Sweet CSS3 Buttons – BonBon
Using the new features and flexibility CSS3 offers, designers keep coming with impressive outputs.
One of them is BonBon Buttons: attractive buttons that will possibly attract the Web 2.0-type design fans the most.
A single PNG image is used to give the noise effect and they have a shiny 3D-like look.
There is also a method provided for inserting Unicode Symbols inside buttons with the help of HTML5 custom data attributes.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)
Related posts
Amazing Pure CSS3 Experiments
The new and revitalized CSS3 properties have not only opened up many, many marvelous development solutions for web designers, it has also allowed talented developers to push the boat out further and showcase there CSS skills by building and styling in ways that were never ever thought possible previously.
In today’s news round-up we take a look at some of these amazing experimental pure CSS3 creations…
Please note, you will need either the latest version of Safari or the Chrome browser to fully experience these CSS3 experiments.
iOS Icons Made in Pure CSS
iPhone CSS3
Pure CSS Twitter Fail Whale
Pure CSS Animated 3D Super Mario Icon
Pure CSS Animated 3D Super Mario Icon
By Paul Andrew (Speckyboyand speckyboy@twitter).
Free Web Wireframing Kit In PSD
This is a free web wireframing kit for planning the layout of web projects easily and quickly.
It comes as a full-layered PSD file where all elements are grouped carefully.
There are many elements included like form elements, audio/video players, navigation, calendar and more.
And, the kit comes in 2 color themes: black and white.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)
Related posts
Wix: The Flash CMS – 3 Unlimited Premium Accounts Giveaway
Wix, the popular Flash CMS application, is giving away 3 Annual Unlimited Premium Accounts ($99 value/account) to WebResourcesDepot readers.
The details on joining the giveaway can be found at the bottom of this post. But before that:
What is Wix?
Wix is a free website builder tool that makes creating nice Flash websites so easy for anyone whether you have or don't have experience in web design.
The websites created are search engine friendly and adding image galleries, videos or streaming music is a breeze.
It integrates tightly with Google Analytics and helps tracking every detail of the websites.
Wix lets you customize every page totally and there are lots of templates offered if you prefer to start with something already good-looking. Here are some screenshots of the websites build with it:
And, there are much more live examples provided in the Wix Directory.
The free website builder also offers an e-commerce store creator to start selling stuff instantly.
How to join the giveaway?
In order to win one of the Unlimited Premium accounts which has attractive features like:
- using your own domain
- 1gb storage
- $75 Google AdWords voucher + $50 Facebook voucher + free domain coupon
it is enough to comment to this post and winners will be selected randomly with the query below on 8th of September 2010 (1 week later):
SELECT * FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_post_id=1825 AND comment_approved=1 AND comment_type='' GROUP BY comment_author_email ORDER BY RAND() LIMIT 3
Good luck to all.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)
Related posts
How to Create Pepsi Can in Photoshop
In our tutorial, we’ll be creating a shiny Pepsi can. For it to be convincingly realistic, a number of Layer Styles such as Gradients, Inner Shadows and Glows would be applied to a flat can shaped image.The resulting effect would be a 3D-like Pepsi can.
Step 1
We start off with a document size of 750 x 850 pixels, a resolution of 140 dpi and a white background. Head on to the Tools bar and pick the Pen Tool (P), then outline a shape of a can as shown below. You may want to enable Grids (pressing Ctrl+’), as guidelines as well. Also, an actual Pepsi can was used as reference for the most part of the tutorial.
The final outline:
Step 2
Right-click the can’s path and select Fill Path to add colour to the shape. I must add that, what the colour is, doesn’t matter at this point since we’ll be applying Layer Styles with a new set of colour.
The path has to be filled for Layer Styles to work or the layer would be indicated as empty.
Clear the path of the can shape with the Marquee Tool (M), by making a selection around the can and hitting Delete. Pressing Ctrl+D clears the selection. Duplicate this “can” layer for use later.
Step 3
Now, double-click on the “can” layer to bring up the Layer Style dialog box.
Select a Gradient Layer Style and edit its Gradient and Style (select Reflected) as shown below:
Step 4
Add an Inner Shadow Layer Style as well:
The final result for the “can” layer below:
Step 5
Select the “can copy” layer duplicated earlier on and below the Layers Palette, click on the third icon from the left for a Layer Mask. Select a Soft Round black brush with an opacity of 80% and paint away some of the mask of the ‘can’ duplicate.To get straight lines when painting, hold the shift key when painting downwards. Also reduce the opacity of the brush when fading/erasing the central section of the mask.
Step 6
To better blend the reflection we’re trying to create, go to Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur and set the Blur Radius to 4.0 pixels. And we get the result below:
Step 7
Create a new layer and name it “base.” We’ll now sketch out the base of the can with the Pen Tool as its been done below:
Step 8
From the options within the Pen Tool, select the add Anchor Point Tool and add more points to the outline and adjust them with your mouse or directional keys on the keyboard until the lines are
acceptably smooth.
Below is the final outline:
Step 9
Right-click within the outline (with the Pen or Anchor Point Tool still Selected), and select Fill Path for as ash colour to fill the base with. Select the Rectangular Marquee Tool and make a selection over the base and hit Delete to clear the base’s outline. Press Ctrl+D to clear the selection.
We have the result below:
Step 10
In a new layer above the “base” layer, draw a rectangle with the Rectangle Tool (U) and fill with an ash colour – #e8eaeb.
Step 11
We’ll create a brushed metal effect here with this popular technique. Go to Filter> Noise> Add Noise and set the Amount 32.5%. Also have Monochromatic checked.
Step 12
Head on to Filter> Blur> Motion Blur and increase its Distance to 70 pixels.
Step 13
Hit Ctrl+T to enter the Free Transform mode. Right-click, select the Warp Tool and bend the just slightly the rectangle.
Step 14
Right-click the layer and select the ‘Create Clipping Mask’ to clip the layer to th “base” layer. Also hit Ctrl+E to merge the two layers as one. The layer should still maintain the name as “base.”
Step 15
Add a Bevel and Emboss Layer Style with the parameters below:
Step 16
Follow up with an Inner Shadow style:
Step 17
Still on the Inner Shadow Layer Style dialog box, select Contour and adjust the points of its Mapping as shown below:
Step 18
Add a Satin style and reduce its opacity to 18%, Distance to 15% and Size to 25%.
Step 19
Adjust the Satin’s Contour Mapping to something of a slope.
Now we have a realistic looking metallic base for the can. Though the
steps used to achieve this was a bit tricky execute.
Step 20
In a new layer, select a Rounded Rectangle Tool with its Radius set to 5px on the tool’s Options bar. Fill the shape with the colour #e8eaeb and clear its outline with the Marquee Tool.
Step 21
Follow Steps 11 and 12 for a brushed metal effect for the “rim” layer.
Step 22
Press Ctrl+T for the Free Transform tool – the Warp Tool to be precised. Bend the rim of our can just a little upwards from the points (handles).
Step 23
For a more polished metal look, burn and lighten the areas of the rim with the Burn and Dodge Tools (O) respectively.
The result produces a shiny metal appearance.
Step 24
We’ll also add an Inner Glow Layer Style to the rim as this gives the rim a softer edges without fading.
Step 25
I downloaded a Pepsi logo and positioned it at the middle of the can with the help of Guides. Just enable them by pressing Ctrl+R and with the Move Tool (M), hold and drag the margins (rulers)of the workspace to align the Guides that appear from them.
Step 26
Position the Pepsi Logo within the set Guides. That done, press Ctrl+; to clear the Guides and Ctrl+R to remove the rulers.
Step 27
The logo mustn’t be perfectly round and so the Warp Tool (Ctrl+T) would be used to narrow its sides just a little. The aim of this to make the logo appear as if its bent over the curves of the can.
The result:
Step 28
With the Burn Tool (Range set to highlights and Exposure at 25%), darken the sides of the logo.
The logo now blends with the darker shades of the can.
Step 29
For the “text” layer use the Horizontal Type Tool (T), to type out the letters below. But before then, on the Type Tool Options bar, change the font to Myriad Web Pro and the foreground color on the Tools bar to white.
Step 30
This font was chosen because, it came closest in replicating Pepsi’s. Anyway, hit the Ctrl+T to enter Free Transform mode and scale the text downwards only just slightly.
Step 31
With the Rectangle Tool (for a new layer), draw and fill a small vertical rectangles with white.
Step 32
Use the Rectangular Marquee Tool to clip off a part of the “o” letter and clear the selection (Ctrl+D).
Step 33
Draw another small rectangle across the “o” for an “e”.
Step 34
Pressing Ctrl+T for the Free Transform Tool, more specifically, the Warp Tool, change the Warp type from Custom to Flag and its Bend to 30% at the Warp Tool’s Options bar. The “e” is given the signature shape of the original Pepsi logo.
Step 35
Right-click within the Warp and select Flip Horizontal to change the orientation of the Flag Warp to the way of how the original logo is.
Step 36
Before merging all these shapes with the text, the text must be rasterized by heading to Layer> Rasterize > Type. Then press Ctrl+E to merge the shapes the “text” layer. And With the Free Transform Tool, rotate and scale the text for a flatter look.
Step 37
Still within the Transform mode, have the text Skewed. That is, slanted forward on its axis.
Step 38
Select the Burn Tool, with an Exposure of 10% and darken the lower plane of the text.
Step 39
Type out the weight figures of the can in a new layer.
Step 40
Have the text slanted with the Skew Transform Tool.
Below is the final result:
Step 41
Create a new layer in between the “logo” and “rim” layers. Fill the layer with white using the Paint Bucket Tool (G) and then go to Filter> Pixelate> Mezzotint. Select the Type as Fine dots from the drop-down list.
Step 42
Add a Motion Blur with a Distance of about 230 pixels.
Step 43
From the Layers Palette, set the Blend Mode to Color Burn and reduce the layer’s opacity to about 45%. You’ll notice that the Blend effects does not show on the white areas of the image.
Step 44
Use the Warp Transform Tool to bend the ‘brushed’ effects so as to give the can a more rounded appearance.
The can now has a convincing brushed metal appearance.
Step 45
To make the brushed metal look not too distinctive, use the Eraser Tool (E) with a reduced opacity of 5% and carefully fade some portions of the brushed effects – do not erase completely.
The result:
Step 46
Now to create a couple shiny portions of the can at selected areas. Select the Elliptical Marquee Tool and on its Options bar, choose ‘Add to selection’ to create multiple selections (in this case, flat
circular shapes).
Step 47
Fill the selection with white using the Paint Bucket Tool and deselect the selection. Select the Smudge Tool at Strength of 50% and smear the white thinly across the can.
Step 48
Use the Eraser Tool to fade edges of the smudge.
Step 49
Create a new layer as the background layer and fill it with any colour; as the colour doesn’t matter for now. Add a Gradient Overlay Layer Style to the layer with the parameters below:
You’ll notice that the previous effects from Step 43 shows
through now and this is a good thing.
Step 50
Erase certain areas of the background layer with the Eraser Tool’s opacity set at 80%.
Step 51
Apply a Gaussian Blur to the layer with a Blur Radius of about 72.2 pixels.
Our Pepsi can now has an enhanced background. Something you’ll associate with an Ad for a product in a magazine.
Step 52
We’ll now fade the brushed metal effect at some points with the Eraser Tool.
Step 53
Create a “shadow1″ layer and select the Ellipse Tool to draw a flat circle. Fill it with black.
Step 54
Add a Gaussian Blur to the shape with a Radius of about 8.7 pixels.
Step 55
In another layer, draw another circle and fill with a black colour.
Step 56
Blur this circle a lot more than the previous one. This time with the Blur Radius set at 33.5 pixels.
This is the order of the layers so far in the Palette.
Step 57
Create a new layer at the top of the Layers Palette and name it “gloss.” Select a white Soft brush and paint the on both sides of the can – hold down the Shift key to constrain your brush stroke to a straight line.
Step 58
Set the “gloss” layer’s Blend mode to Soft Light and reduce its opacity to 76%.
Here another image with the “gloss” layer’s Blend mode changed to Overlay. I sort of like this blend for it give the Pepsi can a lot more radiance that corresponds with the intense light from the background. Well, we’ll stick with the above image – if you prefer.
Step 59
Finally, darken the both ends of the base of the Pepsi can with the Burn Tool for a more solid look. And we’re are through! Hope this kick-starts some fella’s career in the brand marketing field.
Dynamic Dummy Image Generator With PHP
There can be cases that you may want to generate images dynamically like using it as a background, displaying the titles of a post inside an image, etc.
Dynamic Dummy Image Generator is a free PHP script that helps creating images with any size, color and text over them.
It has many predefined sizes for popular uses (like banner sizes) and works by sending the details inside the URL like: http://dummyimage.com/480x160/333333/fff&text=This+is+a+Dummy+Image is actually how the image above is created.
Tip: The website also displays similar dummy text generators that are built with other scripting languages.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)
Related posts
PHP RSS Reader Gets Better With New Version
PHP RSS Reader, a free application with a paid/premium version that was shared before at WRD, now has a new version with nice features.
The application can crawl any number of feeds and can organize them inside categories created.
Similar to how Google News does, it can now show related news articles appear below each new item, in clusters nice way of discovering more.
The premium version has the ability to categorize contents that include pre-defined keywords which is very useful if you're monitoring your brand or a specific subject.
That version also has a multi-user interface where each user can create his/her own feeds and vote on the stories displayed.
Who is it good for?
It fits to various scenarios:
- creating a website from scratch which totally feeds from other sources.
- a companion to a website for displaying content from other similar websites.
- monitoring your brand or specific keywords from preferred sources (Twitter, newspapers and more).
P.S. The premium version also comes with an optional free installation.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)
Related posts
A Selection of Mobile UI Wireframe Sketches
Reading about the UI design process of any web site, web application or even a mobile app can be very informative and inspirational for any designer. But nothing would beat experiencing the initial design process, as the original designer did, and getting the chance to view the fruition of a UI concept. The only way you could experience this is by having a look at the designers initial wireframe sketches, and that is exactly what we have for you today in this news round-up – A Selection of Mobile UI Wireframe Sketches.
iPhone Sketches: Paper, Pencils, Wooden Forms, Ink and Brush
iPhone Sketches: Paper, Pencils, Wooden Forms, Ink and Brush
Harvest iPhone App Sketches
Early Ember Sketches in Color
By Paul Andrew (Speckyboyand speckyboy@twitter).
Hosted & Optimized JS Libraries – Cached Commons
Cached Commons is a repository of many JavaScript libraries that are cached, optimized and hosted on Github's CDN.
It is free for everyone and works by simply using the URLs mentioned (original or the minimized versions) as the script tag URLs.
Compared to the popular Google Libraries API, it hosts a much more number of libraries including many jQuery plugins, visualization or the ones for markup.
The only downside for now is that, there is only jQuery as a JS framework and hopefully, it'll start hosting others soon.
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)
Related posts
Faster And Fault-Proof Tweet Button
At WRD, the previous tweet button for sharing stories was the cool Easy Retweet Button by John Resig. However, it was not perfect as, sometimes, it was unable to communicate with the URL shortener service and the tweet links were appearing buggy.
In search for a better one, I tested few others including the official tweet button. They were loading the links ok but had other issues like "loading slow", "blocking pages on load", etc.
And, for a button that is clicked by -maybe- 1/100 of the visitors, loading the scripts and making requests for every visitor didn't look like the smartest choice.
Here is another method, that is actually used at WRD now which loads very fast for everyone and almost fault-proof.
How it works?
First of all, the button is hosted locally and it does not make any requests until it is clicked.
- A link with the querystring that includes URL and the title of the web page is created, pointed to a server-side file (to be presented later in this article) and attached to any custom button we design.
- Once clicked, it sends the URL and title to the server-side file which creates the tweet link and redirects to Twitter with the tweet.
Pros
- Does not load any scripts from other domains (faster).
- Does not perform anything until being clicked (faster).
- Works with multiple URL shortener services. Currently, it uses Bit.ly by default, during the shortening, if there is an error, it falls back to Tinyurl. And if there is an error again, it uses the default URL. (fault-proof).
- Counts the number of characters used and, if more than 140, reformats it. (fault-proof).
- Any tweet button that you design can be used or just a "tweet it " text is enough (styleable).
Cons
- Does not display the number of retweets (as no requests are made on load).
The Code
It is built by PHP. You'll see that the code is simple and can be ported to any other scripting language quickly. Here it is:
<?php
/*
- A customizable, fast-loading and fault-proof tweet button.
- Built by Umut Muhaddisoglu (@umutm) of http://www.webresourcesdepot.com.
- Strict LTADSSIYND License (Listen To A Dire Straits Song If You Never Did)
*/
/* Requires Update - START */
$viaText = ' (via @umutm)';
$bitlyLogin = 'yourBitlyLogin';
$bitlyApiKey = 'yourBitlyPass';
/* Requires Update - END */
/* ******************************No Need To Update Below****************************** */
/* Getting Post Variables - START */
$postURL = urlencode($_GET['postURL']);
$postTitle = html_entity_decode(htmlspecialchars_decode($_GET['postTitle'], ENT_QUOTES));
/* Getting Post Variables - END */
/* Bit.ly Shorten Function - START */
function getBitlyURL($theURL,$theBitlyLogin,$theBitlyApiKey) {
return file_get_contents('http://api.bit.ly/v3/shorten?login=' . $theBitlyLogin . '&apiKey=' . $theBitlyApiKey . '&longUrl=' . $theURL . '&format=txt');
}
/* Bit.ly Shorten Function - END */
/* TinyURL Shorten Function - START */
function getTinyURL($theURL) {
return file_get_contents('http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=' . $theURL);
}
/* TinyURL Shorten Function - END */
/* Shorten URL - START */
$shortenedURL = getBitlyURL($postURL,$bitlyLogin,$bitlyApiKey);
if (strrpos($shortenedURL, "bit.ly") == false) {
$shortenedURL = getTinyURL($postURL);
if (strrpos($shortenedURL, "tinyurl") == false) {
$shortenedURL = $postURL;
}
}
/* Shorten URL - END */
/* Prepare Tweet - START */
$tweet = urlencode($postTitle) . urlencode(' - ') . $shortenedURL . $viaText;
$tweetLength = strlen($postTitle . ' - ' . $shortenedURL . $viaText);
$postTitleLength = strlen($postTitle);
$restLength = strlen(' - ' . $shortenedURL . $viaText);
$dotsMargin = 4;
if ($tweetLength > 140) {
$tweet = urlencode(substr($postTitle,0,140 - $restLength - $dotsMargin)) . urlencode('.. - ') . $shortenedURL . $viaText;
}
/* Prepare Tweet - END */
/* Redirect To Twitter - START */
header('Location: http://twitter.com/home?status=' . $tweet);
/* Redirect To Twitter - END */
?>
The Button
It is possible to use a button you designed. At WRD, the "Official Tweet Button" images are used thinking that they will be the standard soon. If you prefer to use it too, here is the HTML-CSS for it:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Faster Tweet Button</title>
<style>
#tweetButton a {display:block;width:55px;height: 20px;background: url("tweetButton.png") 0 0 no-repeat;}
#tweetButton a:hover {background: url("tweetButton.png") 0 -20px no-repeat;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<span id="tweetButton"><a href="http://www.thedomain.com/tweet.php?postURL=changeWithTeURL&postTitle=changeWithTheTitle" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a></span>
</body>
</html>
How To Install?
Here are the steps:
- Open tweet.php and edit the Bit.ly user-pass of yours (it is free to get one) and the "via" text in the beginning of the file.
- Upload the file anywhere under your website.
- Link to your tweet button image with <a href="http://www.mydomain.com/tweet.php?postURL=<?php echo 'http://www.theURLOfThePage.com'?>&postTitle=<?php urlencode('The Title')?>"></a> by editing the URL and the title
- That's it.
For WordPress
After the first 2 steps above, for the 3rd step:
- Link to your tweet button image with <a href="http://www.webresourcesdepot.com/tweet.php?postURL=<?php echo get_permalink(); ?>&postTitle=<?php echo urlencode(get_the_title($post->ID)); ?>" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"></a>
Any thoughts to make it better?
Special Downloads:
Ajaxed Add-To-Basket Scenarios With jQuery And PHP
Free Admin Template For Web Applications
jQuery Dynamic Drag’n Drop
ScheduledTweets
Advertisements:
Professional XHTML Admin Template ($15 Discount With The Code: WRD.)
Psd to Xhtml
SSLmatic – Cheap SSL Certificates (from $19.99/year)