Archive for month: October, 2017

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/ember-js-perfect-framework-web-applications/

Ember.js is an opinionated frontend JavaScript framework that has been getting a lot of interest lately. This article will introduce some key concepts of the framework while building a simple application with it, in order to show a basic example of what it is capable of producing.

Our example application is going to be a Dice Roller, including the ability to roll some dice and view a history of all dice rolls that have been performed to date. A fully working version of this application is available from Github

The Ember.js framework pulls together a lot of modern JavaScript concepts and technologies into one single bundle, including but not limited to:

The use of the Babel transpiler tool, to support ES2016 throughout.
Testing support at the Unit, Integration and Acceptance levels as standard, powered by Testem and QTest.
Asset building using Broccoli.js.
Support for live reloading, for shorter development cycle times.
Templating using the Handlebars markup syntax.
URL Routing first development to ensure that deep linking is fully supported throughout.
Full data layer built around JSON API, but pluggable for whatever API access you need.

In order to work with Ember.js, it is assumed that you have an up-to-date installation of Node.js and npm. If not then these can be downloaded and installed from the Node.js website.

It should also be mentioned that Ember is purely a frontend framework. It has a number of ways of interacting with the backend of your choice, but this backend is not in any way handled by Ember itself.

Introducing ember-cli

A lot of the power of Ember.js comes from its command line interface (CLI). This tool – known as ember-cli – powers much of the development lifecycle of an Ember.js application, starting from creating the application, through adding functionality into it all the way to running the test suites and starting the actual project in development mode.

Almost everything that you do whilst developing an Ember.js application will involve this tool at some level, so it is important to understand how best to use it. We will be making use of it throughout this article.

The first thing we need to do is ensure that the Ember.js CLI is correctly installed and up-to-date. This is done by installing from npm, as follows:

$ npm install -g ember-cli

and we can check it was successfully installed by running the following command:

$ ember –version
ember-cli: 2.15.0-beta.1
node: 8.2.1
os: darwin x64

Creating Your First Ember.js App

Once ember-cli is installed, you are ready to start creating your application. This is the first place we will be making use of the Ember.js CLI tool – it creates the entire application structure, setting everything up ready to run.

$ ember new dice-roller
installing app
create .editorconfig
create .ember-cli
create .eslintrc.js
create .travis.yml
create .watchmanconfig
create README.md
create app/app.js
create app/components/.gitkeep
create app/controllers/.gitkeep
create app/helpers/.gitkeep
create app/index.html
create app/models/.gitkeep
create app/resolver.js
create app/router.js
create app/routes/.gitkeep
create app/styles/app.css
create app/templates/application.hbs
create app/templates/components/.gitkeep
create config/environment.js
create config/targets.js
create ember-cli-build.js
create .gitignore
create package.json
create public/crossdomain.xml
create public/robots.txt
create testem.js
create tests/.eslintrc.js
create tests/helpers/destroy-app.js
create tests/helpers/module-for-acceptance.js
create tests/helpers/resolver.js
create tests/helpers/start-app.js
create tests/index.html
create tests/integration/.gitkeep
create tests/test-helper.js
create tests/unit/.gitkeep
create vendor/.gitkeep
NPM: Installed dependencies
Successfully initialized git.

$

This has caused an entire application to be created which is ready to run. It has even set up Git as source control to track your work.

Note: If you wish, you can disable the Git integration and you can prefer Yarn over npm. The help for the tool describes this and much more.

Now, let’s see what it looks like. Starting the Ember application for development purposes is – once again – also done using ember-cli:

$ cd dice-roller
$ ember serve
Livereload server on http://localhost:49153
‘instrument’ is imported from external module ’ember-data/-debug’ but never used
Warning: ignoring input sourcemap for vendor/ember/ember.debug.js because ENOENT: no such file or directory, open ‘/Users/coxg/source/me/writing/repos/dice-roller/tmp/source_map_concat-input_base_path-2fXNPqjl.tmp/vendor/ember/ember.debug.map’
Warning: ignoring input sourcemap for vendor/ember/ember-testing.js because ENOENT: no such file or directory, open ‘/Users/coxg/source/me/writing/repos/dice-roller/tmp/source_map_concat-input_base_path-Xwpjztar.tmp/vendor/ember/ember-testing.map’

Build successful (5835ms) – Serving on http://localhost:4200/

Slowest Nodes (totalTime => 5% ) | Total (avg)
———————————————-+———————
Babel (16) | 4625ms (289 ms)
Rollup (1) | 445ms

We are now ready to go. The application is running on http://localhost:4200, and looks like this:

It is also running a LiveReload service which automatically watches for changes to the filesystem. This means that you can have an incredibly fast turnaround time when tweaking your site design.

Let’s try it?

The initial page already tells us what to do, so let’s go and change the main page and see what happens. We’re going to change the app/templates/application.hbs file to look like the following.

This is my new application.

{{outlet}}

Note: The {{outlet}} tag is part of how Routing works in Ember. We will cover that later on.

The first thing to notice is the output from ember-cli, which should look as follows:

file changed templates/application.hbs

Build successful (67ms) – Serving on http://localhost:4200/

Slowest Nodes (totalTime => 5% ) | Total (avg)
———————————————-+———————
SourceMapConcat: Concat: App (1) | 9ms
SourceMapConcat: Concat: Vendor /asset… (1) | 8ms
SimpleConcatConcat: Concat: Vendor Sty… (1) | 4ms
Funnel (7) | 4ms (0 ms)

This tells us that it has spotted that we changed the template and rebuilt and restarted everything. We’ve had zero involvement in that part of it.

Now let’s look at the browser. If you’ve got LiveReload installed and running you will not even have needed to refresh the browser for this to be picked up, otherwise, you will need to reload the current page.

Not very exciting, but this is with almost no effort on our part that we’ve achieved this.

In addition, we get a fully set up test suite ready to run. This is – unsurprisingly – run using the Ember tool as well, as follows:

$ ember test
⠸ Building’instrument’ is imported from external module ’ember-data/-debug’ but never used
⠴ BuildingWarning: ignoring input sourcemap for vendor/ember/ember.debug.js because ENOENT: no such file or directory, open ‘/Users/coxg/source/me/writing/repos/dice-roller/tmp/source_map_concat-input_base_path-S8aQFGaz.tmp/vendor/ember/ember.debug.map’
⠇ BuildingWarning: ignoring input sourcemap for vendor/ember/ember-testing.js because ENOENT: no such file or directory, open ‘/Users/coxg/source/me/writing/repos/dice-roller/tmp/source_map_concat-input_base_path-wO8OLEE2.tmp/vendor/ember/ember-testing.map’
cleaning up…
Built project successfully. Stored in “/Users/coxg/source/me/writing/repos/dice-roller/tmp/class-tests_dist-PUnMT5zL.tmp”.
ok 1 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | app: app.js
ok 2 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | app: resolver.js
ok 3 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | app: router.js
ok 4 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | tests: helpers/destroy-app.js
ok 5 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | tests: helpers/module-for-acceptance.js
ok 6 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | tests: helpers/resolver.js
ok 7 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | tests: helpers/start-app.js
ok 8 PhantomJS 2.1 – ESLint | tests: test-helper.js

1..8
# tests 8
# pass 8
# skip 0
# fail 0

# ok

Note that the output talks about PhantomJS. This is because there is full support for Integration tests that run in a browser, and by default, these run headless in the PhantomJS browser. There is full support for running them in other browsers if you wish, and when setting up continuous integration (CI) it is worth doing this to ensure that your application works correctly in all supported browsers.

How an Ember.js app is structured

Before we get to actually writing our application, let’s explore how it is structured on the filesystem. The ember new command above will have created a whole directory structure on your computer, with lots of different parts. Understanding all of these is important to efficiently work with the tool and create amazing projects.

Continue reading %Ember.js: The Perfect Framework for Web Applications%

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/1stwebdesigner/~3/iMtWINgw_v4/

The launch of iOS 11 has resulted in a great selection of resources being designed and released.

These include iPhone X grids, full iOS 11 app designs, beautiful device mockups, app icons, and complete UI kits.

Many of these have been executed to an incredibly high standard and are available for various applications, including Sketch, Photoshop, Adobe XD, and Figma. As well as this, most resources are free for personal and commercial use, meaning you can download and play with as many of them as you like.

They are a perfect aid when building your next app, and also a valuable resource to learn the specifications and features of iOS 11 and the iPhone X.

In this collection we bring together ten of the most beautiful and free iOS 11 resources for you.

Dark & Light iPhone X Minimal

These minimal iPhone X mockups for Adobe XD are perfect for showcasing your iOS 11 app designs. They come in both light and dark variants.

iOS 11 GUI

This iOS 11 GUI Template is incredibly useful as a resource and reference when designing an app for iPhone X and/or iOS 11. It has almost every element you could ever need and also comes in handy for copying across visual effects and spacing.

8 iOS 11 Icons Sketch Resource

These 8 icons are a great starting point if you’re designing or redesigning an app icon for iOS 11. The style is much-refined, as are the icon graphics.

Food Dark iOS 11

This dark food app resource for iPhone is a stunning example of what can be achieved within iOS 11 guidelines. It has effectively carried through many elements you’ll find in default iOS apps like the app store.

iOS 11 Grid Template Sketch Resource

This grid template is incredibly handy when starting out on a new iPhone app design project. The grids are clear and structured and save a great deal of time and energy when laying out a new user interface.

iPhone X Wireframe with iOS 11 Guides

These blue iPhone X wireframe templates are beautifully put together and serve as the perfect base for building mid- to high- fidelity wireframes upon. They would also be great for printing and sketching low fidelity wireframes on.

If you’re looking for more free wireframe templates, take a look at this collection.

Verb App for iOS 11 Sketch Resource

Another great example of an iOS 11 app design is this Verb app kit for Sketch. It’s beautifully presented and incorporates a wide variety of elements and styles from Apple’s user interface guidelines.

iPhone X Clay

These clay iPhone X mockups offer a slightly different style to standard mockups. They strip away the intricacies of the actual iPhone design and work perfectly when combined with minimal user interface designs.

iOS 11 App Store Sketch Resource

This recreation of the redesigned iOS 11 app store is a great resource when examining the new direction of iOS. It includes many of the new elements and styles including buttons, icons, rounded images, and larger input fields.

iPhone X 4K Mockups

This realistic iPhone X mockup, made in Cinema 4D, is extremely close to being mistaken for a photograph. The shadows and highlights are perfectly crafted and present a resource that would look exceptional on any landing page design.

You might also like:

10 Free Mockup Templates for Featuring Mobile Apps
10 Incredibly Detailed Free Mobile UI Kits For Sketch

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/symfony-flex-paving-path-faster-better-symfony/

Symfony Flex is a modern replacement for the Symfony Installer, and not the name of the next Symfony version. As the intro text says:

Internally, Symfony Flex is a Composer plugin that modifies the behavior of the require and update commands. When installing or updating dependencies in a Flex-enabled application, Symfony can perform tasks before and after the execution of Composer tasks.

The new Symfony will be called just Symfony 4, and while this tutorial will deal only with the Flex tool, it will mention some Symfony 4 upgrades as well.

Still Under Development

Symfony Flex can be considered a Composer wrapper, in that it provides your Symfony project with additional options during installation and configuration. It was developed with simplicity in mind, and obviously heavily influenced by the user-friendliness of Laravel. Remember, Laravel got to its current level of popularity due to its ease of use and the low entry barrier it provides newcomers with, and Symfony wanted to emulate this.

It should be noted that both Flex and Symfony 4 are still under development, slated for release somewhere at the end of November this year (2017). As such, some of the features mentioned in this post may have changed by the time you read it, but we’ll do our best to keep it up to date.

Most notably, the use of a makefile and the make tool to build a project if Symfony/Console is unavailable is still up in the air, as it seems to not be working properly on some operating systems. Fabien recently held a survey around this, asking for the community’s suggestions to a replacement, and overwhelmingly, the community voted in favor of just making Symfony/Console required.

What’s Different?

Most notably, Flex respects the coming Symfony 4 updates which boil down to the following major changes:

PHP 7+ is required
all folders are optional. If your project isn’t using one, it doesn’t have to be there. This makes the directory tree much simpler and more readable. Additionally, often useless files like .htaccess, LICENSE, and README have been removed as well – a project which needs those can easily add them.
there is no more web folder. Instead, there is the public folder, like in all other major frameworks. This consolidates user experience across ecosystems.
temporary files go under /var in the root of the project folder, with the /var/cache subfolder reserved for long term cache, like merged class files for deploying apps as read-only artifacts
source code goes under /src. No /app.
configuration goes into /config.
templates go into /templates.
Flex will have its own Symfony-verified list of packages that are referenced by one and one alias alone. So executing composer require cli will actually trigger Flex, which will look in its list of packages, find the one tagged as cli (in this case, Symfony Console), and install it. These “official” packages are called recipes, and can be found here. To accept user-submitted recipes, a flag exists in Flex’s configuration which needs to be set to true: composer config extra.symfony.allow-contrib true. Those recipes can be found here. By officially endorsing some packages, Symfony is in many ways becoming as opinionated as Laravel. While this is bad in some ways, it’s very good in many more ways: a consolidated, opinionated way to build Symfony apps used by most people so that everyone is on the same page.
bundle fragments no longer need to be custom-activated and added into a ton of files. Flex automates this, as well as their removal.
instead of parameters in config files, Symfony 4 will be using environment variables like Laravel

Bootstrapping

As usual, we’ll assume you’re already running a healthy VM environment like Homestead Improved so you can follow along.

Okay, let’s get our hands dirty with an example app. All Symfony apps can now be started from the bare bones super-minimal Symfony Skeleton app:

composer create-project symfony/skeleton flexy

Notice the created directory structure.

In /public, we no longer have app.php and app_dev.php, only the index.php file. The type of the environment (test / dev / prod) is now dictated with environment variables, and reads the configuration from the /config folder.

Notice how the end of the installation process mentions that make cache-warmup was called, and that you can run make serve. This is where the new Symfony uses the “controversial” Makefile approach mentioned above. This might change.

Out of the box, opening this skeleton in the browser will throw an error because no routes have been defined yet. Let’s fix this.

index:
path: /
defaults: { _controller: ‘AppControllerDefaultController::index’ }

config/routes.yaml

We’ll need to create this controller and its index action:

<?php

namespace AppController;
use SymfonyComponentHttpFoundationResponse;

class DefaultController
{
public function index()
{
return new Response(‘Hello’);
}
}

This will produce a simple Hello screen, like so:

Execution Permissions

If you try to install a binary like the Symfony/Console with composer req cli, you might run into the following problem:

~ bin/console
-bash: bin/console: Permission denied

This is a known hiccup when using virtual machines, and can be easily fixed by either:

running the console with php bin/console instead of running it directly, or
adding the “execute” permission to the file on the host machine (not from within the virtual machine), by executing: chmod +x bin/console. This will allow the direct execution of bin/console from within the VM then.

Continue reading %Symfony Flex: Paving the Path to a Faster, Better Symfony%

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/abduzeedo/~3/CFkmfkNoF1o/ashes-beautiful-art-benefits-california-wildfire-relief-funds

From the Ashes: Beautiful Art Benefits California Wildfire Relief funds

ibby
Oct 13, 2017

If you’ve been following the horrific wildfires ravaging our beloved wine country here in California you may enjoy a moment to take in a small piece of positive news proving art can really rally a movement for good. Enter the amazing husband/wife duo Eric Rewitzer and Annie Galvin, the founders of printmaking workshop 3 Fish Studios located in San Francisco’s Sunset District. Annie created a lovable watercolor print of a California poppy rising from the ashes to pay homage to the victims of this heart-wrenching natural disaster while also doing their part to contribute to the relief effort. Through today, ALL proceeds of 3 Fish Studios iconic I LOVE YOU CALIFORNIA collection will go to support relief efforts for those affected by the California wildfires. 3 Fish have also just released a set of inspirational cards, printed on donated 16-point card stock featuring the “rising from the ashes” print. The four-card packs ($10) will also benefit ongoing relief efforts. An inspiring story from an inspiring couple doing their part to make a difference through art. 

ABOUT 3 FISH STUDIOS

Eric Rewitzer and Annie Galvin are printmakers and painters, husband and wife, and founders of 3 Fish Studios. The Outer Sunset hub is home to their workshop and studio, where art happens daily and visitors are always welcome; they love collaborating, making, and sharing creative projects with cool folks.

Annie was born and raised in Ireland. She worked as an illustrator in a Dublin agency before moving to San Francisco in 1989, two weeks before the earthquake.  Annie is inspired by San Francisco, Vogue magazine, comic books, Josef Frank textile designs, gardens, Mexican wrestlers, the short stories of Haruki Murakami, and her own dreams and daydreams. She doodles constantly.

Eric was born and raised on the industrial shores of Lake Michigan. He studied at the Cleveland Institute of Art, and moved to the west coast in 1987. Eric finds constant inspiration in the scale and diversity of the the California culture and landscape, and will forever love the mix of natural beauty, urban grit, and human diversity on display in San Francisco.

Annie and Eric met in Berkeley in 1998, were married in 2001, and started 3 Fish Studios in 2007. From its original space in the Dogpatch to its now permanent place in the Ocean Beach Republic, the pair have created a dedicated space where they can make and show their work together, and invite people—neighbors and newbies alike—to do the same. 

watercolor
3 Fish Studios
california wildfire