Verdana, Tahoma and Georgia. Safe but oh so boring...

Unfortunately for designers, working with three or four fonts is no fun. Even for end users, we are all getting tired of looking at the same typefaces. But until now there's been no solid working solution for using alternate typefaces. Those that did exist either did not work properly across all important browsers or they slowed down the display of your website.

First tools were moving into wrong directions. They were either transforming text into images or into Flash. Which makes the text basicaly unusable. Nice, but still unusable. Now the situation has improved. There are online tools, which still render text, but the output is text again. To list a few of them:

TYPEKIT

Pros

• Online check for multiple browsers
• Paid license for a large number of fonts

Contras

• Font are only usable on the web, that means you cannot take them to Photoshop or other software, design a web and show it to your client. Well, you can, but you have to buy it. But that doesn't make sense, since you paying already in the Typekit license.

CUFON

Pros

• Is free
• You are not limited to the number of offered fonts like in Typekit

Contras

• Various bugs
• Problems with styling the rendered output

The new old solution

What if there would be another solution. Much more easier and much more older. Well, there is. Using pure CSS. We are not talking about CSS3 which is yet to come, but good old CSS2. And we are talking about a solution, which is supported long time by Internet Explorer. The @font-face property.

Wouldn't it be nice to use more fonts...

Pros

• All valid CSS, no JavaScript
• You are not limited to the number of fonts offered as in Typekit
• Works in 5 major browsers (Safari 3+, Opera 10+, Firefox 3.5+, Chrome 5+, IE6 +)
• Microsoft want to sponsor this new web fonts standard.

Contras

• You have to sort out the licenses, to be able to use the custom fonts on your website. Or just use free ones.

Now having Microsoft and Mozilla supporting this new old standard, there is a strong chance, that this is going to be a consistently supported property in modern browsers. And if we count, that a lot of effort is put into @font-face rendering SWF fonts, then we get iPhone and iPad support as well.

After all the child-illnesses web fonts had until now we have come to the conclusion, that the time is now. Start using (not misusing) the new possibility and find good use for it in modern webdesign.

What others think about the topic:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20002919-264.html
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fonts-at-the-crossing/
 

By Viktor

Leaving Verdana and Tahoma and Georgia Behind: How to Bring Real Typography to the Web

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. Microsoft AdCenter Setup for Mac Users
2. Is there going to be a real estate crash?

"Toolbar set 'Foliovision' doesn’t exist"

We decided to not use that file anymore and moved all the configuration options for FCKEditor into inline JavaScript. That should fix the problem.

If you had this problem, download the latest version of our plugin (0.9.14) here. This new version fixes this problem and also some other bugs in file management.

We will be glad to hear any feedback on our Foliopress WYSIWYG plugin page.

By Martin

New Foliopress WYSIWYG version

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. New Foliopress WYSIWYG version released
2. New Foliopress WYSIWYG version released
3. New Foliopress WYSIWYG version with Dropdown Customization

We also added support for videos and splash images stored on HTTPS servers.

Summary:

• compatibility fixes for WP 3.0 and older plugin shortcodes
• compatibility fixes for IE 6
• HTTPS support
• plugin settings moved from file into Wordpress options table (this will provide easier updates and less configuration issues from now on)

Download the latest version of FV Wordpress Flowplayer plugin.

Older versions of the plugin can be found on the Wordpress plugin site.

By Zdenka

HTTPS support for FV Flowplayer

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. FV Wordpress Flowplayer is compatible with Wordpress 3.0
2. New FV Wordpress Flowplayer version

• Autoplay for single videos
• Show/hide the control bar
• Show/hide the full-screen button
• Uploads through WP Media Library
• Redirection option

We tested the plugin also under Wordpress 3.0, and all features were found compatible.

Download the latest version of FV Wordpress Flowplayer plugin.

Older versions of the plugin can be found on the Wordpress plugin site.

By Zdenka

FV Wordpress Flowplayer is compatible with Wordpress 3.0

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. HTTPS support for FV Flowplayer
2. New FV Wordpress Flowplayer version

We released a new version (0.9.13) which will fix the annoying autosave glitch -

"The changes you made will be lost if you navigate away from this page." 

This message was appearing even when there were no changes made to the post, since we added the autosave support in previous version.

Other fixes and features:

• Added language support
• Wordpress caption support (they will be put under the image into h5 tag)
• Image uploader permissions are now configurable
• Autosave glitch fixed

By Martin

New Foliopress WYSIWYG update

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. Foliopress WYISWYG now supports autosave
2. Foliopress WYSIWYG glitch in Safari fixed
3. New Foliopress WYSIWYG version with Dropdown Customization

One bad thing, people's expectations that Wordpress 3.0 is:

1. bug free
2. compatible with current plugins

No way guys. There's no way that most popular plugins are ready for 3.0. So unless you are willing to go on a severe plugin and functionality diet, just forget about Wordpress 3.0 for a couple of months.

It's the same deal when Apple releases a new version of their OS (back in classic days or with OS X). You don't want 10.6.0 or 10.6.1 or even 10.6.2. Applications don't work and are incompatible. The sweet spot to move is the .4 or the .5 iteration.

Frankly, I'm still running 10.5.8 on my main computer and have had less headaches as a consequence. I'm about ready to move, as all my software now has Snow Leopard updates and all of the other workarounds have been published by those who love to live on the bleeding edge. Still I might skip 10.6 altogether though and move to 10.7 when it's ready. My girlfriend's Macbook is running 10.6 and the only thing I'm missing out on are the built-in scanner drivers (works great with our HP C3180, unlike HP's own software). Oh and Acorn 2, which is the best photo edit tool I've seen outside of Photoshop.

The crazy thing are greedy clients who want the latest and greatest before the paint is even dry. We just finished a huge Typepad to Wordpress move using our current plugin set (there's a fair amount of moving parts to make a T2WP conversion seamless) and one gentleman is clamouring for his free upgrade to Wordpress 3.0.

First we are not part of Wordpress incorporated (that's called Automattic). Second, he is running a media site and he needs all those plugins which haven't been even tested yet on Wordpress 3.0.

One step at a time.

Fortunately this time, Matt has promised to take some time off from developing core code and Wordpress will distribute their efforts to improving the Wordpress.org site and resources. A much better idea.

Normally this is where I’d say we’re about to start work on 3.1, but we’re actually not. We’re going to take a release cycle off to focus on all of the things around WordPress....so much of our effort has been focused on the core software it hasn’t left much time for anything else. Over the next three months we’re going to split into ninja/pirate teams focused on different areas of the around-WordPress experience, including the showcase, Codex, forums, profiles, update and compatibility APIs, theme directory, plugin directory, mailing lists, core plugins, wordcamp.org

We have more than enough functionality. Just keep the API's running clean and keep improving the invisible code.

Only one big disappointment: Foliovision is not yet on the list of contributors for core code. We'll have to settle for the best alternative WYSIWYG editor and best image publishing system on the Wordpress platform. We also have the best Wordpress comment moderation system and the best free Flash video player plugin for Wordpress. Well maybe that last is a dubious honour as Flash is on its last legs but lots of people love FV Flowplayer.

Thanks and congratulations to those who did make it and created the core of the latest Wordpress.

We'll be busy over the next couple of months getting all of our plugins up-to-date and compatible with 3.0. For our users, no worries, all of our current active plugins will be making the transition.

I thought it would be time to congratulate our former CTO John Godley but strangely John's not on the list yet either, despite having written the best set of plugins out there and now working for Automattic.

By Alec

Wordpress 3.0: Upgrade Considerations for Commercial Users

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. Microsoft AdCenter Setup for Mac Users
2. Moving from Typepad to Wordpress: 2009 Guide

The new version number is 0.9.11, you can download it from its Wordpress.org plugin page.

Full list of new features are:

• Wordpress autosave support
• better Wordpress MU support
• HTML entities are not processed by default - keeping your accented characters unchanged

By Martin

Foliopress WYISWYG now supports autosave

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. New Foliopress WYSIWYG update
2. Why Foliopress WSYIWYG will be PHP5 Only
3. Foliopress WYSIWYG Image Management now works in Safari

Today I was shocked to see that one of my Wordpress templates (it's based on Cutline template) is taking more than 100 queries on the index page. I was removing various parts of the template until I found that it's the the_tags() Wordpress template tag.

This is the important part of the template:

<div class="entry">
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
</div>	

<div class="postmetadata">
<p><?php the_tags( 'Tags: ', ', ', ' | ' ); ?></p>
</div>	

And here's a number of queries going on on my test site right now with this code:

Total Time: 78 database queries run in 0.014724969863892 seconds.

Finally I discovered that if I replace the_excerpt() with the_content() (that means the full articles are displayed, not just first few sentences), the queries go down to around 50. Is the_tags() not working with database cache and global PHP object until the whole content is shown?

I found the exact line in the_content() function which makes this happen and put it into my code, right before the_excerpt:

<div class="entry">
<?php apply_filters('the_content', ''); ?>
<?php the_excerpt(); ?>
</div>	

<div class="postmetadata">
<p><?php the_tags( 'Tags: ', ', ', ' | ' ); ?></p>
</div>	

Now here's the number of SQL queries: 

Total Time: 47 database queries run in 0.0041866302490234 seconds.

That means the_tags() won't take any extra queries now. Interesting! If you are developing templates, watch out for this.

The plugin I used to get the exact number of queries is WPDB Profiling.

By Martin

Reducing SQL queries in Wordpress Templates

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. How to Comment Code in WordPress Templates

WP Spam Free Loading - check out the wpsf-js.php item

The reason is that this plugin uses a unique random cookie to protect your blog from spam. And to generate the cookie name and value in the JavaScript file it includes all the Wordpress code on every page load - thus slowing down the execution of your site's PHP code.

However there's a new experimental option in WP Spam Free which turns of this JavaScript while keeping the cookie anti-spam protection in. Here's how to turn it on

1. Open your WP Spam Free Settings page.
2. Add this to the location bar and press enter:

   &showHiddenOptions=on

3. This is what the location bar address will look like:

   ..../wp-admin/options-general.php?page=wp-spamfree/
   wp-spamfree.php&showHiddenOptions=on

4. You will have this extra option:

WP Spam Free - Hidden option

Now you will notice that the JavaScript for WP Spam Free is no longer loading. Let's give this option a try and find out how effective is WP Spam Free without the classic JavaScript cookie protection. Hopefully in new version of this plugin it will be tested and fully operational.

Right now, we are adding some anti-spam features to our comment moderation plugin Thoughtful Comments which will use zero extra resources and your server load won't be affected by it.

By Martin

WP Spam Free: Reducing Server Load

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. Foiling Email Harvesters and Coping with Spam
2. Reducing SQL queries in Wordpress Templates

Result of the fake address passing: over 200 bounced emails in his inbox. Richard tried to remove the commenter's subscription in the admin section of Mark Jaquith's Subscribe to Comments (WP Plugins). It didn't work.

We tried to block the user from receiving any comments. Didn't work.

Clearly there is an issue between Wordpress Subscribe to Comments and Wordpress 2.9. Easy enough to fix. But we have about five popular plugins right now in active development and adopting another step-child would take us away from our existing work.

What did work for stopping the bounced emails, we simply removing the commenter's address from the email.

Wordpress Subscribe to Comments Admin options:
These are the ones which don't work in Wordpress 2.9
unsubscribe and block - they are still working in Gurken

After that we did a bit of looking around and a fellow by the name of Martin Spuetz has written a fork called Gurken Subscribe to Comments (WP Plugins). What's important is that Gurken Subcribe to Comments is fully compatible with Mark's version which means that installation is just a question of disabling one and enabling the other and at some future date it would be possible to switch back again.

Gurken Subscribe to Comments admin section does work, allowing commenters to be unsubscribed or blocked. It has another big advantage: which is double opt-in. A user has to accept being subscribed to comments.

How can double opt-in help?

• A fake email will only bounce once, not 200 times.
• A real email which is being routed into someone's spam bin will only go once.
• If someone subscribe's with someone else's email, s/he will only be disturbed once.

I don't know when Mark is planning to update Subscribe to Comments, but a big thank you to Martin Spuetz. As usual with German plugin authors, the code is excellent but the documentation is all in German. Fortunately Martin and I both speak German, so there is a whole new world of plugins out there waiting for us.

We're also trying Sergey Müller's Antispam Bee (WP Plugins) in place of WP Spam Free, as even with our custom modifications on a busy site WP Spam Free puts a heavy load on servers.  Here's the excellent German documentation. Here's the English documentation. Wait, there isn't any.

By Alec

Trouble with Wordpress Subscribe to Comment Plugin in WP 2.9: Gurken’s the solution

Post from: Foliovision

Related posts:

1. Trouble with DD Add Signature Plugin
2. Redesign the WordPress Login via a Plugin