While meeting some game studios, I often have the same question coming over and over: if I’m writing/porting my game in HTML5, will it run well on the various targeted devices? Will it be playable or will the gameplay suffer too much? To answer to that question, I often use my own experience based on what I know and what worked well during my own tests. But I also had the feeling it wasn’t enough to provide some good advices.
In the meantime, there were some obvious facts. For instance, we all know that mobile devices can’t animate as many sprites as desktop PC and preserve 60 fps. We know also that combining SVG and Canvas is a good idea to write games that scale across devices but this could also impact the performance. Moreover, even if GPU and hardware acceleration is available on mobile, their hardware architectures differ a lot from the PC and this impacts also a lot the performances. There is dozen of scenarios like that to address and to be aware of while writing HTML5 games for mobiles. But in which proportions?
With my friend David Catuhe, we then decided to measure these various scenarios and build a benchmark framework to have a better idea on what to pay attention for. It’s named the HTML5 Potatoes Gaming Bench framework. The concept is then to help you benchmarking your targeted platforms and to obtain indicators for your future games: number of simultaneous sprites supported, SVG & Canvas composition performance, usage of videos, etc. It’s a tool we’d like to provide you to help you benchmarking your own scenarios for your games. Read the rest of this entry »
Running an online store is far not as easy as it seems at first sight. However, if you are a smart merchant, you can’t ignore the fact that we have already entered the era of e-Commerce, so ‘the game is worth the candle’.
Did you know that by 2016, more than $320 billion will be spent on online shopping according to Forrester Research? Just think about it! This is impressive.
Of course you would like to put your finger into this hot, delicious pie. The problem is that now online commerce becomes something ordinary. That is, online stores pop up like mushrooms making tough competition to each other. Even the most quality expensive design can’t guarantee high conversion rates. Moreover, even if you run a successful street store, it doesn’t mean that the same thing will happen on the net. Cyberspace requires certain changes in your business strategy, psychology, and deeper understanding of the difference between the two parallel worlds.
To make your online store stay afloat you need to keep in mind hundreds of details like replenishing products stock, driving more traffic to your store, inventing new promo campaigns, responding to unsatisfied customers, training your employees and so on.
So, the goal of our today’s blog post is to lay down some concrete tips on global e-business strategies. In other words, to share some secrets on how to make people living worldwide buy from you and bolster them with good examples of e-commerce stores that managed to become successful despite the difficulties they met on their way to popularity.
Follow these life hacks and they will help you deliver superior customer experience, boost business efficiency, expand product market and raise your income. Read the rest of this entry »
A straightforward navigation structure can increase the usability of your site, and make information easy to find. By using basic HTML and CSS, you can build a horizontal nav bar that provides interaction when a user hovers over a navigation link.
Start with Markup First
While you probably already have a design in mind that fits with the rest of your site, concentrating on HTML first, before worrying about the presentation and CSS, will help you keep your markup clean and tight. This results in better front-end performance and aids in organization as you continue your development. Figure 1 illustrates the end result.
Figure 1. Completed navigation bar
Break It Down
You’ll learn the rationale and code for each step in the build process:
- HTML structure
- Structural styles: aligning the items, padding, and margins
- Decorative styles: gradients, text color, border radius
- Special interactive styles using pseudo class selectors
HTML Structure
Solid HTML structure is the foundation of any Web page. There are many different ways to achieve the same visual result, but some structures offer advantages like semantic meaning and can help you keep your corresponding CSS stylesheets in order.
Using HTML5 Semantic Tags
Before HTML5, the tag <div> was a one-size-fits-all containing element for anything from main text sections to footers. However, new semantic tags like <header>, <nav>, <section> and <footer> better organize markup into meaningful sections and reduce the need for repetitive class names in you stylesheets. Since most modern browsers support HTML5, it’s best to take advantage of these new descriptive tags to give your markup contextual meaning. Read the rest of this entry »
This bundle is called “Zero Bundle“, and it’s called zero simply because that’s what it costs zero. We all love cheap resources, but free is always better, isn’t it? it’s an awesome bundle of free design goodies, with icons, textures, PSDs and much more.
The bundle will remain active for only 30 days, so download yours today so you don’t miss out on this great opportunity for accessing hundreds of beautiful icons. All icons can be used for personal and commercial uses but cannot be redistributed.
Requirements: –
Demo: http://www.zerobundle.com/
License: License Free
The Web began as markup only, and then some script and styling. For many developers, especially us veterans, it’s hard to imagine a Web without plug-ins. Since the earliest days, browser plug-ins like Flash and ActiveX have been the main way to create rich online experiences for more sophisticated Web experiences.
And yet through the efforts of the industry and community, we have returned to a plug-in free Web once again. Much Web browsing today occurs on smart phones and tablets have limited or no support plug-in. Modern browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer 10/9 have embraced and implemented Web standards like HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript which, in most cases, now reach feature parity with plug-ins (more on those differences later) and are more interoperable across browsers. With more than 75% of all browsers in North America now compatible with HTML5, market researcher Forrester recently said it’s time to say “so long” to plug-in. “The tide,” pronounced Forrester analyst Peter Sheldon, “is turning.”
How the heck did we get here? And, more importantly, where are — where should — we be going?
In this six-part series, we’ll take a hands-on look at the evolution of the Web to what many (including me) see as a shift toward plug-in free. I’ll focus on common Web experiences that have already been written with a plug-in and show you how to convert, and enhance them with HTML5. Read the rest of this entry »
Massive Design Bundle is a ginormous, mega design bundle features over 2GB of creative items to make your life easier and your projects even cooler. You’ll find a plethora of goodness in here including icons, vintage graphics, slick carousels, HTML5 templates, poster mockups, infographics, stickers, labels, backgrounds, patterns, templates and loads more. There are even large coupons and discounts for killer services like stock images libraries and web hosting.
You’d normally pay loads more than $1,000 for this amazing resource-packed bundle, but for a limited time only, you can get the whole enchilada for just $49. That’s an unfathomable 95% off the regular price.
In this article, we’ll get rolling on developing plug-in free by creating bar graphs and similar graphics, using NASDAQ’s current web site as an example. But we won’t be creating merely a picture of a bar graph, but a real, interactive bar graph. Let’s take a look at an existing site that uses Flash, then build one using HTML5.
If you have Flash installed, you’ll see a fancy line chart. You can float your mouse over the line and see a small popup showing the stock price at that point, along with the volume of trading, like so:
If you don’t have Flash installed, then the site just shows you a graphic image. So you’re not left out completely without Flash, but with HTML5, we can include everybody.
Now, we’ll build something similar. To keep this article from getting too long, let’s just show the data in a box below the graph. But as you move the mouse along the graph, or touch it on a tablet, it will highlight the closest point on the graph, and show the information for that point in a box. Here’s what the final product will look like: Read the rest of this entry »
Interactive maps aren’t particularly new; they’ve been around for years. What’s different about our map is that it will be plugin-free. No Flash, no Silverlight, no Java.
Even a plugin-free interactive map isn’t totally novel; a few out there rely on HTML and JavaScript. But quite honestly, plugin-free maps usually aren’t very exciting, mostly because they rely on older technologies. But with HTML5, we can include features previously found only with plugins, usually Flash.
Theme Park Maps: Features on Parade
Seems like the most exciting interactive maps usually represent theme parks. Disney has perhaps the most advanced I’ve seen. But… it requires Flash. Busch Gardens also has a nice one. Again, it requires Flash, and isn’t available for iPhone and iPad users. Find it here.
Let’s build something similar, using only HTML5 and no plugins. We’ll make ours less busy. And since we’re using HTML5, it will work on virtually all modern mobile devices. What’s not to like?
We’ll put together an interactive map of the USA, highlighting a few states. (See the finished product below, live on this web page.) Moving your mouse or finger over the states will make them slightly bigger via an animated effect. (Does that change usability? Not really. But simple visual effects like these, used in moderation, make the experience more engaging.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Melany Lane Script Font is a beautifully fun and quirky font, Melany Lane is a pure delight to use and read. It elicits a feel-good, homey type of emotion that’s just full of flourish. Included in this bundle are: Melany Lane, Melany Lane Bold, Melany Lane Ornaments, Melany Lane Ornaments Bold, and Melany Lane Patterns.
Melany Lane normally sells for $49 (for either the Desktop or Web Font), but for a limited time only, you can get either the Desktop or Web Font version of the entire Melany Lane font family for just $17. That’s a 65% savings! OR get both the Desktop and Web Font versions together for just $25.
Flattastic UI kit gives your flat design a boost with this Flattastic UI kit, designed by Vlade Dimovski. The PSD is properly layered, with intuitive naming, making modifying it for your own projects a synch. The design features four pairs of complimentary colors perfect for any flat design.
The flat design juggernaut continues to roll on, crushing everything in its path. With an emphasis on simplicity, it’s easy to manage basic design principles when you’re working flat. 48 Flat Designer Icons is a consistent set of icons with office, social and travel icons. Supplied as .ai and .png files, these fabulous icons in three complimentary styles.
