Paintbits » Resources

Subtle Patterns

greven — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 16:02:46 +0000

Sometime ago I’ve written a small post listing some of the websites I use for background patterns, it was a very successful post, even today I get a lot of hits on that page. I guess patterns for website backgrounds is one of those useful things that you just can’t have enough, be it for your own small personal page / blog or for your projects.

There is another website I’ve been using for some time now and since I saw it mentioned in the Smashing Magazine newsletter I remembered to share it here also. Subtle Patterns is a website that contains a small collection of patterns, all of high quality.

Link: Subtle Patterns

Google Fonts API

greven — Sat, 22 May 2010 06:02:37 +0000

Google announced a couple of days ago the released of a new service called Google Font API. If you have designed a Website and tried to incorporate custom fonts into your design you know how tricky that can be.

It’s true that after the emerging of @Fontface things started to get a lot easier for the designer, but even Fontface brings some bugs to the equation (specially in Old browsers). There are payed alternatives that work better than @Fontface but that’s a major downside to that, they are payed.

And then Google enters the scene with their own solution, the Google Fonts API and the Google Fonts Directory, introducing an easy way to include custom fonts into any website design in a quick and easy way. The good news is that it’s coded in a way that will make it work even in ancient browsers like Internet Explorer 6 (why on earth is anyone even using this?).

The available font types available isn’t something to write home about, but the catalog will surely grow in the upcoming months / years.

The usage is very simple and it’s very well documented on Google’s font API website. All you need to do is add a stylesheet link to request the desired web font, after you just need to style an element with the requested web font like you would with any other websafe font.


  
    
    
  
  
    Making the Web Beautiful!

Google reminds you:

When specifying a web font in a CSS style, always list at least one fallback web-safe font in order to avoid unexpected behaviors. In particular, add a CSS generic font name like serif or sans-serif to the end of the list, so the browser can fall back to its default fonts if need be.

Something you should always do anytime you insert a custom Font in your design no matter the method.

Icons: MediaLoot 3D Free Icons

greven — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 14:55:39 +0000

Media Loot 3D Icon set is a gorgeous collection of 3D like Icons with vibrant colors and an amazing attention to detail.

The set contains 30 Icons (actually, 30 .PNG and 30 .PSD source files). The designer behind the Icons is Tanya from Artdesigner.

We’ve been working with Tanya from ArtDesigner.lv to design this set, and today we’re giving away 30 of these incredibly detailed icons for free!

Download: MediaLoot 3D Icons

Improving Notepad++ into the perfect IDE

greven — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 03:50:54 +0000

Whether you you’re a programmer or simply an enthusiast having a good Integrated Development Environment (IDE) is fundamental. Why is that? Well if programming is part of your work as with any task on life you want it done quickly and painless, a good IDE helps you achieve exactly that.

But a good IDE or in this context, a good text editor is helpful for anyone not just “professionals”. The default Notepad from Windows just doesn’t cut it for more than reading a README type of file.

Notepad++

There are lots of alternatives when choosing an IDE. But if the panoply of alternatives is huge the decision factors in my opinion are rather easy to follow: Price / Power ratio. Basically we want a powerful IDE and preferencially Free. I wouldn’t mind paying a just value for a good IDE, but not the absurd amount of money some Software costs like Dreamweaver (although Dreamweaver is a powerhouse). If you own a Mac there are some good options like Textmate or Coda for about 50-70€. If you use Windows like me, Aptana is a good choice, but I’ve never been a big fan of Java Plataform powered Software, so my vote goes for Notepad++.

Why Notepad Plus?

Remember the Ratio? Price / Power. Well, Notepad++ it’s free and opensource. Regarding power, it’s very powerful, supports most probably every language you’ll ever need and it’s expandable with plugins. The only thing I don’t like in Notepad++ it’s its default look. But even that is perfectible changeable. So, why Notepad++?

1. Free – Because the best things in life are free!
2. Powerful – Because we need features to improve our workflow.
3. Lightweight – Resource hogs are never welcome.
4. Flexible – Easily expandable by plugins to fit our needs.
5. Opensource – Because the best things in life are opensource… oh wait..

Improving Notepad++

So why should we change the appearance of Notepad++? There is nothing wrong with it but it feels too stock and white backgrounds make my eyes bleed. If you’ll spend countless hours in front of a program let’s at least make it more enjoyable and useful, that way our workflow will probably increase and if not at least our desktop will look prettier.

First think I always do when I reinstall Notepad Plus is to change the theme. I prefer darker to light themes, as they are softer on the eyes (as I referred previously).

Changing Notepad++ Theme

The most recent versions of Notepad++ already bring some neat themes you can use. Monokai (in the picture) is one of them.

To choose your theme open notepad++ and go to Settings > Style Configurator… > Select Theme. The rest is pretty much self explanatory. You can also change the font setting but make sure on the Language you are on Global styles and on the Style you are on Global override. In order for your font to apply to your theme you need to tick Enable global font option and also Enable global font size.

When I chose a different theme for some reasons it kept reseting back to default theme or not saving my font choices. But we can change our theme other way around making sure our options are saved. We replace the original stylers.xml . This way we even choose other themes available in the Internet. Textmate has a lot of nice themes that can be easily converted into notepad++. Joyboner has a nice little tutorial on how to do this easily.

Changing Notepad++ Toolbar Icons

The default toolbar Icon is ok I guess, but ok is the new… meh! Jokes aside, this is something we can improve just for eye candy happiness. Notepad++ website tells you how you can change the default Toolbar Icons but for some unknown reason it didn’t work for me initially (it had to do with Windows7 Administrator permissions, so run your notepad++ as administrator). But I found a way to make it work. Right now I’m using Notepad++ Tango Skin by duxii.

It’s fairly simple to install, just follow duxii’s instructions:

* First Extract the downloaded zip file!

* Just open Notepad++ and go to settings and compare them with my settings (“01_settings.bmp”)

[* Now choose one of the themes to make notepad looking more awesome. I have chosen "bespin".]

* Now we will change the notepad++ icons

- Go to your notepad++ installation path and change the file “NppShell_01.dll” to “old_NppShell_01.dll”.

- Now start the sfx file (02_changeicons.sfx)
1. As destination folder chose the install path of notepad++ (for me this is “C:\Programme\Notepad++\”)
2. Overwrite all files
3. If an error appears that any file could not be overwritten you have to start windows in save mode an do this again

- The sfx file has already done most of the things. You only have to do one more thing:
1. Rename the “03_toolbarIcons.xml”-file to “toolbarIcons.xml”
2. Press Windows-R
3. No a window will appear: write following into it:
%APPDATA%\Notepad++
4. A folder will open. Copy the renamed “toolbarIcons.xml” into it.
5. Now open this file with notepad++
6. Look at the screenshot “04_finish.bmp” and do what on the screenshot is standing!

* Restart your Computer and start Notepad++ & voila your notepad++ is in beautiful tango style.

Plugins

A way to know how flexibly and customizable a software program can be is by checking if it supports plugins and the amount of support given by the community. Notepad++ is one of this cases. There are enough plugins to make your notepad even more powerful. You can find the “official” plugins on Notepad++ Plugin Central Website or even install them directly through the Plugin Manager. The Plugins I find the most useful from Plugin Central are these ones:

QuickText is specially useful since is a Code Snippet manager. You need to install it manually it can’t be installed directly by the Plugin Manager.

But the plugin I really advice you to install is one called Zen Coding. Zen Coding is just amazing, words can’t describe it you have to see for yourself. With Zen Coding and QuickText you’ll find yourself writing doing repetitive tasks in php, html or anything you’re working on in a breeze. No other plugins will increase your efficiency and workflow as much as these two.

Conclusion

Be it notepad++, windows notepad, coda, aptana or anything else, you need to familiarize and be comfortable with your tools of the trade. The perfect IDE is the one that no only allows you to do the job but aids you in doing it “faster, better, stronger“. Notepad++ is an amazing piece of software. It’s very expandable and flexible as you’ve seen by now. It’s one of the few great options in Windows, at least in the Free price range. But you have to know that Notepad++ is not perfect, well it is for html, CSS or small projects, but for serious projects it lacks important features as error detection, if you really need a full featured IDE SmashingMagazine wrote a really nice post about IDEs. But in the end the Pros are a lot more than the Cons so Notepad++ is a great option if you’re looking for a Free IDE.

The current look of my notepad++ it’s like this:

So, what’s your preferred text editor / IDE and why?

Download: Notepad++

Vector Social Media Icons

greven — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:26:21 +0000

IconDock released a new set of Social Media Icons in several formats, including a vector one.

This free set includes 50 icons of the most popular social media networks on the internet. The icons are designed in 32px and 16px vector format. With the vector format, you can scale the icon to any size to fit with your design or use it in high quality print materials. What you will get from the zip package: 32px and 16px in three different file formats: vector EPS, PNG, and GIF.

Link: Vector Social Media Icons at Icon Dock

Download: Vector Social Media Icons

10+ Project Manager websites to increase your Group Workflow

greven — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:30:37 +0000

Project Managers (or Groupware) are online platforms to manage, plan, schedule and share you projects with others. Collaborative software helps groups of people focused on a common task, achieve their goal in a more effective way.

This type of websites usually offer you boards (forum), calendars, task lists, SVN and other capabilities to help you manage your group projects enabling a more effective team collaboration. I use a simple but powerful version of what you can call a SVN / Repository application, DropBox but for group work you will probably need something more powerful. The list below offer you some options that will probably meet your need.

WoW Magazine

greven — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:08:50 +0000

WoWmagz issue 7 was recently released and I’ve been reading it in the last couple of days. To be honest I hadn’t read more than one issue of this magazine (from when I posted a compilation of some great Digital Art eZines), but this issue is quite great. WoW Magazine features Indonesian artists, artwork showcase, interviews, special guests and lot more stuff. The presentation is not the best I’ve been so far (Bak for example is sublime on that), but it comes in a simple but well designed pagination.

Anyway, I think it’s a really worthwhile magazine to spend some of your time, specially if you are searching for new inspiration.

More eZine releases

If you’re looking for some more eZines, these magazines recently updated their issue number or check more eZines publications here.

Bak

Revolution Art

Moloko+

Icons Icons Icons…

greven — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:57:59 +0000

Smashing Magazine published yesterday a great list of Icon Sets for projects use. Some time ago on one of the first posts I’ve written on my blog, I’ve publish a list of Icons for Web use, but this post from Smashing Magazine hits the nail, it’s very complete and full of packs I didn’t know before. It even includes some Icons I’ve done… that’s nice.

Link: 50 Fresh Useful Icon Sets For Your Next Design

15+ Free File Hosting Websites

greven — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 08:04:04 +0000

Sooner or later we all end up searching for some file hosting service to host that big file we need to share with our colleagues or friends. Be it for professional reasons or for recreational use, File Hosting Websites are a useful tool in the common day of any web user.
By compiling this list of some of the top free file hosting providers I hope to help those of you searching for this type of service… that and will server as future reference for myself!

File Hosting

Service Name	Page Rank	File Size Limit	Space
Mediafire	6	100 MB	Unlimited
Box	7	25 MB	1 GB
Dropsend	6	250 MB	1 GB
Divshare	6	–	5 GB
Rapidshare	6	200 MB	Unlimited
4Shared	6	100 MB	5 GB
Badongo	5	–	Unlimited
Megaupload	6	–	200 GB
File Den	5	50 MB	1 GB
Filefactory	5	300 MB	Unlimited
Upload Drive	3	450 MB	Unlimited
Blazeload	3	100 MB	Unlimited
Filesavr	5	10 GB	–
Fileqube	4	150 MB	2 GB
File Dropper	4	5 GB	-
Filefront	5	600 MB	-

Top 10+ Free Fonts Websites

greven — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:44:39 +0000

If you are like me, you’re constantly searching for new Font Types. Most of the times we will never use all the fonts we’ve download, but variety is never a bad thing. We never know when we’ll need that specific font for that special work… or to just for that design rambling. So prepare your bookmarks because today is all about fonts…

Free Fonts Websites

1. daFont

Link: daFont

2. 1001 Free Fonts

Link: 1001 Free Fonts

3. Abstract Fonts

Link: Abstract Fonts

4. 1001 Fonts

Link: 1001 Fonts

5. Search Free Fonts

Link: Search Free Fonts

6. Urban Fonts