September 2nd, 2010
A big advantage of WordPress over PivotX is the availability of custom entry types in WordPress. PivotX doesn’t have this (and here I should probably insert the word ‘yet’).
However, as always, nothing is impossible! We can make PivotX do what we want it to do with a little hacking in the core, and the help of the ‘Bonus Fields’ extension.
August 27th, 2010
Although I use WordPress for this website & blog, I still think PivotX is actually a way better blogging tool.
In the past, I’ve made a bunch of ’Themes’ for PivotX. All of those are available on the PivotX Themes Website. The problem with that website is that it doesn’t display a lot of features for each theme.
But from now on, I will also present my themes in my newly opened PivotX Sandbox. Feel free to browse around!
Of course, the PivotX Themes website is the place to go if you want to download the themes…
August 12th, 2010
To celebrate the upcoming release of PivotX 2.1.0, Windmill Web work has released a new theme for PivotX, called ‘Wichita’. After ‘Philadelphia’ and ‘Baltimore’, this is the third theme named after a US city (once you’ve started a tradition, you should stick with it). This time, the theme is red, black and white, with some gradients here and there. There is a tabbed interface in the sidebar, that shows the most popular entries (if you have the magnificent WZUP extension installed), the most recent entries and the most recent comments.
August 10th, 2010
Supermarkets (or: grocery stores) need a website too. These days, people like to look up online what’s on sale this week. Personally, I really appreciate it if a grocery store has a website that I can easily navigate. For one, I would like to find the important information without having to search for it. Opening hours, address, what’s on sale. As we will see, there are lot’s of different approaches to this.
Let’s dive into the “Deep Discount and Limited Assortment” segment of supermarkets. Walking around in those establishments is not a nice shopping experience to start with, but the prices are low, and that is their priority. We can only imagine where ‘web design’ is on their list of priorities. Let’s take a look:
First, we have Aldi, a chain based in Germany, that has about 1000 stores in the USA. Aldi specializes in own-brand staple items, and does not decorate their stores. The website of Aldi USA looks surprisingly pleasant:
Aldi USA Website
The main section actually looks really nice. I’m a bit disappointed by the header and the top navigation. The navigation does not jump out at you, and that is mainly what you’ll be looking for once you enter the website. The same goes for the little blocks on the right, where you can find a store locator, something a lot of people will be looking for if they’ve never been to your store. SEO wise, the site is not all that bad, but the XHTML is not valid.
Next up is Food 4 Less, a smaller chain. I’ve never been to their stores, but if their website is an example of what the store looks like, I wouldn’t mind shopping there:
Food 4 Less Website
The quick navigation at the very top right is nice, and has the most sought after navigation items right there. The whole website uses a color scheme that’s easy on the eye, with subtle gradients here and there. The logo could use a little updating, but that’s just a personal preference, and changing that could get very expensive, because they would have to change the signs on the stores too of course.
The website is missing a meta description, which does not seem very smart if you look at SEO. The source code doesn’t validate either, which may or may not be a result of using Microsoft Sharepoint.
For the next one in this category, I’d like to take you to Marc’s, a small chain that’s local to my area. If you think this website looks bad, you’ve probably never been in an actual Marc’s store.
Marc's
Again, I’m surprised by the website. At first sight, there is not much wrong with it. The navigation is somewhat messed up, because apparently the menu items “What’s New” and “Health & Beauty” do not fit in the allocated space, which is just plain ugly. I’m also glad I said ‘at first sight’ because upon inspection of the source code, we find out it is made with HTML tables. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a good table, if it’s used for actually displaying data that belongs in a table. And why a supermarket website needs a picture of the CEO in the header is a mystery to me.
There is also a lot of work left to do on the search engine optimization, and of course the page does not validate, as seems to be the standard in this business.
The last, and in this case the least of this showcase would be Discount Drug Mart, which is also a local chain in Ohio. Although their stores do not look as bad as Marc’s, their website is definitely the ugliest:
Discount Drug Mart
You don’t even have to look at the source code to see that his is just one big HTML table. Looking at the site, you feel overwhelmed by the amount of information on one page. If you follow the links on the left, you are shown a variety of different lay-outs and fonts. Of course, Comic Sans belongs on a website like this, including the occasional spelling error (‘Heathcare’ instead of ‘Healthcare’). Looks really professional.
I didn’t really want to test the validity f this website, but out of some kind of morbid curiosity i did. The score is 75 errors on the ‘Home’ page, but on some of the other pages it gets closer to the magic number 100. Also interesting (by lack of a different term) is the SEO report. Luckily, you can find them on Facebook and Twitter. That should help.
August 2nd, 2010
Template tags in PivotX often come with a lot of ‘extra features’ that you can use to your advantage when you’re making a template. A good source of information is the PivotX documentation, and then in particular ‘Appendix B‘, which describes all the template tags. (more…)
August 1st, 2010
A often heard phrase is ‘less is more’ when it comes to web design. This means that (most of the) unnecessary design elements can be stripped from a web page, and it can still look well-designed and beautiful.
These web pages are then referred to as ‘minimalistic’. If you look up ‘minimalism’ in a dictionary, you’ll find something like:
design or style in which the simplest and fewest elements are used to create the maximum effect
Examples of minimalism in art are for example the paintings of Piet Mondrian. I’m not going to give an opinion of minimalism in art here, but I must say that for web design, minimalism usually works really well.
July 31st, 2010
If you read a blog, a lot of times you’ll see the introduction of a blog entry on the front page of the blog, followed by a ‘Read more’ link. That link will take you to the full text on the entry.
In a PivotX template, you can place that ‘Read more’ link in a template with the [[ more ]] template tag. You can even control what the link looks like with the parameter ‘text’, like so: [[more text="Continue reading..." ]]. There is a problem with this template tag though… (more…)
July 30th, 2010
The Netherlands have a long history in web design. Back in 1693, when it became a law that every windmill should have a name, the Dutch thought it would be fun if every windmill had its own ‘home page’ as well. So they started designing. Most home pages back in the day were made with quill pens on a piece of paper. Of course Google and Yahoo didn’t exist yet, so the amount of visitors was still low, also because you actually had to go to the windmill to see its home page. And once you arrived at the site, there was so much more stuff to see, that most people didn’t really care about the home page. After all, it’s more exciting to see a real windmill than to see one on paper… (more…)
July 29th, 2010
After years of using Pivot and – more recently – PivotX blogging software, I have moved the Windmill Web Work website to WordPress. Although I love PivotX as a blogging tool, it is not very widely used. WordPress on the other hand, has a huge following, and is used by millions of professional and amateur bloggers, and by a lot of corporate websites as well. (more…)
Windmill Web Work is a small independent web design agency in Hudson, Ohio. The man behind it is John Schop, a US immigrant from The Netherlands, who is the owner, director, sales rep, administrative assistant, human resources manager, janitor and only employee of Windmill Web Work.
