sanchothefat.com

I’ve spoken about processing.js by John Resig before. This time I’m talking about Alistair MacDonald. He was one of the two or three members of the processing.js google group when I joined a week ago. Last I looked it was up to 45 which is good news. After some discussion about the limitations and strengths of using processing as part of a web interface or design between himself and John I chipped in an idea I’d had but was struggling to realise.

I wanted to create a graphic equaliser using processing and have it respond to mouse movements. Al quite liked the idea and made it happen. (I’d like to buy you a beer or two Al, if you’re ever near Burnley or Liverpool let me know).

That design is precisely what you can see here (unless I’ve redesigned by now). I hope to create a few alternatives using the code for judging the speed of the mouse movement and release them as backgrounds along with this wordpress theme some time in the near future.

In the meantime I’ll be reading through the docs and examples which you can find on github and Al’s collection of processing experiments.

Oh, also - New Design!

If you’re anything like me you’ve had a hard time making sure your CSS layout and typography are using a consistent grid and baseline. While I have now decided to start using a CSS framework such as 960.gs, BluePrint or Typogridphy after reading Jeff Croft’s posts on the topic, these frameworks are not ideal for all situations. You may want to use an unusual grid width or fluid layout which may be easier to make a custom layout for rather than hacking someone else’s framework to your liking.

With that in mind I felt it would be useful to be able to see the baseline and grid while I’m coding. Especially useful if you use the EditCSS tool in Chris Pederick’s Web Developer Toolbar extension for Firefox. What I have made is a simple jQuery plugin that gives you a customisable overlay showing either the grid, the baseline or both. So without further ado, I give you GridBase.

(more…)