Archive for year: 2017

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Designrfix/~3/RXOOSDyYaLY/adobe-photoshop-perfect-tool-design-website-layout

As a web developer, you have to work with a variety of tools for creating the most awesome designs for your clients. Similarly, we also have to use different tools for conceptualizing, making wireframes, content creation and code generation for a perfect workflow in web design and development.   No matter how much-advanced tools we […]

The post Why Adobe Photoshop the perfect tool to design a website layout? appeared first on designrfix.com.

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

In society, success is often portrayed as having pretty close to a singular definition. We think of a successful entrepreneur driving a Tesla and living in the smartest of smart homes. Or we see the opulence of a big shot executive “living the life”, as they say.

But success is a very personal and subjective thing. There is no right or wrong definition because it’s a matter of what is in our hearts. My measure of success may be different than yours. But does that mean we should still take the same approach to achievement?

While traits like hard work and integrity will always be shared factors, how we approach our freelance design businesses should better reflect our personal definition of success. Here are some ways to tailor your business to help you get to your happy place.

Focus on the Right Types of Projects

For some people, part of what defines success involves working on specific kinds of projects. Fulfillment may come in the form of designing websites for non-profit organizations or a favorite sport. Others may not care about industry so much as they care about luring projects that pay big money.

The point is to figure out the types of projects that will get you to where you want to go. From there, it’s a matter of marketing yourself to whatever niche that interests you.

Of course, this is much easier said than done. The realities of running your own business sometimes mean having to take on projects that aren’t necessarily aligned with your vision of success. But that’s okay – so long as you don’t get stuck with something that interferes with your long-term goals.

Indeed, unless you already have industry connections, pointing your business towards a specific type of project is often a process that takes time. But once you get your foot in the door, it can open up all sorts of possibilities.

Think About Where, When and How Much You Work

Success can be greatly influenced by your work environment. When you think about it, this is an area that both affects and defines our success. If you’re cranking out websites from a place you don’t want to be, it’s going to be that much more difficult to do well.

But it also goes well beyond just location. There are a number of scenarios where part of our success is not only where we do our work, but also the time we spending working. Consider three of the most common ones:

Being a Parent and a Designer
Freelancing provides a great opportunity for parents to both make a living and be there for their children. Personally, it allows me to get my daughter to and from school, along with the chance to spend extra quality time with her. So for me, working standard daylight hours at home is the right situation. Weekends are generally off-limits unless absolutely necessary.

This can be a fairly simple arrangement in terms of initial business setup. The biggest challenge is that there are interruptions in the day that can be a bit chaotic. But being at home certainly makes any chaos easier to handle than it would be at a traditional office.

Putting the ‘Free’ in Freelancer
There are many designers who use their freelance career as a vehicle to pursue other passions like travel or volunteering. Therefore, the flexibility to work your own hours is a big deal. It’s also a bit more of a challenge to achieve.

Working odd hours really depends on the type of clientele you have. Some gigs demand that you to be available during “normal” business hours. And being in the office less than the standard 5 days a week can also take some careful planning.

Still, it can be done. It’s all about finding an equation that a) lets you work a personalized schedule; and b) enables you to make a living. If you’re really passionate about something, you’ll find a way to make it all work.

Hitting the Big Time
Those looking for big ticket projects may take a different tact to freelancing than the two scenarios above. For one, higher level projects might mean working with big companies. While some clients may be comfortable with remote meetings, others may prefer to meet you in person. This means either traveling or having a meeting space may be necessary.

The other major consideration here is the amount of extra work involved. Even if you’re managing other freelancers, there could be plenty of nights and weekends filled with work (not to mention the time spent marketing yourself).

If this sounds like your jam, then focusing on process efficiency can do wonders for keeping everything running smoothly. Establish a process for how projects get done on-time and on-budget so that you can keep that money machine cha-chinging.

When Progress is Slow…

One of the best aspects of being a freelancer is the ability to do things your own way. That’s a big responsibility, though. It’s easy to get into bad habits that end up hurting your chances to live and work the way you want.

So, if you’re not seeing the progress you hoped for, it may be time to take a hard look at how you’re running your business. While bad luck can play a role, most often you’ll find that are specific things you could be doing differently.

When it comes to your financial situation, scrutinize how much you charge and how you collect payment. Web design, in particular, is an industry where prices run the gamut. You want to make sure that you’re not charging too much or too little.

As for collection, ask yourself if you’ve made it easy enough for people to both receive invoices and make payments. For example, I noticed that not long after I started accepting online payments, I had a significantly lower number of clients who were late with payment. While online payment processors usually charge a fee for every transaction, I found that this was a worthy tradeoff over being stressed out by unpaid invoices.

It’s also vital to review the services you offer. Are you providing services that don’t fit in with your goals? Do your services set you up for a predictable stream of income? While it may be hard to fully weed out services that aren’t in your best interest, you can always grandfather them out over time. Or, you might structure pricing in such a way that it’s much more worthwhile.

Lastly, review just how organized (or not) you are. If you find that you’re always scrambling to put out fires, you might want to invest some effort into better organizing your average workday. There are plenty of tools and services out there to help. If something makes your life easier and doesn’t require you to sacrifice quality – go for it.

Creating Success on Your Own Terms

Being a freelancer puts you in a unique position to determine your own present and future. It enables you to achieve the kind of success that reflects who you are as a person.

But getting there requires a thoughtful approach. Simply working day-to-day without regards to your goals isn’t enough (I now know that from experience). The key is to find out what it is you want and then implement any necessary changes in order to make it a reality.

It may take some time to get there, but that journey is part of the fun.

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/Wm5XKeRCXqI/

Today we’d like to share another way of achieving morphing page transitions. This time, we’ll generate multiple SVG curves with JavaScript, making many different looking shapes possible. By controlling the individual coordinates of the several layers of SVG paths, the curved shapes animate to a rectangle (the overlay) with a gooey motion. We use some nice easing functions from glsl-easings and by tuning the curve, speed and the delay value, we can generate many interesting effects.

Attention: We use some new CSS properties in the demos; please view them with a modern browsers.

This demo is kindly sponsored by HelloSign API: The dev friendly eSign.

Building the SVG

Let’s have a look at the SVG which we will use to insert the path coordinates dynamically.
First, we’ll make sure that the whole SVG and the overlay paths are stretched to the size of the screen. For that, we’ll set the preserveAspectRatio attribute to none. Depending on how many layers we want, we’ll create that amount of paths:

<svg class=”shape-overlays” viewBox=”0 0 100 100″ preserveAspectRatio=”none”>
<path class=”shape-overlays__path”></path>
<path class=”shape-overlays__path”></path>
<path class=”shape-overlays__path”></path>
</svg>

The styles that will allow the SVG to match the size of the browser window looks as follows:

.shape-overlays {
width: 100vw;
height: 100vh;
position: fixed;
top: 0;
left: 0;
}

Each path element corresponds to a layer of the overlay. We’ll specify the fill for each of these layers in our CSS. The last path element is the background that stays after the overlay expansion:

.shape-overlays path:nth-of-type(1) { fill: #c4dbea; }
.shape-overlays path:nth-of-type(2) { fill: #4c688b; }
.shape-overlays path:nth-of-type(3) { fill: #2e496a; }

Note that in our demos, we make use of CSS custom properties to set the path colors.

The JavaScript

For our demos, we define an overlay control class that allows us to set and control a couple of things. By changing each value, you can create unique looking shapes and effects:

class ShapeOverlays {
constructor(elm) {
this.elm = elm; // Parent SVG element.
this.path = elm.querySelectorAll(‘path’); // Path elements in parent SVG. These are the layers of the overlay.
this.numPoints = 18; // Number of control points for Bezier Curve.
this.duration = 600; // Animation duration of one path element.
this.delayPointsArray = []; // Array of control points for Bezier Curve.
this.delayPointsMax = 300; // Max of delay value in all control points.
this.delayPerPath = 60; // Delay value per path.
this.timeStart = Date.now();
this.isOpened = false;
}
…
}
const elmOverlay = document.querySelector(‘.shape-overlays’);
const overlay = new ShapeOverlays(elmOverlay);

Further methods that determine the appearance of the overlay are the ShapeOverlays.toggle() method and the ShapeOverlays.updatePath() method.

The ShapeOverlays.toggle() method has the function of opening and closing the overlay, and also of setting the delay value of each control point for every time it opens and closes. It is not necessary to set the delay value every time, but by altering it, it will create some nice randomness.

The ShapeOverlays.updatePath() controls the animation by specifying the easing function.

For example, in demo 1, the same easing function is used for all control points, and the delay value is set like a fine wave using trigonometric functions, so that we get a “melting” appearance.

toggle() {
const range = 4 * Math.random() + 6;
for (var i = 0; i < this.numPoints; i++) {
const radian = i / (this.numPoints – 1) * Math.PI;
this.delayPointsArray[i] = (Math.sin(-radian) + Math.sin(-radian * range) + 2) / 4 * this.delayPointsMax;
}
…
}

updatePath(time) {
const points = [];
for (var i = 0; i < this.numPoints; i++) {
points[i] = ease.cubicInOut(Math.min(Math.max(time – this.delayPointsArray[i], 0) / this.duration, 1)) * 100
}
…
}

In our demos we use this effect to create an overlay in order to show a menu in the end of the animation. But it could also be used for other types of transitions, like page transitions or scroll effects. Your imagination is the limit.

Here are a couple of screenshots:

We hope you enjoyed this effect and find it useful!

Credits

glsl-easings by glslify. Easing functions that use to demos are based on the code of glsl-easings module.

Dynamic Shape Overlays with SVG was written by Yoichi Kobayashi and published on Codrops.

Original Source: https://www.sitepoint.com/productivity-tips-for-webstorm-and-angular-part-1/

This article was sponsored by JetBrains. Thank you for supporting the partners who make SitePoint possible.

In this 2-part series, Google Developer Experts Jurgen Van de Moere and Todd Motto share their favorite productivity tips for developing Angular applications using WebStorm.

In this first part, Jurgen shares his personal top 5 WebStorm features that allow him to increase his productivity on a daily basis:

Use Angular CLI from within WebStorm
Navigate like a pro
Take advantage of Angular Language Service
Auto format your code
Optimize your imports

Each tip can tremendously increase your development productivity, so let’s dig into them a little deeper one by one.

Tip 1: Use Angular CLI from Within WebStorm

Angular CLI is a Command Line Interface (CLI), written and maintained by the Angular team, to help automate your development workflow. You can use it to quickly create new Angular projects and add new features such as components, services and directives to existing Angular projects.

WebStorm’s integration with Angular CLI provides you with all its power right from within WebStorm, without using the terminal.

To create a new Angular Project, choose File | New | Project and select Angular CLI.

Enter a project location and hit the Create button. WebStorm uses Angular CLI to create a new Angular project and install dependencies.

When your new Angular application is in place, you can easily add new Angular features. Right click on src/app and choose New | Angular CLI to pick the type of feature you wish to add.

Once you’ve selected a feature, you can specify the name and optional parameters, just as you would with Angular CLI on the command line:

To learn more about Angular CLI options and parameters, make sure to check out The Ultimate Angular CLI Reference.

What’s really awesome is that WebStorm automatically adds the component to the right Angular module for you, in this case AppModule.

If your application has multiple Angular modules, right click on the module you wish to add the feature to and choose New | Angular CLI. WebStorm will make sure the new files are created in the right location and that the new feature is added to the correct Angular module.

How sweet is that!

Tip 2: Navigate Like a Pro

Use cmd-click or cmd-B to easily jump to any definition within your project.

If you are a keyboard user, just put your cursor on a term and hit cmd-B. If you are a mouse user, hold down the cmd button and all terms you hover will turn into links to their definition.

WebStorm automatically recognizes Angular components and directives in your HTML, links to stylesheets, links to templates, classes, interfaces and much more.

No need to open file(s) manually, just jump to any definition you need:

When looking for a file that you don’t have an immediate reference to, hit shift twice to open the Search everywhere dialog. You don’t have to type the entire search string. If you want to open AppComponent, just type the first letter of each part — i.e. ac — and WebStorm will immediately narrow down the result list for you, so you can quickly pick the suggestion you wish to open:

Another super useful navigation shortcut is cmd-E, which presents you with a list of recently edited files so you can easily navigate back and forth between them.

Knowing how to quickly navigate to the code you need will save you a tremendous amount of time every single day.

Tip 3: Take Advantage of Angular Language Service

Angular Language Service is a service, designed by the Angular Team, to provide IDEs with error checking and type completion within Angular templates.

WebStorm integrates with Angular Language Service to better understand your code. To enable Angular Language Service, first make sure it is installed:

npm install @angular/language-service –save-dev

If you use Angular CLI to generate an Angular application, Angular Language Service is automatically installed.

Next, go to Preferences | Languages & Frameworks | TypeScript, make sure Use TypeScript Service is checked and click Configure…:

The Service Options modal will pop up. Enable Use Angular service and apply the changes:

By default, WebStorm already provides great assistance for writing Angular code.

When editing a script, WebStorm automatically imports the required JavaScript modules so you don’t have to import them manually.

If you open up the TypeScript panel, WebStorm provides you with immediate feedback on the validity of your code, so you can quickly resolve issues before having to compile your project.

Watch how the OnInit interface is automatically imported and how the live TypeScript feedback immediately tells you whether or not your TypeScript code is valid:

When you edit a template, WebStorm provides you with smart code completion that recognizes components, directives and even input and output properties:

With Angular Language Service enabled, WebStorm is able to improve code completion in template expressions:

… and report template errors more precisely right inside your editor:

Catching errors without having to compile your project saves you incredible amounts of time.

Tip 4: Auto-format Your Code

Don’t worry about formatting your code manually. WebStorm has you covered.

Whether your are in a template, a script, a stylesheet or even a JSON file, just hit cmd-option-L and WebStorm will automatically format all code for you:

Continue reading %Top 12 Productivity Tips for WebStorm and Angular – Part 1%

Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/tympanus/~3/YIJfw2is-kk/

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Collective #358 was written by Pedro Botelho and published on Codrops.