Text snippets with Phrase Express

For quite some time now I have been searching for another solution for creating blog posts that would cut down on my time on a per post basis. Some posts can take as long as an hour, and I haven’t had too many posts that come in much under 20 minutes. I shudder to think about the time spent on this site in the name of ‘passion’ (1,500 posts).

The largest block of time where some efficiency could be improved is in my HTML coding and image insertion. I had found myself typing the same div and img tags constantly, and while this is good practice, at some point I need a better solution. This is where Phrase Express improves my conception to publish timeline. Here is a screen demonstrating one ‘code snippet’ I’ve setup;

I don’t use the built in WordPress media library. I like to organize my image by semantic directories, which is beneficial for image indexing as well as saving my old memory. Who wants to try to remember what day / year I posted about the Dreamweaver – Adobe merger? It makes much more sense to file that under something like images/design/news.

In this screenshot you can see by typing six characters and a signal key, Phrase Express will then delete and rewrite the snippet of code I need. I this case it is ‘imglnk’ will type out a base link and image HTML snippet. Either I can type this information into a ‘new snippet’, or at any time you can type text in any piece of software, highlight it, and tell Phrase Express to save the snippet.

Why not use the WordPress GUI Editor?

Some people would ask “Why don’t you just use the GUI in WordPress?” There is a certain flow to writing a post. The GUI has the ability to insert an images with alt tags and links if you know the paths to those items. There are even WordPress plugins that insert custom HTML tags. But in the end, I still have to go back and add specific classes and titles as necessary as attributes and sometimes custom image widths and other ‘one off’ codes. With Phrase Express I have granular control to insert as specific of a code snippet that I re-use as I want. With WordPress I still have to go back and manually insert what I need.

How much time can you save using Phrase Express?

I would venture to say that I think I can save upwards of 10 minutes per post, depending on the detail to give you an idea. Phrase Express is free, easy to install and easy to use.

I have found that Phrase Express is not completely stable. I will be working in something completely unrelated and all of sudden the program will error out and quit, sometimes even when I come back to an idle computer I’ll see the program has shut down. Not a big deal, it’s never made my system unstable. I also find it a little strange that when you have the snippet editing screen open Phrase Express stops working, but again, small thing that really isn’t a big deal. Usability-wise I would recommend the software to get up and running in less than 10 minutes.

Experience with Phrase Express?

Or another automated snippet generation software? Let us know how Phrase Express has benefited your flow of posting or what problems you might be having. Thanks again to Brian on pointing out Phrase Express.

You're reading Save tons of time blogging with Phrase Express is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

WordPress post writing window – Check for ‘quotes’

Most people know Word, and what is not to know. You open up a document and start typing and save. It’s what people are comfortable with, and I haven’t met too many people that like change.

But what you don’t know is that Microsoft has it’s own special markup language that doesn’t translate to the web. Here is a perfect example. Over the weekend I had some time to write a post or two remotely on the laptop. I just pulled up Word not thinking about it, wrote my post and saved. Later on I copied and pasted right into WordPress. Here is what you will notice;

See the quote on the left? That isn’t a real quote, but a fake character. WordPress can’t interpret the encoding Word has used and has made an unknown character that suspiciously looks like a real quote mark. The quote on the right is a real quote and HTML understands that character. If we were to zoom into the quotes, they’d look something like this;

Quotes aren’t the only characters that are problematic. Any characters that need an ampersign to be translated to HTML can cause the same issues. Register marks (®), Copyright signs (©), “ands” (&), ellipses (…) and even blank spaces come up as little image translations of the real character or are bad translations you can even see (spaces).

The killer is that your website may never have a problem. You may cruise along, typing merrily supporting the Remond bohemoth and then one day you lose many years of work. Or, you might have several hundred posts that when corrupted, have incorrect characters throughout that can only be solved by manually checking every last piece of text. I always think of the car commercials where the women is seeing the clear cut messages of breakdown everywhere she looks.

Solution for proper web formatting and encoding

If you have typed up a post in WordPress not all is lost. Usually you can copy all of your text, paste it into Notepad or Wordpad, save the document, and then copy that out and paste into WordPress. Sometimes you don’t even need to save, but by saving you ensure that the software completely strips out any Microsoft specific formatting.

For tech users, you can use a free piece of software called PSPad or even paste into a recent copy of Dreamweaver. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe at version CS2 and above Dreamweaver started to automatically translate characters from content pasted out of Word. (It used to be even Dreamweaver didn’t translate the characters correctly.) In either case again, then paste into your WordPress post window.

The ultimate solution when working remote, is to use an offline blogging software (The best I’ve found, ironically, is Microsoft’s Live Writer) and synchronize posts later, or just get used to writing in a software without formatting and do all your formatting in WordPress. That’s what you are doing anyway, right ?

Had any horror stories from mis-encoded characters beyond website validation? Leave a comment and tell us what and let others know how really really bad using Word for content can be.

You're reading Never use Microsoft Word to write blog posts is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

My top 5 necessary plugins for WordPress

I need a one click install for all of these to save that little bit of time…but hey, WordPress MU and WordPress are merging, so soon enough this will be possible. Back to the plugins;

1. Askimet – This plugin is a no brainer. If you are serious about getting traffic on your blog, you have to have a way to filter out comment spam. Even a small site can get serveral hundred spam comments a day, and I know this site gets thousands, it’s ineluctable. Developed by Automattic, the people who bring you WordPress, so you know that it’s quality and that as long as you have one, you will have the other. Make sure to get an API key, the instructions are easy to follow.
2. All in One SEO Pack – There for awhile we weren’t sure if All in One SEO Pack would live on. The original developer decided he wasn’t going to maintain the plugin anymore, but another developer stepped up. What is ‘SEO Pack’? It is a plugin that allows you to customize the title, description and keywords for each post. Crucial to doing Search Engine Optimization. Otherwise when you put your keywords and description in the default settings for WordPress, that information is carried across every post, no matter the topic. Build your traffic, make the effort to customize your titles to be keyword rich and make the post keywords agree.
3. Google XML Sitemaps – Want to do well in Google? Then you kind of have to play their game. Google loves sitemaps, and with an ever growing blog with dynamic links, this would be impossible to generate manually. Enter Google XML Sitemaps, which generates, you guessed it, a sitemap of your blog / website as an XML file helped Google more accurately index your whole site and increase the chances of searchers finding you. A must have, and it has a good deal of options to customize if you are an more advanced SEO guru like what categories of your website to index, how often, priority of indexing and custom directory locations for your XML file.
4. Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu – This one may be a preference, but I love this Admin Drop Down Menu plugin. Even with WordPress’ many incarnations of how they structure their navigation, I always finding myself two to three clicks in to get to what I want. Not anymore. Since about version 2.6 I’ve been using this plugin to make my menus horizontal at the top and you hover to get the menu item you need. Only one click. It saves a ton of time when navigating through your administrative panel. Trust me. And it gives you about 10% more real estate to play with as well for writing posts.
5. Cforms – I should start out by saying, I used Cforms more out of legacy than anything else. I think when I first investigated Contact Form plugins for WordPress two years ago, this was the best available option. The form works great, you just install and you’re done, and it comes with a captcha and a tremendous amount of options for designing multiple multi-tied contact forms throughout your website.

Continuing on with Cforms though, I do have my gripes. The problem this plugin has is an customization information overload. The options are dizzing, but everything you could possible think of for designing a contact form is right at your fingertips. Also, I think his website could be better. He has the same complex on his website, an overwhelming amount of information. It seems like he could simplify but keep more advanced information in a separate location.

Plus, updates come very frequently. Sometimes it seems like it is every week, and you can’t use the WordPress ‘automatic’ plugin upgrade to update this plugin, especially if you have a custom stylesheet for the presentation of your form. (Update: I just did a search in the WordPress plugin repository, and can’t find cforms in there, heck why no link. I think other options might be out there, but you probably won’t find another contact form plugin that is nearly as rich. Just know that if you want to do anything beyond the default, be prepared to spend a little time figuring out how Cforms works.

What are your top plugins?

Those are my top five plugins that I upload with every install of WordPress. What are yours? Are you using a contact form plugin that you really like?

I am sure that at least 3-4 of these probably overlap, but if you are using WordPress for a website that is a little off the beaten path, you might have some other things installed. I have several dozen plugins installed, and most of them I could not do without, or so I tell myself. It is always about discovering something new, and I know I’ve found a plugin or two I didn’t know existed by reading another blog. That is the beauty of WordPress – the amount of great third party plugins. Dive in and see what you can find, you’ll be surprised what is out there for a specific niche.

You're reading My Top 5 ‘Must Have’ Plugins for WordPress is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

Using masks in Photoshop to punch

I know there are a ton of tutorials online about how to punch out text using Photoshop. It’s knowing what search term to use – I used “photoshop punch text tutorial”. It will be something to that effect of ‘punching text’, but I actually had little luck myself…

Anyhoo. Here is the text we’ll be making at the top of this image, part of a masthead for a fictional Donkey Kong inspired website called ‘Jumping Barrels.com’.

It is hard to tell, but I have actually used the flyer from Donkey Kong as the image to use for my punch.

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Image Credit: ArcadeFlyers.com

The steps to punching out any text

For this step by step, it is assumed the user has some familiarity of Photoshop or another similar layer based graphics editing package.

• Step 1: Select the image to punch and open in Photoshop
• Step 2: Open the layers palette if not already open (Window > Layers – or F7)
• Step 3: Double click the name of your selected image to make it an editable layer
• Step 4: Create two folders – One named ‘Punched Out Text’ and one named ‘Text Mask’
• Step 5: Drag ‘Text Mask’ inside of ‘Punched Out Text’, effectively nesting it
• Step 6: Drag your chosen image into the ‘Text Mask’ layer
• Step 7: Type out the text in question with chosen font
• Step 8: Make sure text is on the bottom of the stacking order
• Step 9: Hold Ctrl and click with your cursor on the big “T” on that text layer (not the layer name). You are making a selection using the shapes of the letters in your text.
• Step 10: Click the folder named ‘Text Mask’ and then click the button ‘Add Layer Mask’
• Step 11: Drag image around inside folder to position to taste
• Step 12: Add layer effects to taste. I used a white stroke and a black outer glow.

Here is what your layer setup will look like when you’ve finished;

The reason I put every layer inside ‘Punched Out Text’ is just in case you want to use these graphics in another file for your custom WordPress layout. All you need to do at that point is right click that folder name and select ‘Duplicate Group’ and choose the destination file.

Author’s Note: Here is my opinion. Utilizing the graphical technique of punching text is an occurance I can probably count on one hand for how many times I used. It is a basic technique and for a savvy graphical consumer, they identify an easy flashy trick immediately which reflects the skill of the user.

Plus, if you use this technique, you can risk obscuring legibility of some of the most important text in your design project, which also detracts from the strength of your brand. You really have to use a thicker font, choose the right image, and maybe use some other text effects to make this treatment work. Use sparingly.

A good example of a good treatment of this effect comes to mind at ‘The Pinball Blog’. Nick used a large font size and the font itself is thick as well;

Quick Tutorial on Photoshop text effects – Questions?

I went quick, and assumed a lot. Tutorials can grow exponentially explaining every little piece. I assumed a certain familiarity in the layer palette in Photoshop and what the buttons do.

You're reading Photoshop tutorial for punching text ‘effect’ out of an image is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

Fireworks was built with the web designer in mind

Last week I pointed out Photoshop’s issue with opening layered pngs. Photoshop also stumbles in the way of web editing because the feature sets have always been an afterthought. Let’s start to add up the seconds you can save for each time you edit a graphic or slice within a web document. Let’s assume that in the course of a layout, you edit all of your aggregate slices 30-50 times.

If you are creating even remotely graphic intensive designs in your firm or your day to day life, you know the importance of slicing. I won’t get into a long explanation if you don’t know what slicing is, but generally know, slicing is the idea that you define square and rectangular areas of your layout to export as individual images with potentially different image qualities based on their graphical makeup.

Slicing your layout

Photoshop has a slice tool in the toolbar and you can easily click and draw a rectangle over an area to prep for export.

Here I’ve drawn a Photoshop slice over a flyer for an arcade game called Extra Bases. You can barely see the brown (selected) slice outline, as well as the other slices in light dotted blue. If memory serves me, there is a way to chance the visual look for slices in Photoshop, but this is the default look. (Meaning: You have to spend extra time on every install changing it if available.)

Now let’s look at how slices look in Fireworks using the same image.

It is so easy to see the slice you’ve made, it’s in light green. In both Photoshop and Fireworks the power user shortcuts make it easy to turn slices on and off. Fireworks, you just hit the number 2, and in Photoshop it’s Ctrl + H. But Fireworks, in my opinion, makes it easier later to select the slice. You just your ubiquitous ‘Pointer Tool’ to select any and all objects on a Fireworks canvas. With Photoshop, you have a special slice select tool, that is the secondary option in the slice menu option and you have to cycle through (Shift button modifier) to get to it.

Time saved: 1-2 Seconds

Naming Slices

Fireworks and Photoshop are fairly comparable in this regard. If you are smart, you will name your images will specific names that will bring you image search traffic. To name your images when slicing them within a larger layout, you actually give the slice a name. In Photoshop, you have to break out the slice selection tool and double click the slice to change the name.

In Fireworks, use that same ‘point tool’, click the slice and in your properties panel in the lower left you just start typing and hit enter when you are done and the slice is named.

Fireworks even goes a step further and adds the slices as an editable object in your layers palette under a sub folder called ‘Web Layer’. At any point in time you can just click the double slice layer and rename it, going right now the list. No doubleclicking each slice. It’s that extra thought in editing that makes the workflow much better for web developers.

Time saved: 1-2 Seconds

Exporting Slices

Holy cow does Photoshop fall down flat here. When coding an HTML page from scratch, I know I may adjust my layout to allow for repeating graphics, alignment, etc. etc. I only want to target one slice, and export that one slice.

In Photoshop (remember you have to cycle through to a specify slice selection tool), you select the slice and then you have to ‘Save for web’. Poweruser shortcut of Ctrl + Alt + Shift + S

Now, if you want to save just that slice, you have to click on it, hit ‘Save’ and then by default Photoshop wants to save every slice. You have to choose from the dropdown menu that you only want to export the one selected slice.

And done! Only five easy steps to click through. Wow.

Let’s compare that to Fireworks.

You are using your general ‘pointer tool’, you right click on a slice and you choose ‘Export Selected Slice’ like so;

If you notice, by default you will see that Fireworks has understood you only want to export this one slice, not the whole document and has checked the according box.

You’re done. Plus, the other great thing is that once you export the document as a whole once to a folder, Fireworks remembers your export location and when you right click to save that slice, it will place you in the same directory as before. Photoshop will do the same thing, and it will remember if you choose ‘selected slice’, however….by default Photoshop will always stick your image inside of an ‘images’ folder. So, if you want to export your image to images > arcade > extra bases, Photoshop will add an extra ‘images’ directory inside of there to put your image for no reason at all. Memory serves me that there is a way to change this, but again, not a default setup.

Time saved: 7 Seconds

Many more web graphic advantages to Fireworks

You can see, you can save on average over 10 seconds of time per slice, or possibly 3-5 minutes over the course of your layout.

Granted, 3-5 minutes may not seem like much, but a power user will really appreciate that. 3-5 minutes can save you some money, but it also means you have to spend less time making something work and more time designing or just relaxing because you are more efficient. This is just one tiny granual of why Fireworks is better than Photoshop for building out website. Even at 3-5 minutes per feature and 10-20 better features, you are looking at a ton of time saved.

Prior to the Macromedia / Adobe merger in 2004, a designer could use the excuse that they didn’t have Fireworks and they weren’t going to buy it. That’s fine, a good argument. However, Fireworks now comes with the design package branded as a ‘rapid prototyping tool. So if your excuse is that you are heavily vested in Photoshop, and would rather something take more time than learn something new then you may be in the wrong industry. Technology moves too fast to stay stagnant and there is too much to know already.

Have other thoughts? Think I’m wrong? Have another piece of software that is even faster for exporting web graphics? Leave a comment, let me know.

You're reading Save time exporting web images using Fireworks is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

I love Fireworks, for more than ‘Rapid Prototyping’

That is how Adobe has rebranded Fireworks since they’ve bought it. Fireworks is ‘The’ tool to quickly mock up some interactive rough websites, and then as a designer you should use Photoshop to make that layout.

I happen to love Fireworks, from day one it was designed for the web graphic workflow, where Photoshop incorporate the features for saving out web graphics and it has always seemed like an afterthought for that reason. Photoshop, hands down the best raster editing software, Fireworks can’t touch it. But for speed of savings out graphics and keep files organized and manuverability, Fireworks beats Photoshop.

So, I still use Fireworks at the risk that it might disappear one day. But my question is still, Photoshop is the industry leading graphics software, it should be able to opened layered Fireworks files with the layers. Instead, Photoshop flattens the layers.

Save As Work-around

This seems like it would be so easy to implement. I did find out a work around. If you need to open a layered Fireworks .png in Photoshop, just save it out of Fireworks as a .psd;

This worked for the one application I needed, but I do venture this guess. Fireworks can open .psd’s, it does a so so job, but the files are layered. If you have some sort of complex graphical layout that if you save it out as a Photoshop file, it won’t be ‘just right’ when you open it in Photoshop.

Anyone have extensive experience with this? Care to comment? Rant over.

You're reading Editing layered Fireworks pngs in Photoshop is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

Features an offline blogging tool should have

I read an article on About.com last night listing the 10 must have features of an offline blog editor. I think the main headings that they hit on are true, tag editing features, saving drafts, costs, etc. etc. This post will be an extension of that article in a sense but changing the idea to essential features an offline blog editor should have for the advanced WordPress user and how BlogDesk performs.

The Negative

1. Maintain hierarchy in categories – I would go out on a limb and say that any blog with 1,000-2,000 posts could potentially have 30-40++ categories. There may be 2-3 levels deep on categories, and the offline blog editor should maintain that hierarchy. BlogDesk does not, instead pulling the categories into one long alphabetical scrolling list. Ouch.
2. Easy code insertion to delineate an excerpt – In WordPress, it is so easy to quickly click the ‘more’ button and add the code to mark where the excerpt ends. I usually write my posts in such a manner that the lead in can be the separate introduction. BlogDesk has a separate tab for ‘Excerpt’ and ‘More’. These allow you to have separate text for what will display before the ‘more’ link, as well as the copy that will appear in your RSS feed (Excerpt). However, you have to manually copy that text over to the other tabs. There is no one click button to add the “more” code to your post. BlogDesk does have some saving grace in that a user can easily add this code to the ‘Frequently Used Phrases’.
3. GUI buttons available in code view – It would seem logical enough, that all buttons should be available regardless of the ‘view’. However BlogDesk doesn’t appear to allow the user to use those formatting buttons in the ‘source’ view. I can’t one click to bold text or add images. I give the software a failing grade just for that reason. Your basic user will only use the software in ‘Normal’ view, but why wouldn’t the buttons always be available?

The Positive

1. The ability to control image uploads – The fact that the blogger gets to control where and how the images included in the posts are uploaded. As the editor, you can choose to ftp the images or can choose to ‘DirectUpload’. I don’t know what it means to ‘DirectUpload’, and the decent help system doesn’t specify if images are added to the library and hence the database in WordPress, or if they are just uploaded to a predefined directory. I haven’t tried both, but having the options there is a plus.
2. Frequently Used Phrases – I already talked about this with the ‘more’ tag, but for a power user I feel like this is a great feature of BlogDesk. If you find yourself constantly typing in the same pieces of HTML code this will allow you to save those snippets, and then easily double click to insert. There is a dialog for the ‘phrases’ that can be brought up with a keystroke of F7.
3. It’s Free – Simply put, BlogDesk is free. Can’t beat that. As I move along and try other editors I think I will find the market space for free offline blog editors small. The screen shots on the website don’t do the software justice, but moving around feels fairly intuitive and smooth for a regular blogger.
4. Spellcheck before upload – Love this feature. This is a real point of difference for an offline editor. I don’t know if an extension in WordPress can do this, I am sure it can. But WordPress might look at adding something like this to the core.

Your review of BlogDesk

If you have any additional input to add, lets hear it. There are a number of other positives that could be listed, and I am sure there are other limitations. I won’t get to explore everything on either front due to the prohibitive shortcomings of BlogDesk for my workflow. But I’d love to hear your thoughts.

You're reading Creating WordPress posts offline with BlogDesk is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

My problem of repeating HTML

Here is the issue I am having. I organize all of my images very precisely and name them in such a way. Many website owners don’t realize the value in giving an image a name that properly reflects what is in the image. You can get a 10-20% increase in stumble upon traffic through Google’s image search just by taking the time to give your graphics thoughtful labels.

I take this a step further and upload them to specific directories. Hence, I don’t use the media manager in WordPress for uploading images. Because I manually upload the images I have to manually type out the link to the image when including it in the post. Just the way I do things, and I believe it adds to my traffic and saves my memory, as I can better remember when I file an image under ‘Pac-man’, then the default structure that WordPress uses which is the month and year of when you uploaded an image to the media library.

This is what the plugin could do

Therefore, I would like to have a plugin that will allow me to re-use pieces of code that I use in almost every post. I would preferably like to have a few custom buttons (quicktag) that I can to the wysiwyg editor (TinyMCE). Heck, I would like to be able to choose which buttons are included and which ones are not. All of this needs to be in the HTML side of the editor, not the Visual side.

I am also using the requirement that there can’t be any custom short codes with brackets [] like [img artwork], etc. I want to use code that always means the same thing, standardization, not having to go back one day and try to remember what this specific short code meant. Plus, if I would be relying on the author to always update the plugin and potentially have legacy issues if that plugin no longer worked. No reason for short codes at all in my opinion.

Even if I had some sort of plugin to install a window pane that displayed re-used HTML snippets that I could quickly copy and paste that would be great. It would be nice not have to have to travel with a specific document that served the same purpose that I had to open each and every time.

Current WordPress plugins for inserting custom HTML

Since I don’t possess the skillset to write my own plugins for WordPress, I have to rely on the tremendous third party network of developers. I could probably find a hack version to modify the core of WordPress, but I don’t want to have to migrate custom code between upgrades either. These are some of the plugins I’ve found and how they worked for me.

Snips

Meant for reducing the work of inserting video, this might work. But this plugin is one of many that utilizes short codes. Great for video insertion though, it would save a ton of time for that usage.

David’s Ultra Quicktags

The description for the David’s Ultra Quicktags plugin says “Adds new buttons to the Editor window (Amazon Links, Amazon Search, etc.)” After install I figured out that it allows you to customize a span and div button, but doesn’t allow you to add additional buttons. So, while this works exactly how I would like, by not having the ability to add multiple buttons it really won’t work in the long run.

Hana Code Insert

The description for this plugin reads “Easily insert any complicated HTML and JAVASCRIPT code or even custom PHP output in your WordPress article. Useful for adding AdSense and Paypal donation code in the middle of the WP article.”

Based on the description, I thought this might work, but this plugin is using short codes again so pass.

TinyMCE Advanced

A great plugin for editing and fully customizing the buttons for the editor in the visual side for the edit post dialog box in WordPress. But I didn’t see a way to edit the HTML tab buttons.

Koumpounophobia

The Koumpounophobia plugin might just be what I needed, or it’s the best solution I’ve found so far. The abstract name of this plugin made it a little hard to find but it does allow a user to add custom buttons to the HTML tab in the WordPress post editor. I can define the snippet of HTML output for the press of a button and add as many buttons as I like.

However, I don’t know that my needs are the original intent of this plugin. It seems as though it really only wants to allow to let the user add base HTML quicktags to the WYSIWYG. I need to add snippets that include path references and calls the classes, which means I am inserting values into the attributes. As a result I have to use single quotes because the plugin needs to escape all double quotes.

Plus, once I save my buttons and come back to edit them, although a button press will output the right code, the editor for the button strips my paths and anything with quotes. If you need to change something, you have to completely redo the custom button. Add in the fact that the resulting auto quicktag closer no longer works but adds a second instance of the same code and now I am only saving a little bit of time. I also noticed this plugin adds additional features to the img and anchor tag quicktags, but it doesn’t allow me to remove current quicktags. Not a deal breaker, but again, this would be nice.

Other Options

I have read about a myriad of other plugins but most of them use those bracketed short codes, which I had said before I have no interest in using. As another completely different option, there is a text replacement software called Texter available through Lifehacker. I had used this software over a year ago on a Windows XP 64bit system and for text replacement it worked like a champ. But I generally remember having software conflict issues. Now that I am using Vista, I tried it out again but I was having the same problem. My power user keys in Photoshop don’t act appropriately when Texter is active.

There might be another text replacement tool out there, today I am going to test out Phrase Express and see if that can serve my text replacement needs..

What are you using?

Saving time by easily inserting repeated HTML code is what I am after. I am interested to hear of any other WordPress plugins, even if they slightly vary from the above specs, if they can get the job done. I am also interested to hear about workflows if that is another option. How do you build a post that has custom HTML in it? How do you easily repeat it? Do you use the media library in WordPress? What might I not be considering by not using it?

Anything anyone can offer to help me solve this issue would be a great help.

Other WordPress Needs

Another day I’ll have to write about my other two issues, which are directly related to this HTML insertion need. I haven’t met too many hardcode WordPress users here in Indianapolis. Douglas Karr is an expert of most things technology, but even he didn’t have any software suggestions to solve these problems. But I’ll just mention them here in case you have an idea.

1. I would like a piece of Windows software that works much like Dreamweaver in that it has some much needed WYSIWYG features but can connect to WordPress. A workflow that allows me to develop my post offline, use easy image insertion and then I just publish out to the database.
2. A plugin that will allow me to access my image folders on the server to more easily and error free link to images directly, much like Dreamweaver operates.
3. A plugin that uses AJAX or some other method to easily search for a post ID within the post dialogue, without having to have another window open. The RB Internal Links almost works, but with so many categories, it is a lot of work to find the right item. It would nice to be able to define a default category of posts that comes up first and then have the ability to navigate to other categories if necessary.

You're reading Searching for a WordPress plugin for HTML snippets is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

Licensed Mr. Do! came as different conversion kits?

The Spies archive has a photo of a decal version of this white Mr. Do! sideart, an apparent piece to a conversion kit that was available. Today would seem to confirm that even further. When I took out the Mr. Do! bezel that I had bought on eBay two years ago, I found out that the two that I got bought were a different size. Not only in height, but in width as well. Check out this photo (My buddy got in on the action);

Here are the sizes of the bezels;

• Larger Mr. Do! Bezel – 23.5 x 22.25
• Smaller Mr. Do! Bezel – 23 x 20.5

I know there is another rectangular piece of plexi that is mounted typically to the back wall of these cabinet to make them complete and I can only assume both sizes have this piece. The cutoff on the artwork is similar, we don’t see the artwork that is normally on that second piece completely making it onto the larger bezel.

We shall see. I asked Chris to take a look at the measurements of the current bezel in the white Mr. Do! cabinet. Regardless, I will be selling the plexi bezel that is in the cabinet now. It is either specifically a bezel for Looping, or it is just a generic bezel. Also last week I finally got a new lead on tracking down the former CEO of Universal and asking him some questions about the companies that licensed and built Mr. Do! cabinets.

If you own a Mr. Do! with one of these bezels and want to help me out, measure yours and submit the dimensions. If you can, send me a digital photo too. Let’s see if there are yet a third or a fourth different size. I’ll include the information in this post.

You're reading Different Mr. Do! Bezel Sizes is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.

I want these colorful illustrations for my computer backgrounds

I just gawk at these and can hardly believe how well they work. Simple at the core, one subject matter that is vector drawn, repeated with some overlaid effects in Photoshop. But that is the beauty of great illustration. An artist can do so much with what might be considered so little.

He is a master of color, and he knows his Illustrator, but there are also subtle details like shadowing on the characters and composition that really make these pop. Simple and yet detailed, my favorite type of art. Too simple seems boring, lazy. But this is hardly lazy. Does he draw all of these in Illustrator and repeat them? Does he use the 3d tool and rotate them around so he only has to draw 1-2 arcade, balloon, or cassette tapes and then shift them around?

The arcade piece is cool looking, but the green color pallette is just ok. Can you imagine what that would look like with the glowing lines of his CMYK Lovers? Here is another one of his many pieces you can see in his portfolio.

There are a couple of his earlier neon retro pieces that remind me a little bit of the work at Design Chapel, which I also really gravitate towards. But if that was an earlier style that he was mimicking he has definitely created a new style all his own, that is for sure.

View the whole wallpaper illustration type portfolio!

Check out more of his artwork below, and visit the home site of Guilherme Marconi for more amazing illustration. Look out man, you may have your first imitator!

You're reading Amazing Arcade Themed Illustration is a post from: Jeff Rothe, originally posted on Rotheblog - An Arcade Game Blog. If you've enjoyed this post, be sure to follow Jeff on Twitter, Facebook, and Google +.