfterEffects or Flash. Some even offer fallback to Adobe’s Flash or browser specific CSS3 Properties, such as Keyframe animation and Transition effects.
We’ve used quite a few of these and of course have our favorites, but many have their own advantages. The tools change rapidly as does HTML5 and CSS3, so you’d need to check them out for yourself. We’ve listed them by alphabetically by name, version, tagline, url and price, as currently available. (more…)
Tumult’s Hype app helps us with quick advertising banners
Quick post of some work we’re doing with Tumult’s new Hype application. We’re able to quickly mock up a Flash-free, HTML 5 version of an ad in less than 20 minutes.
A great looking application, complete with keyframeable timeline, opacity and positioning tools and lots more. Love it! Here’s a link to the final animation.
TimThumb – PHP Image Resizer for WordPress
A while back we were asked to redesign OldeHope.com, a site dealing with Antiques, Americana and Folk Art. (We considered the excellent ExpressionEngine, but ultimately chose WordPress as it was easier for the client to “digest” the back end administration.)
After settling on some required plugins to handle the specific needs of the site. We knew we needed something smart and bullet-proof to allow our client to upload and reuse images throughout the site.
Enter TimThumb. TimThumb is a PHP image resizer script, not only for WordPress – but for general PHP based website use as well. It’s been super easy to allow the client to simply upload the image in one location on the WordPress Custom Post form we created, and then have that same image instantly resized, cropped and proportionally (or not) available for use everywhere else on the site with no further intervention.
TimThumb – It’s our another one of our secret weapons of web design and development.
Thanks to Ben Gillbanks, Darren Hoyt and Tim :)
WebP (weppy) File Format
A quick test of the new Google WebP (pronounced weppy) format as compared to JPG. Requires a WebP capable browser, like Safari plus WebP safari plugin if needed – Google Chrome Mac is supposed to add native support in a few weeks.
WebP format (4359 bytes) on left, JPG format (8792 bytes) on right. The Weppy file is half the size of the JPEG!
These were output from Pixelmator v. 1.6.2 (WebP 50% Compression, JPG 50% compression) What’s also interesting to me, is besides the obvious difference in file size, there’s also a very noticeable color shift when viewing in the Mac Finder, however the colors seem very similar once rendered in Safari.
Weppy looks very promising for cutting bandwidth / image render times in half!
Photoshop turns 20!
Photoshop turns 20 years old. I did my small part with the Photoshop Mascot “Becky” (short for Big Electric Cat), but my name for Becky was always “Udo” :) There’s a decent write-up on it at Mashable. And another one from Adobe – Photoshop’s 20th Anniversary
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WordCamp NYC 2009
I’ll be in The Big Apple on Nov 15 hangin’ with the other WP folks. Visit http://2009.newyork.wordcamp.org/
*See ya there – DM me on twitter.com/badcat*