March 19th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
WordPress 2.5 RC1 is released today. I thought I’d give it a spin, I like the idea of having an automated plugin upgrade system. :)
So far so good, things are pretty smooth. If you’re going to upgrade too, remember to backup all your files! I for instance have accidentally overwritten my theme files, so I had to take them from the backup.
About the new back-end: I don’t really like it. To be honest I prefer the old style any day. The new back-end lacks contrast (too bright actually), making things more difficult to recognise. Also, when posting, some of the options such as the categories are now down the bottom. Why? We do still have a sidebar, why not use it?
The new back-end also has some styling issues: e.g. on a wide screen, everything is squeezed to the left. I say bring back the fluid page width!
2.5 has some highlights though. We now finally have a asset management feature (file management and gallery), it is simple but still better than nothing. The automatic plugin upgrade feature works really well! Just remember to CHMOD your plugin directory (wp-content/plugins) to 777.
I haven’t fully experienced with this new installation yet, but I am not that impressed with it, mainly because the back-end is in my opinion worse than the old one in terms of user experience.
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Tags: Wordpress
Posted in General, Wordpress | 1 Comment »
March 18th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
So I was really impressed with the release of iPhone SDK, I went ahead and ordered an iPhone from the US. Today I received the package, brand new sealed, it is the 16GB version.
Even though Apple is kind enough to provide an iPhone emulator for developers, I still think it’s a good idea to get a real one, play with it and be familiar with the user experience.
Hopefully a couple of months from now I am able to put together something useful. ;)
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Tags: emulator, iPhone, SDK
Posted in iPhone | 4 Comments »
March 18th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
And alongside with the new release, they have revamped their website too.
The website looks better than before, but… oops… that happened when I tried to use the search box:
They have now included a quick start guide which is awesome. For some reason though, I still can’t find a change log on their website.
In my opinion the new website is still horrible to use, the home page is more confusing than ever (huh? why is the roadmap under ‘Give Back’?). I guess the designer didn’t read Steve Krug‘s Don’t Make Me Think. ;)
It feels very ‘Microsoft’y… fingers crossed…
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Tags: Zend Framework
Posted in Zend Framework | 3 Comments »
March 17th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Okay, so what is a transparent layer? How does it benefit a developer?
Well, please watch the screencast (4min, 12MB) first, you will see the transparent layer in action.
To me, I wanted to make a framework that is more feature-rich than Kohana but at the same time is not intrusive. By having this transparent middle-man layer, a developer is able to seamlessly enhance the Kohana framework without altering the existing user application.
It might not be useful to everyone but what the heck, it at least is useful to one person, me. :D
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Tags: Kohana, Layerful, screencast
Posted in General, Kohana, Layerful | 4 Comments »
March 17th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Here is a brief overview of the system workflow:
Of course the actual system will be a lot more complex due to cross-referencing components, modules, libraries, helpers, but you get the idea. :)
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Tags: Kohana, Layerful, workflow, Zend Framework
Posted in Kohana, Layerful, Zend Framework | 7 Comments »
March 17th, 2008
Posted by Fred Wu
Yesterday I have (sort of) announced the work on the framework based on Kohana and Zend Framework.
It is in early development stage but here is how it performs in Kohana. Granted it doesn’t do much at this stage. The screenshot below showcases the performance of the ‘transparent layer’ support, using the default Kohana profiler.
I will soon post a chart on how the framework relates to and integrates with Kohana and Zend Framework. :)
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Tags: framework, Kohana, Layerful, Zend Framework
Posted in Kohana, Layerful | 1 Comment »
