Larry Ullman » software

Yahoo!’s Design Pattern Library

Larry — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:27:47 +0000

Recently, and I can’t remember why, I came across Yahoo!’s Design Pattern Library. Just like a programming design pattern describes, in code, an accepted way of handling a specific task, this library has almost 60 (at this time) examples for how to layout and handle common visual elements.

The patterns are organized by category: layout, navigation, selection, rich interaction, and social. For example, there’s a pattern for showing the availability of a person (like you’d see in IM) and another for how breadcrumbs should be used. Mostly the patterns are descriptions of what you should do, based upon what’s best for the end user. Many of the patterns do have links to code examples, although those will often make use of the Yahoo! User Interface library.

Part of the design pattern library is a stencil kit, available for OmniGraffle (the program I use), Adobe Illustrator, Visio, and other applications. Using this kit you can quickly create a mock-up of the user interface. And being Yahoo!, all of this is available for free.

Yahoo!'s Design Pattern Library

Larry — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:27:47 +0000

Really Useful Tools For PHP Developers

Larry — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 01:54:00 +0000

I recently StumbledUpon an article on Really Useful Tools For PHP Developers at W3Avenue. The article doesn’t go into too many details, let alone provide specific instructions for any of the tools, but it’s nicely organized and presents a good list of useful PHP-related tools. The list ranges from development software to security utilities to packages that will simply format your PHP code in a definitive style. Check it out if you’re a PHP developer; there are always new ways to make your work easier and the output better.

C++ Development Tools

Larry — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 09:49:17 +0000

When I wrote my C++ Programming: Visual QuickStart Guide book back in 2005 (with co-auth0r Andreas Signer), I had to decide what software to recommend for C++ beginners. As with most languages, full-time experienced programmers may like serious, complete tools, or commercial products, but I often find that software on that level can provide too much of a learning curve for someone simultaneously trying to learn a programming language. What I like to recommend in my books is software that’s approachable, reliable, and, preferably, free. So, for the C++ book, I recommend Bloodshed’s Dev-C++ for Windows.

At that time, Dev-C++ was more or less a standard for beginners (and it was free). I used either version 4 or the beta of version 5 for the book and for years readers seemed to be fine with Dev-C++. Now it seems that either Dev-C++ is no more or just not a good enough option. The Dev-C++ Web site is down, although I don’t know yet if the site is down for good. You can still download Dev-++ from Sourceforge, but it’s the five-year old version.

In searching for good alternatives to Dev-C++ (I don’t use Windows regularly, so couldn’t make a recommend on that myself), I came across a post about why you shouldn’t use Dev-C++. That writer recommended Programmer’s Notepad, Code::Blocks (which also runs on Mac OS X and Linux), and the free edition of Microsoft’s Visual Studio. I haven’t used any of these, so I can’t personally recommend them, although I have used the full version of Microsoft’s Visual Studio (years ago for C# programming in ASP.NET), and can attest to how good it is as an IDE. In the comments to that post, some readers still say that Dev-C++ is so much easier to learn with than the others, so I wouldn’t rule that out entirely.

BumpTop, a Snazzy Desktop Application

Larry — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 01:19:20 +0000

I recently StumbledUpon BumpTop, a commercial product that greatly changes (dare I say “revolutionizes”?) how you use your computer’s desktop. It runs on both Windows and Mac OS X and is quite reasonably priced. The best way to get a sense of BumpTop is to watch the videos available at their site. It’s just cool.

Eight PHP Power Tools

Larry — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 11:45:11 +0000

Yesterday, InfoWorld posted an in-depth review of eight PHP-capable IDE’s. Eclipse with PDT, Netbeans, Zend Studio, NuSphere PhpED, and ActiveState Komodo all get “very good” marks. Of these, Eclipse and Netbeans are free, which is always a bonus. If you’re looking for a new IDE for your PHP development, do read this article.

Personally, I use a text editor for my PHP development (TextMate for Mac OS X). But I have used Eclipse quite a bit, just not for PHP. Eclipse is a standard foundation for lots of IDEs, like Flex Builder/Flash Builder and Aptana Studio. I’ve used Netbeans for Ruby development. Both Netbeans and Eclipse are quite good and extremely extendable, but not as user-friendly as some commercial products, in my opinion. I never really took to Zend Studio, for no particular reason. Maybe the price! I did use NuSphere PhpEd for a while (I did some consulting work for that company) and it seemed to be a very likable solution, but it only runs on Windows, which rules it out for me.

Alkaline Browser Testing for Macs

Larry — Sat, 09 May 2009 05:51:15 +0000

I came across a product called Alkaline the other day, put out by Litmus. Alkaline is a Mac application that allows you to test a Web site on up to 17 different Windows browsers. It’s much like a Windows-specific version of BrowserShots, but guaranteed to always return quick results and with a few bonus features such as plug-ins that work with common text editors and IDE’s like TextMate or Coda. For more, check out this screencast. You should also check out BrowserShots, if you haven’t already. For the occassional browser test, BrowserShots is fantastic. For more frequent and reliable Windows tests, you may find that Alkaline is worth the money (they have a free version, a day pass, or different subscription rates).

Litmus also makes an application for testing how a newsletter will look in different email clients.

osalt.com: Open Source Alternative

Larry — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:44:53 +0000

I stumbled upon this Web site called the Open Source Alternative. The entire point of the site is to identify open source alternatives to common commercial (or just not open source) applications. For example, if you need something like Visio, but don’t want to give Microsoft any more money, you can check out Dia. The osalt.com site is pretty simple, well organized, and easy to navigate. It includes descriptions of the various software, including the operating systems they run on and user reviews. As a person that prefers using open source software whenever possible, it’s nice to have a resource like this available when my next need arises.

JetBrains’s RubyMine IDE

Larry — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:42:45 +0000

JetBrains just released version 1 of a new Ruby and Ruby on Rails IDE called RubyMine. It features everything you’d expect in an IDE, like code completion, project navigation, HTML/CSS/JS editing, version control software (VCS) support, plus lots of Ruby and Rails-specific features. Version 1.1 of RubyMine is expected in May, with support for version 2.3 of Rails (a significant upgrade). The software is available under two licenses, one (free) for open-source projects and another commercial license ($99 US at the time of this writing).

21 Lesser-Known Open-Source Applications for Windows

Larry — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:57:58 +0000

I StumbledUpon this page that lists 21 Lesser-Known Open-Source Applications for Windows. As a person that prefers to use open-source software and tries to avoid using Windows, I was intrigued by the listing. As the article points out, many people are already using open-source and cross platform software like the Firefox Web browser, Thunderbird email client, GIMP image manipulation software, OpenOffice Microsoft Office alternative, and the VLC video player. (Although, as an aside, while I do use Firefox as my primary browser, and often use VLC, I’ve never really thought that GIMP or OpenOffice were really comparable to the commercial alternatives.) The author does a good job of highlighting a mix of things, from utilities to multimedia to games. I expect I’ll try out ZScreen for my next book, as I always need to take screenshots on Windows (while testing code). If I used Windows regularly, I expect I’d love Launchy, as I love QuickSilver on my Mac. Being able to start applications without moving over to the mouse is such a timesaver. I also do use Filezilla on Windows, and recommend it in my books, as a good, free FTP application.

I don’t talk much about Windows, despite so many of you out there using it, so I thought I would pass this along.