Canvass v0.9
As my first proper project in PHP, I built a CMS called Canvass for use by bands and musicians. Initially it was a simple PHP website with an admin area that I put together for a band on the label, but with a greater layer of abstraction (and a couple of late nights), I found I had the basis for a quite simple and effective CMS.
Since then I’ve not had a huge amount of time to work on it, but in the process of deploying the Cyril Snear website (the first use of this CMS proper), I’ve had some time to rework a lot of the code behind the scenes. A lot of it has been switching from JavaScript and jQuery browser queries to fully using CSS3 Media Queries, and the site certainly renders better on my HTC now.
My main concern is with best practice in the middling range of screen sizes - larger than say 480px of a large mobile and smaller than 960px of a small monitor. My assumption in this area is that loading in a background image isn’t wise - who wants to suck up that extra data charge and load time when they’re on the go - but this also means a marked dulling of the visual imapact of the page, especially when a major colour is black or white.
As it is, I may return to this design and tweak the layout further in the next couple of weeks, but for now I’m going to sneak off and do some further reading on the subject.
I guess it just goes to show that returning to your code may be a bit of a headache, but you really can see big returns from relatively minor tweaks.
Check out the code on GitHub here.
Alex Lynham
Notes on working for a startup in Manchester and various other projects.
alex@lynh.am
