I have updated WD²: the name (Government Web Craft), the theme (K2), the stats package (Google Analytics), the Wordpress (2.6.1 from 2.5.1) and the header image. It’s about time. More to come.
While acting as supervising judge for Shawnee County’s primaries this year, I had the pleasure of meeting Jessica Drew, a reporter who recently came to Topeka’s 49 News (ABC) from Georgia. She seemed concerned about people knowing that she was covering the story while in “flip-flops.” So, I felt compelled to hook her up.
I recently gave better than honorable mention to e TextEditor, but not much better. Working at the county I use Dreamweaver 8 (CS2) and it is a fine editor in many respects. However, since I don’t make much use of the WYSIWYG functionality, it does not have much to offer aside from a couple of site wide features (find-and-replace, etc.).
I use a Mac at home with DW9/CS3 and really like Textmate (by Allan Odgaard). It makes using DW at work and home seem a drudgery. While listening to Boagworld (episode 123), I heard someone give a review of Textmate and mentioned e, saying, “Textmate is a Mac-only application though there is a similar editor called e TextEditor for Windows.” I downloaded it immediately and began using it. It was a breath of fresh air. WHOA! Even being a 1.0(.25 at writing) release, it is an excellent tool. It’s just a tad crash-prone. But there is clearly a constant drive to better the product. Alexander Stigsen is apparently the lone developer, and he has been very responsive and VERY helpful. In the few weeks I have been using it I have seen a few timely releases, that seemed to read my mind.
A few notable features include
- Bundle support (for “Textmate bundles”)
- Inline Firefox-like find (and replace) with support for regular expressions
- The most unlimited undo capabilities. (The only thing you can’t undo is stuff you haven’t done, i.e. even when you close the application and reopen it, it still has its undo history, and it even has non-linear history, as when you save a file, undo and commit other changes and save it with another name, etc. it will maintain that history with a window to help you visualize those changes.)
I hate to say that his application is like TextMate for Windows, because it seems to undermine just how excellent a product is to say it is like another: that’s probably a shortcoming in my own thinking. Alexander has put together an excellent product, and has not been satisfied to merely add support for Textmate bundles. I go home wishing that Textmate would do things that e can. I think that is one sign that Alexander has done something quite excellent with e.
I have been using a hearty little text editor on Mac recently called Textmate. I found it by accident while reading on O’Reilly’s Mac site. The fellow was considering the question: which is better of BBEdit and Textmate? This was pre-Coda, not that that matters. He came out saying that they both hand their place.
I like both, I find both are excellent. I find myself hand-coding most comfortably with Textmate because it is so rich with features by the use of bundles. There are so many shortcuts and excellent tools for folks that don’t mind using the keyboard. But it does not have great tools for large scale, site wide functions, which is where I find BBEdit most useful. Coda is a great application overall, but I would love to see it support the use of Textmate or BBEdit or either as the source code editor instead of the SubEthaEdit engine they currently use. I don’t think that is reasonable, but I would love to see it.
Brass Tacks! Get to the point, David!
Well, when I am at work, I am not able to use a Mac. We are a .NET shop and their has been a lot of backlash against the idea. I even recently offered to bring in my own. So far nada. But in the mean time, I found an excellent tool for Windows: e TextEditor. It ports so much of the functionality of Textmate to the dark side. I have found it to be a breath of fresh air. I love my work, but certain things are arduous. Now so much of the monotony has been marginalized by e.
Textmate and e are both editors worth checking out, and are well worth the money in both cases.
My sister Elizabeth graduated from Texas Culinary Academy (in le cordon bleu program), summa cum laude.
Good job, Elizabeth! Summa Cum Laude! You’re a chef.
My siblings are all going to graduate from their post-secondary educational endeavors before I do at this rate. 
Keep up the good work, diligence will get you further than good looks, high self esteem, and brains everytime. Fear God. Work hard. You’ll do well.
Talk about a yawner. Listening to this line-up of speakers has been a real opportunity: to sleep. Clichés, trite sayings, nicities, pomp, windy encouragements and other wasted words. All the ingredients that make up a commencement ceremony (specifically the 105th Fort Hays State University). The only thing missing? The list of names.
We are listening to it right now. This makes it all worth while.
Congratulations, Laura. You are almost a BA holder. You’d better pass that last class. 
I have a lot of reading to do. I have been writing well-formed xhtml pages for some time. Or so I thought. I have been using Textmate to write my pages on my own time. (I use WinXP/DW8 at work.) I was enabling xhtml support for Textmate after months of having to hand code the " /" into my br’s, hr’s and img’s. I finally broke down and looked to tweak the setting. Textmate’s developer gave the tweak on his site, with a warning attached, if you do not know what you are doing, xhtml may not be the right choice for you. I thought surely he is no fool. Why would he warn so many of his users against their likely clear knowledge of their craft? So I read Ian Hickson’s article (or at least a lot of it): Sending XHTML as text/html Considered Harmful.
I have been further reading on 456 Berea Street: The perils of using XHTML properly. He very succinctly summed up so many of the problems for a web designer/developer like me. It requires rereading. I guess now I am just frustrated. I have been living a lie. I just have a long way to go.
I recently found something an extension for Firebug called YSlow. While using it I was shown the advantage of minifying
my CSS/JavaScript files. So I developed a regular expression for minifying CSS and JavaScript. I have only tested it in DW8. It comes with no guarantees, so please use it with caution. And remember that if you are minifying files, you should save a more legible copy for development and minify only for production (speed). Make sure you enable Regular Expressions when you use it. Please, please, please lint your JavaScript before you minify it with this script, or it may fail on you.
Find:
(\/\*[^\v]+?\*\/)|(,)\s|(:)\s|\t|\n|\s(\{)|(\{)\s{1,}|(\s){2,}|\/\/.{0,}
Replace:
$2$3$4$5
I disclaim it thoroughly. And while I cannot see how you could copyright it, I leave all these code snippets to the public domain.
200804262230: Upon further evaluation, I would further offer two things: I think my white space filtering is overboard, and I think that this is ripe for change. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. -dwe
Here are some tips to write better email:
Keep it brief:
Say it in a word. If you can’t, try a sentence. If it takes more than a few of short paragraphs, the point may be lost. When you’re done, review it, and delete unnecessary words and phrases. Also, replace bloated military police phrases, e.g. “the suspect proceeded to run to the bathroom” should be, “the perp ran to the john,” and “at that point in time, I could not provide backup,” should be “I couldn’t help him then.”
Keep it briefer:
When you have finished reviewing it, re-review it. Respect the reader by axing trite clichés and niceties and the other unnecessary stuff that you missed the first time. You’re talking to people: courtesies and greetings can be good, but use them thoughtfully.
If you think it takes too long to review it twice, then your email may be too long to read.
Write it plainly:
Being brief is not the only “virtue” in email writing. Know your audience. Talk to your readers not past them. Most people are not impressed by many and large words; they are put off by them. It’s not dumbing it down; short, simple writing is easy to read (and more likely to be read).
Keep it focused:
Stay on (one) topic. Your topic and “subject” line should agree. The subject line is a “snapshot” of the email. When looking at your inbox, good subjects helps you to find emails faster. It also prepares you for what you’re about to read.
Pay it forward:
(Before or) after writing your email, summarize the emails purpose or intended outcome and put that at the beginning.
If the summary effectively gets the entire point across, then delete the rest of the email and send just that. If after writing it you realize that you did not write on that topic as you intended, reword the opening statement. Don’t be afraid to trash extra words, even paragraphs. The longer your email is the less like it is to be read in part or in whole. The more you delete, the more people will like you (or at least understand you).
A shorter version of the summary should go in your subject line. (Some email applications have a setting that will prompt you to put a subject in, if you forget. Consider enabling it, if it’s off.)
Use your subject line carefully. Give them the big picture, very briefly. Avoid empty phrases that fail to describe the content, e.g. “Important,” “Read this,” “It’s me,” “Hey!” etc. Use a brief overview and even action statements, e.g. “Programmer’s Meeting: today at 9 am,” “Marketing home page awaiting approval,” “Road Closing: Washington Blvd Northbound at 46th,” etc.
Mark it appropriately:
One of my instructors told us to consider using caps in your subject line when sending important stuff: it draws attention. Consider using your important flag (! or !!), or using an exclamation mark (“!”) at the beginning of the subject if you can’t do it another way (i.e. when using certain webmail).
Blow it off:
These are guidelines. You know what your writing needs better than I do. If you need to write something long, expound it. If it needs to be high brow, expostulate it. If you need to send it now, without layered review, send it. If “It’s me” is an appropriate subject, use it. I don’t know your audience or your situation personally. Use good judgment.
A professor (D.G. Jerz) at Seton Hill University wrote a great resource for writing well for your email readers.
I have read a couple of good articles recently and need to revisit a few while on A List Apart. Here are a couple:
- Contrast and Meaning by Aarron Walter
- Findability, Orphan of the Web Design Industry by Andy Rutledge
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