I found a nice icon set based on Tango icons on the Moodle site, and apparently someone went to the trouble of organizing and naming them so they will work with Moodle.

Here is the link to the .zip of Tango-based icons.

In order to replace the standard icons, you copy everything out of the pix folder in the zip archive and paste it into the pix folder in the root directory of your Moodle installation. They copy (or cut) the icons in the “mod” folder now in your pix folder and paste them in the “mod” folder in the root directory as well. Make sure you choose to have everything overwritten when you copy/paste.

That’s it! Your icons are now cool new Tango icons and you no longer have to be tortured with bad design when you use Moodle – at least from your icons in any case. I don’t know of a down side to doing this, but if you find one let me know.

Edit: There may be icons included in the mod folder for modules you do not yet have installed. This will cause an error. The fix is to delete those folders in “mod” that do not have a module installed (you can tell which ones from the error message: “The “Books” module is not accessible. Check permissions.” etc.)

This is an excellent resource that deserves to be in every web designer’s del.cio.us. The links are organized under articles and tools, and one of my favorite never-before-discovered tools is the 100 Random Colors tool. The Palette Generator is pretty cool too.

See for yourself!

The first thing I wanted to do, however, was to be able to customize it so that the output matched the overall design of a given site. Although some minor modifications can be made to the colors, and fonts, it would be nice if you could turn on/off the headers to that it could be easily be embedded within a page, with navigation, that I have designed. I will be looking for ways to noodle with the output now and in the future, and I hope that the commercial release, whenever it comes, includes more functionality in this area.

You can download the beta version of Lightroom here, and it is worth trying out just to see how it works. I’m going to start with this article by John Nack and hopefully it won’t be to difficult to follow. It’s just the thing that might get me to actually learn Flash, instead of just think about it.

Got Style?

I’m self-taught in many aspects of web design….which often means that I’ve “Viewed Source” and waded through the HTML lingo to “learn” how to implement different features in my own designs….so I’d been using (sometimes misusing) DIVS, IDS, and embedded CSS without really knowing what it was.

When I first started reading about linking the CSS style sheet (versus embedding as I had done previously) and caring about “standards” I was disheartened to think that the “prettiness” I was so fond of, was going to be sacrificed in order to be accepted in this new arena. And then, I had my realization that standard does not have to equate to being boring.

Like other testimonials I’ve read, my first experience with the power and beauty of properly used CSS and adherence to standards was after visiting CSSZenGarden (if you haven’t been there yet, please do visit). The epiphany occurred for me when I recognized the potential power my clients could have if, with a click of a button, they have an opportunity to choose how the whole design looks (same text, same elements just rearranged) with a click of a button. I now appreciate liquid layouts, and the next leg of my journey has been to put this care for compliance a number one priority. (And, by the way, using a CSS editor like Style Master or Dreamweaver have been helpful making the road from beginner to now-I-get-it status more enjoyable for me.)

Got Validity?

I’d be lying if I said I already know everything about creating a valid website. Truth is, I’m still learning and relearning little nuances to achieve validity, but I’ve found the W3 service (free!) to be an invaluable tool, in addition to a great guide in my learning path. A quick click on a button, and I’m given a line by line list of “fixes” to make (a pinpoint method of finding the problems). I’ve yet to make a valid site on the first try, but am happy with a lower number of fixes with each new design. When I don’t understand something, I visit places like these (http://www.w3schools.com/, Listamatic, Position is Everything, WestCiv, or BrainJar) to find more options and solutions.

Got Proof?

I’ll get my proof that making this shift to standards is worth it from my clients. Each brings different needs (some want colorful image-intense chaos, some want ‘clean’ streamlined; some want static content, some dynamic and ever-changing; some want turn-key, others want me to maintain and update on a regular basis; some care purely about driving up web traffic statistics). But all will benefit from having standard-compliant sites especially when the new technologies that have yet to come, render the other websites into the same dinosaur category that my first generation websites were, while theirs will still be accessible and available to their clients which is what most of my clients want the most.

Why you may wonder? Well, there is some reluctance on the part of the volunteer that built and maintains the site to change what she is doing already. As part of a recent conversation it was revealed that she has been using the same version of Adobe Page Mill for the last 10 years, and she is “quite satisfied with it”. Now this was, I’m sorry to admit, a surprise to me. I did not imagine that with my slick new site, where all you need to know is how to code up a little HTML in notepad; an h1 here, a span there; that it would be updated and probably thrown completely out of whack by a WSIYWIG editor that is 10 years old. I mean, this may be a little anal but I don’t consider myself “just” a designer; I want to ensure that the fragile code stays as intact as possible.

So my thoughts turn to this question: how will small business clients update a site I design? Obviously, if a business has the budget for it, then I would be happy to maintain the website; but what if it didn’t? I immediately started thinking about the CMS solution. Perhaps every site should be built on a Drupal or Expression Engine or WordPress system so that it just couldn’t be messed up by deleting a close tag on accident (for instance), and actually that is exactly what I would like to become proficient in doing in the near future. However, in situations where a CMS is not the answer, perhaps the open source WYSIWYG Nvu is.

Nvu is a nice, slim, non-junk-code slinging piece of software. I’ve only used it for editing so far, but for that purpose I think it will be easy for customers to use, cost nothing out of pocket, and possibly provide a solution for low budget customers that won’t break my code. I can only hope that it is enough to move the new design from concept to implementation.

Thanks guys, I will be tuning in again…

In a nutshell it’s a music service that allows you to build your own radio stations around a song or artist, in which you choose the initial item, and then using the Music Genome Project they select and stream other songs and artists that are similar in a variety of ways.

Enough talk. You simply must go try this for yourself! So far my favorite stations are ones based on the band “A Perfect Circle” and on “Morcheeba”.