the blog

Here we talk about design, development, games, the publishing industry, and any other web-related stuff that we find interesting. And, of course, we talk about what we are up to in the studio.

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Reversing the order of your comments

We develop our client’s sites in WordPress since it is such a flexible and powerful system. It allows our clients to update and maintain their own site content which is always a good thing. Sometimes editing the defaults in the system is very easy, but other times it takes a little finagling.

Recently a client wanted to reverse the order of the comments in their blog. By default, WordPress lists comments from oldest to newest. Now, there is a setting under “Discussions” within the WordPress panel to select comments to display in the reverse order: newest to oldest. When we adjusted this setting within the client’s WordPress admin panel though, nothing changed. It seemed we had stumbled across a bug of some sort. Thankfully though, there is an easy fix:

1. Open up the comments.php template

2. Locate this line:

<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>

3. Replace it with the following:

<?php foreach (array_reverse($comments) as $comment) : ?>

That’s it. Comments will now display newest to oldest.

Aug 13 2010
Lorissa, on the topic of development
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A Busy Start to the Year

Well, it’s hard to believe it is February already. 2010 was off to a rather busy start and January was a whirlwind of work for us. We’ve finally taken a few moments to update our portfolio with some of our recent work.

Website for Rebecca Skloot
Rebecca Skloot
With the recent release of her incredible book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot needed a fresh new look for her website.

Website for Secrets of My Hollywood Life
Secrets of My Hollywood Life – Little, Brown
Little, Brown contacted us to put together a micro-site for the popular Secrets of My Hollywood Life series by Jen Calonita.

Website for Heresy by S.J. Parris
Heresy by S.J. Parris – Random House
Random House contacted us to create a micro-site to promote Heresy by S.J. Parris.

Feb 12 2010
Lorissa, on the topic of design
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Hello 2010!

We aren’t the type to reflect a whole lot on things past – the good or the bad. We’d rather look forward to what the new year has to offer. 2009 has been a great year for us though with some exceptional projects. We’ve connected with great clients, publishers, authors and entrepreneurs, and next year we’ll be working with many of these same clients on new, exciting projects. We have some big changes at the studio as well with a move to the US, so 2010 is already shaping up to be a busy one. We are looking forward to it!

We wish you all a very happy new year! May 2010 be filled with laughter, success and lots of good reading.

Dec 31 2009
Lorissa, on the topic of news & musings
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Full Scalable Background Images

f4a-screen

Recently we worked on creating the new Fashion for All web site. F4a is a national non-profit in the US. The aim is to offer women living in low-income communities a day of dignified shopping and access to community-based organizations, which provide educational, career, health, wellness, and parenting resources. It’s about providing the tools and resources for women to achieve personal and professional growth. A good cause indeed.

The branding for f4a was done by a very creative group who handed over a PSD for the homepage, along with some minor requirements/requests. The main one, and the one that had me Googling a bit: to have the background photograph expand/shrink with the browser window. I’d seen this done before, but never tried it out myself – always great to have a challenge and learn something new. I Googled and found a few techniques for this – some much better than others.

Read the rest of “Full Scalable Background Images” »

Oct 20 2009
Lorissa, on the topic of development
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ShadeWorks Launches its Autumn 2009 Issue

The Autumn issue of ShadeWorks is live. Because of the delay in publishing this issue, we’ve also published the fourth and final installment of the Thane of Cawdor series. ShadeWorks is a literary journal for horror fiction celebrating its one-year birthday this April.

Oct 7 2009
Gordon, on the topic of news & musings
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I am JXIIH

I am J12H Website

The Golden City, the third and final book in the Fourth Realm trilogy by John Twelve Hawks, came out in the US this week. Many authors do readings when they launch a new book, but considering John Twelve Hawk’s “off the grid” living, it made sense for him to do something a little different.

Fans are invited to be John Twelve Hawks for a night. They can read from The Golden City, discuss the trilogy, act out a scene, or do whatever they feel best celebrates the new book. John then reviews the videotaped events (posted on YouTube) and adds them to a new site dedicated to this idea: I Am John Twelve Hawks. Two live events will also be streamed on the site this week. The first live event is today, September 10th, from New York at 8pm EST. The second live event is from Los Angeles on Saturday, September 12th.

It’s great to see authors doing something quite different and fun to promote the launch of a new book. This is a prime example of using the power of the web and social media to promote, and enjoy, a book. It’s wonderful to see how much the fans can really get involved–not just enjoying a reading, but actually taking part in the reading itself, and being the author for a day. And it’s exciting to share all these events across the world via a website. Tonight, I’ll be sitting at home in Oxford, UK, watching the live I am John Twelve Hawks event in New York, and feeling part of the whole thing via the stream and the live chat (and I don’t even have to worry about what to wear!).

Sep 10 2009
Lorissa, on the topic of design
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