New
The Book
Some people will know from following me on Twitter that I was approached about doing a jQuery for Designers book late last year.
Last week the project has been officially agreed and is moving forward. The publishers are Manning, and I understand they also have an early access programme in place (which I’ll announce as soon as anything is available - should be around late March I believe).
The book will be aimed at the designers and newbies wanting to create interaction in their projects, and how it can be achieved using jQuery. The book is recipe based, and gradually tries to solve bigger and more complicated problems.
The first chapter is already done and ready to be sent to the publishers, and I’m looking at a completion date of around the end of June - after which it’s down to Manning to publish it (again, I’ll keep you updated).
The New Logo
Leading in to what I’ll be talking about next, jQuery for Designers has a new logo - though it’s not in use just yet.
There were a great number of submissions for the new logo, but this one I (and some of you) liked the most (plus, there’s, kind of, a hidden easter egg in the logo, can you see it? - I though was cute!).
The Redesign
Last, but certainly not least, jQuery for Designers is getting a long overdue redesign.
I started this blog in December 2007 (having sat on the idea for well over 6 months), and I grabbed the first WordPress theme that I thought looked clean enough.
Since the focus quickly shifted from written tutorial content to screencasts, I need a theme that reflects that (although I’m continuing to support screencasts with the written tutorial).
A good designer and friend of mine, Chris Mahon, is working on the wireframes for the design and I’ll be upgrading the theme in the coming months.
I’ve uploaded Chris’ wireframes to QuickSnapper for you to see what we’re planning.
Annoyingly the order and timestamps were lost from the original wires, but feel free to comment either on this post, or on the individual screenshots - positive or negative. They’re obviously just wires (and there’s a few empty blocks that indicate so), but all feedback is welcome to help us make the final design great for you.
You should follow me on Twitter here I tweet about jQuery amongst the usual tweet-splurges!
Related screencasts
Demo
If you find this demo doesn't work as expected, it's possibly due to the demo running from within an iframe. Try running the demo in it's own window.
Source Code
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jyoseph On 3rd February 2009 at 19:02
SLICK! I really enjoy the site and look forward to the improvements. Furthermore, I will be buying the book, you can count on that!
Carlos On 3rd February 2009 at 19:02
Can’t wait for the book! BTW, the homepage_2 wireframe look’s a way better than the homepage
C.
chazzuka On 3rd February 2009 at 20:02
I am waiting for the book :) i have posted it in my blog after your tweet, problem solve book will be better than “docs like” book, but i hope there also tips for optimizing nor writing complex plugin …
the design is good but i think i want to see the spot of classic style article list also.
Lisandro Vico On 3rd February 2009 at 22:02
YEAH!
I’ve being following J4D for over a year and have to say I really like the way you teach. Im from Argentina and sometimes english tutorials get kind of hard to follow, but yours are really easy to understand.
Also really looking forward to read the book. Do you know if I will get it here in Argentina?
The redesign was pretty necessary i think…can’t wait to see it.
Andrew On 3rd February 2009 at 23:02
Nice new Logo! Is the easter egg that the “4″ almost looks like a “q”?
Remy On 3rd February 2009 at 23:02
@Andrew - nope :-)
Think “animal”.
The ‘easter egg’ literally has nothing to do with anything. It was just a side effect of the design.
Tim Fletcher On 4th February 2009 at 01:02
Animal? I’m getting an Elephant!
Andrew On 4th February 2009 at 02:02
Ah! An Elephant?
Elliot On 4th February 2009 at 02:02
i tried to see something else but all I can see is an elephant, a computer mouse and CHR (Chris Mahon?). Ok, I follow you although I seldom comment here, shame on me. I’m really happy for you and your book moving forward, I hope I will be getting it soon. @lisandro, you can ask Cuspide.com to bring the book for you. I’ve bought several books in this way, they usually arrive in one month.
William On 4th February 2009 at 23:02
Congratulations on the book. I also follow the site but am not one to post.
I would like to make a comment on the new design though.
The wire frame layouts are slick and exciting but please don’t leave the color scheme dominantly black. I always have a hard time sticking around sites that are black.
Anyways, Thanks for the excellent resource. I look forward to new tutorials, screencast and reading the book when it comes out.
Regards, William
Remy On 4th February 2009 at 23:02
@William - absolutely. The colour won’t be dark - this is purely for the wireframe phase so that we’re focusing on the layout and presentation before we apply colour.
Thanks again to everyone who posted.
And, for those who couldn’t quite see it, randomly, yes, it’s an elephant!
Tim Print On 5th February 2009 at 10:02
Your jquery tutorials are the best I’ve found for simple pixel pushers like me. I’m reading Jeremy Keith’s ‘Dom Scripting’ at the moment and I’ll definitely follow it up with your book when it’s available.
Rusti On 5th February 2009 at 13:02
I am looking forward to the book!
I’d love to see the new design keep the orange colors, it makes you unique and identifiable.
Keep up the good work! More complete noob stuff please!
chovy On 5th February 2009 at 15:02
Awesome — can’t wait to read it.
rsteiner On 9th February 2009 at 20:02
Liking the new site design - a lot.
What’s up with all the black? Are you going to be peddling Black/Death Metal goods for extra cash?
Greg Johnson On 15th February 2009 at 07:02
Hey Remy,
A few suggestions for the wire frames:
The number of comments is not that important of an element. Too many designers give it undue emphasis and this is definitely one of those cases. On the articles page - http://quicksnapper.com/remy/image/categories-0000/ - (mistakenly labeled categories btw) a huge deal is made of the number of comments for each article. A much more useful bit of information for people would be the running time of the video and perhaps an arbitrary skill-level declaration for the post in question.
Offer a popup for the videos. If a reader is on your site and following a tutorial, they’re using their browser to do so.
Wood grain and paper textures have been done to death. Keep it clean and keep it simple.
Congrats on the book. I’ll be looking forward to it.
Tom Arnfeld On 6th July 2009 at 16:07
Hey, I really want this book.. when does it come out, and where can i buy it? Perhaps may i recommend Amazon, i have a voucher waiting to be spent on something VERY worth while! This!
Project2501 On 11th July 2009 at 03:07
I second Tom… are you still working on the book? Having some degree of experience in that area, I was thinking that you might have been a little too optimistic regarding the book’s schedule but then you also organized events and presented, worked on the jQuery API browser, etc., so being too optimistic or not, it doesn’t seem like you could have been done with the book in June… unless, of course, you’re actually superman(, which might explain a few things)..! At any rate, it’d be good to hear whether the book is still alive. Thanks!
Remy On 11th July 2009 at 07:07
Hi all,
Yep - the book is still in progress, though @Project2501 is right, it’s definitely not finished now that we’ve passed June (due to delays on both mine and the publishers side) - but I am still pressing on and I know it will be going to MEAP (early availability/first chapters, etc) soon.
As soon as there’s anything publicly available, I’ll be publishing it here, and hopefully you have your input on what’s been done so far.
I’m hope you all like it and find it useful, book writing is strangely different to blog post writing: in particularly it’s not interactive. Daft as it sounds, but being able to rely on links in blog posts makes a world of difference!
Anyway, watch this space! :-)