Creative Web Specialist - An online portfolio and resource site of Warren Buckley

Hiya,
Well this blog post is tell you all about my good friend Sam Marks website Quilo that I have been working on.

Me and Sam used to work together for a few years at a company called Momo Web Communications and after both leaving there and progressing our careers we recently got back in touch to do a great skill swap. What we decided to do was that I would build the XHTML, CSS and put into onto a CMS platform (obvioulsy Umbraco) for him to easily update and edit his site, in return he agreed that he would redesign my blog for me. So watch this space very soon for my site update - all I can see its going to be very different from what it is now!

So heres a very quick rundown of what I done in this project

• Handcode the XHTML templates and the appropiate CSS required from the Photoshop design Sam gave me
• Use jQuery to create a semi-transparent image caption that slides up when you rollover the image
• Use jQuery to create a feature slider, which slides panels horizontally to view new content
• Use the Umbraco opensource .NET CMS solution to allow Sam to update his site easily with new content
• Create an XSLT script to use in Umbraco, to show Sams latest tweet from Twitter

In regards to the jQuery functionality that you can find on Sam's site I plan to create a blog post detailing each of these features and how they are achieved in the near future.

The twitter intergration I done using my own umbraco package, which help speed up my development process.

This looks like this is going to be a GREAT collobration, keep your eyes peeled to our sites as we may have one or two things up our sleeves.
(However this requires many chats down the pub first)

Finally heres what Sam had to say about it all

I've recently published my own portfolio site using both Warren Buckley and Umbraco's CMS tools. I worked closely with Warren with regards to what I wanted from the site as we've worked together in the past he was able to deal with my typical designer mentality i.e. changes to the design at the 12th hour!!

As a web designer myself, the layout was taken care of and Warren plugged my designs onto his code and then subsequently onto the Umbraco CMS tools.

When using the CMS to update my site I found it incredibly easy to not only update existing content but to also add and if required remove content. It was a great experience being able to literally mould the CMS around my requirements rather than the reverse which is so often the case with alternative CMS tools on todays market.

The functionality requirements for my site were easily met by both Warren and the CMS which meant that not only was the site delivered back to me ready to edit but within a very short time scale.

I would definitely recommend both Warren and Umbraco to anyone who should need them.

Good work Wazza!