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Trendy Navigation Bars - Part 4 - Download

Better late than never - here's an NSF download to accompany the styled lists I was talking about last week. It looks like this.

Part of the reason it took until now to post it is that I soon realised there wasn't a whole load of interest in it. It's something that had been covered before and I didn't really realise how much so. My idea was to get across how easy things like this are in graphics packages, which there's no reason to be scared of using.

The main reason it took so long though is that my life offline has taken priority. My time at the computer of recent has been spent on paid work, while my spare time has been spent doing more constructive things and having more social time and fun.

Running a site like this, for me at least, often happens in spurts of creativity followed by periods of calm. At the moment I can feel myself entering a little quiet spell, which is needed sometimes just for a bit of a rest. Naturally I'll keep the site ticking over in the mean time and will post regularly. There just might not be as much cool stuff being posted. How long will this period last? A day, a week, a month? I have no idea.

Probably I didn't even need to mention it as I'm sure you guys appreciate it's only natural that the site's output quality fluctuates from time to time. We'll see.

Comments

  1. Link "{Link} is invalid.Maybe "{Link} is correct?

    • avatar
    • Jake
    • Tue 16 May 2006 02:57 AM

    Woops. Thanks Sanmao.

    • avatar
    • Jan
    • Tue 16 May 2006 04:37 AM

    Hey Jake,

    I know this is a little bit more complicated but this site: {Link} describes a way to create a gradient without any images, just crossbrowser css and js. I know it depends on js, but i still think it is interesting.

  2. Jan,

    This is exactly what I said a little while back. {Link}

    Of course the whole thing ONLY works on IE (since its propriatory) but it is useful enough in a corporate environment such as an intranet.

    • avatar
    • Jono
    • Tue 16 May 2006 05:48 AM

    Jake - You don't need to explain yourself mate - everyone needs time offline. For me anyway, time 'offline' usually brings about inspiration. Take it easy dude.

    J.

    • avatar
    • Adam
    • Tue 16 May 2006 09:11 AM

    To get some time off, could codestore like the Independent ({Link} feature a guest editor?

    • avatar
    • Ryan
    • Tue 16 May 2006 09:30 AM

    Personally, I learned something from the topic...along with all the other comments and links other people posted, it revealed some resources I did not previously know about...

    • avatar
    • Mark C.
    • Tue 16 May 2006 11:51 AM

    Just wait until you have kids! :-)

    I still remember holding my first born in the hospital for the first time. She fit on my forearm, head in my hand and feet by my elbow. While looking at her all the voices of my internal dialogs that try to tell me what I need to do slowly faded to silence and I could feel my priorities changing right then and there.

    • avatar
    • Jan
    • Tue 16 May 2006 12:24 PM

    @ Dragon,

    This is what the guy says:

    "This has been tested and verified to work in MSIE6, Firefox 1.0.7, Safari 2.0.1, Opera 7.5 & 8.5 on Windows 2K, XP and OS X.

    "

    I tried it in Firefox, and it looks ok. Don't ask me how though. The propriatory way of implementation used by IE I kind of understand, but the workaround for other browsers is a bit too complicated for me.

    Personally I always do it the way Jake describes here. It's fast, easy and the server hit is very small. It's just nice to have an alternative.

  3. @ Jan

    If you use the firefox plugin that allows you to view the rendered source, you might be able see that it (probably) throws a ton of tags in with borders and/or backgrounds to accomplish the gradient.

    There are some cool JS libraries out there that support rounded corners using similar techniques... the name of one I used escapes me at the moment.

    My only isue with JS rendered effects is (not JS support, surprise) the fact that there is a noticable lag between loading a page and applying the effect in many cases. It looks cheap to me. I have one customer who was ok with it, but I can't help but kick myself for having used it each time I watch a page load.... and then.... the corners get rounded.

    A few small images can be loaded ahead of the content with some creative tag placement and provide a crisper performance, IMHO.

    Jake has struck what I believe is the smart balance between good CSS use and spartan application of graphics.

    • avatar
    • glyn
    • Tue 16 May 2006 05:08 PM

    i am currrently reading this blog from my pda -- everything looks different speaking of which just attended a microsoft and computer arts conference regards winfx,expession,atlas,vista -- as they say in lost everything is going to change... well eventually ...

    download expression check it out.

  4. Hi,

    Just to let you know that your work *IS* appreciated and that there *IS* interest in it.

    Like you, most of us have shifting priorities and maybe we can't all read and try out the blog TODAY... but that doesn't mean that we're not likely to come back next month and give it a go.

    You are to be congratulated for having the ideas, and for taking the time for sharing them.

    Thanks.

    • avatar
    • Jan
    • Wed 17 May 2006 02:42 AM

    @ Jerry,

    Couldn't agree with you more. My interest in the CSS solution was purely academic.

    Only real use of it as far as I can think of, would be user defined skins where creating a new image file isn't possible, but then again, i would never empower endusers with more than a few predefined choices.

    @ Jake,

    Are you sure you really need a social life?

    WE need you more ;-)

    You'r site is a goldmine. Thanks!

    • avatar
    • glyn
    • Wed 17 May 2006 03:45 AM

    I echo the two previous comments, I hope to be joining you very soon in the house buying venture. Luckily I qualified as an electrician, plumber, CORGI heating engineer and a teacher (teaching Gas engineering and plumbing at our local College for two years) when the IT contracting took a bashing. But I suspect this will not stop the flow of cash the wrong way!

    Keep up the good work.

    • avatar
    • glyn
    • Wed 17 May 2006 05:09 AM

    Just noticed from your house blog your going to get wifi fitted. I have had some good experiences with belkin products. I have two wireless products in this large flat and it provides good signal strength everywhere in every room even on the balconey, also they will support the highest current level of encryption (you may have flash the products, like I did, and config but thats it) together with MAC filtering.

    • avatar
    • Jake
    • Wed 17 May 2006 05:17 AM

    I'm all Netgear here Glyn. Never had reason to change.

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Written by Jake Howlett on Tue 16 May 2006

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CodeStore is all about web development. Concentrating on Lotus Domino, ASP.NET, Flex, SharePoint and all things internet.

Your host is Jake Howlett who runs his own web development company called Rockall Design and is always on the lookout for new and interesting work to do.

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