Mr Branding

Friday, November 29, 2019

Twitter is experimenting with conversation threads, changes will take place in 2020

Earlier this year, Twttr was launched by Twitter to test certain features. Twitter is involved in testing several conversation features on Twttr including visual cues and threaded replies. Reading threaded conversations can become a challenging task, however, with new changes introduced, Twitter...

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by Madiha via Digital Information World

How to Use a Free Responsive Portfolio WordPress Gallery Plugin

There are a lot of free and paid gallery plugins out there which you can use of your website to showcase images to visitors. Some of them simply allow you to display images in a neat manner on the website while others try to provide an all-in-one package with features like lightbox and social sharing etc.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the Portfolio Gallery WordPress plugin on a website to filter and organize a large number of images to show on any webpage. This image gallery plugin allows you to assign different images to different categories and then click on buttons at the top to only show images from a specific category.

How Can We Use It?

A plugin like this could be useful in a lot of situations. For example, a real estate business which shows houses to potential buyers could use it to filter images of different rooms, kitchen, interior and exterior etc. Let's say there are a total of 50 images of a house on the webpage. Any user who wants to only see the images of living room first, could do so by simply clicking the "Living Room" button at the top. In this tutorial, we will learn how to do exactly that and a few other things.

The plugin could be useful for photographers as well. Wedding photographers showcasing their work could use it to filter images of different weddings or the bride, the groom and the decorations etc. The same principles can be used to filter images of all kinds on a website.

In this particular tutorial, we will use the the plugin to filter images of different animals, However, the same steps and techniques could be used for all other purposes as well. Lets start creating our gallery now.

Defining the Filters

Once you have installed the plugin, the first step is creation of different filters. Ideally, this has to be done before uploading any images. The filters you specify here will be used to categorize images when you upload them.

In the dashboard menu, go to Portfolio Gallery and then click on Filters to see all existing categories or add new categories. Initially, there will be only one category—called All. You cannot delete it even after you add more categories to the list. However, you can rename All to something else. The purpose of All is to show every image in the gallery on the webpage.

You can click on the Add New Category button on the Filters page to add new categories. In our case, we will add three categories called Lions, Penguins and Cats.

Adding Images to the Gallery

Once you have added all the desired categories, you can start creating your own gallery. Simply go to Portfolio Gallery > Add New Gallery in order to add a new gallery.

You can specify the title of the gallery at the top. The title is basically meant to help you identify the gallery. We will set the title to Animal Photography for our gallery.

Now click on the Add Images section and select all the images that you want to display in the gallery. All the images that you select will four input fields associated with them. These are used to provide additional information about the images.

The first field is simply a dropdown menu which identifies the uploaded media as either an image or a video. The second field is the title of the image, this is auto-generated based on the name of image file that you uploaded. You can also change the title to whatever value you want.

The third field is optional and it contains the link to a webpage or video that you want to open once users click on the image thumbnail. We leave it bank for most images. However, the cat thumbnails will take users to a Wikipedia entry about cats. The fourth field is used to specify the category of each image. A single image can be put in multiple categories by pressing Ctrl key on Windows while you select additional categories.

Configuration Options

You can now change a few configuration options to change the behavior and appearance of the gallery. You simply have to go to the Config tab to do so.

The first setting, you see here would be the thumbnail size. You can st it to Small, Medium, Large or Full Size. It can be a bit confusing when you change the value of Gallery Thumbnail Size from Small to Medium but the thumbnails still have the same size as before. This setting actually controls the physical size of the image which is shown as a thumbnail on the webpage. This does not change the area taken up by the thumbnail on the webpage.

The right value for Gallery Thumbnail Size depends on the number of columns that you want to display on different devices. If you want to show 12 thumbnail columns, the area taken up by the thumbnails would be relatively small. This means that a small image will still look good in these thumbnails. However, if you create only three columns for the thumbnails, it makes more sense to choose a larger gallery thumbnail size because the thumbnails will occupy a larger area. In our case, we will set the thumbnail size to Medium.

As I mentioned earlier, you can easily specify the number of columns into which you want to divide your thumbnails. In our case, we will display them in three columns on desktops, two columns on tablets and a single column on mobile devices.

The next setting called Image Hover Effects is used to apply some special effects on images when users hover over them. We will set it to Grow Shadow in our case. This will add a subtle zoom-in effect when users hover over the thumbnail.

The configuration options also allow you to show or hide the title and numbering on image thumbnails. Set the value of Hide Thumbnail Spacing to Yes because we will be using our own custom CSS to fine tune the spacing and other aspects.

If you go to the Filters tab, you will notice that it only contains two settings called Filter Background Color and Filter Title Color. They are used to control the background and text color of the "buttons" that appear at the top of each gallery to filter the images. Set the background color to black and title color to white.

The Lightbox tab only contains a single option to show the images when users click on a thumbnail. This is done with the Bootstrap Lightbox that comes with the plugin.

You can now click on the Publish button to save the gallery.

The plugin generates a shortcode for every gallery you create. You can copy and paste it on any post or page where you want to display the gallery.

After following all the steps in the tutorial, you gallery should look like the image below.

Writing Custom CSS

There are a couple of things that we will change in the gallery. This will help you understand how to make your own changes in the future.

The image title is taking a lot of area on the thumbnail. We will make it smaller and display it in bottom-left corner instead of the entire width of the thumbnail.

Right now, the thumbnails are packed closely together. We will add a little space around them so that the gallery does not seem congested.

We can do both these things easily by overriding the original style ruels and adding some of our own.

Go to the Custom CSS tab and add the following CSS.

body .item-desc {
    background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.75);
    text-transform: uppercase;
    font-family: Roboto Slab;
    font-size: 1.5rem;
    padding: 0 6px;
}

body .item_desc_2421 {
    left: 0.5rem !important;
    right: auto !important;
}

body #filter_gallery_2421 .thumbnail_2421 {
    padding: 0.5rem !important;
}

body .simplefilter li {
    font-weight: 600;
    font-family: Passion One;
    text-transform: uppercase;
    font-size: 2rem;
    letter-spacing: 1px;
}

This will make all the necessary changes to our gallery. The final result should look like the image below.

Final Thoughts

In this tutorial, we learned how to use the free Portfolio Gallery WordPress plugin to add a gallery with filterable images on our website. As you saw, creating such a gallery becomes very easy with this plugin. You just begin by defining the categories and then assign one or more categories to each image. This will be enough to display a fully functional gallery on any page. However, you can change different configuration options or even add your own custom CSS in order to further customize the gallery.

If you are looking for more feature rich WordPress gallery plugins, take a look at over 200 gallery plugins available on CodeCanyon. They are all highly customizable and offer a lot of layouts. You will also get free lifetime updates and 6 months of support.

by Monty Shokeen via Envato Tuts+ Code

10 Best iOS Game Templates

Have a great idea for an iOS game but are turned off by the hours of tedious work involved in bringing your concept to life? Well, that’s what templates are for. Why waste time reinventing the wheel when CodeCanyon is filled with a brilliant range of iOS game templates that will help you cut through the drudgery and focus on the best parts of creating your own game?

To get you started, we’ve scoured through the almost 300 iOS game templates we have available and found the ten best and most current we have available today.

1. FIVES

One of the top sellers at CodeCanyon, FIVES challenges players to create as many five-letter words as they can before the game’s timer runs out. Every time players match a word the timer decreases its time a little, to give them a bit of a reward. Players also have the option of sharing their best scores on Facebook and Twitter.

The FIVES template uses Xcode 8.x and Swift. It supports internationalization to multiple languages and comes with a comprehensive PDF User Guide to help you customise the game to suit your interests and tastes.

Users have commented on the template's “excellent code”, “good documentation” and “great support follow up”.

2. Brain Teaser

A great app for priming the memory and deepening concentration, the aim of Brain Teaser is for players to remember and draw connections between faces, shapes or words displayed.

The template is designed to be edited with Xcode. It's easy to reskin and supports AdMob out of the box.

3. iMath Educational Game for Kids

Designed to increase concentration and enhance problem-solving skills and information-processing speeds, iMath is a fun app that challenges children and adults alike to complete basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division equations under time constraints.

The app is easy to reskin and supports monetisation with Chartboost and AdMob ads. It also includes Yahoo Flurry Analytics so that you can track every aspect of your app's performance. This template is written in Objective-C.

4. Sudoku

Sudoku is a popular puzzle game that initially displays a partially filled grid. The aim of the game is to fill each square with a number from 1 to 9. Each number can only appear once in the same column, row or 3 x 3 box. This app comes in five levels—from easy to expert—and once begun a level can be saved to continue playing later.

Written in Objective-C, the template supports AdMob and is easy to reskin.

5. Catch The Monsters Geolocation Game

Following on the huge popularity of Pokemon Go, the goal of Catch The Monsters is for the player to find monsters in their area or an area they're visiting. When the app locates a monster, the player needs to get within at least 50 meters of them in order to catch them, earn points and move up the Top 10 Leaderboard. Players can also share their stats on social media, by mail or SMS.

The Catch The Monsters template comes with an admin interface, using the Parse SDK on back4app, that allows an administrator to name the monsters and place them in anywhere in the world. The app comes with a PDF User Guide and PSD icons included.

It's one of the best rated apps in its category on CodeCanyon, and users comment that Catch The Monsters has “easy code, great design, excellent customer support”.

6. 2048 Rounded

The 2048 Rounded game is a spin-off of the classic 2048 number puzzle game. The aim of the game is to get one tile to the number 2048 as quickly as possible by swiping the numbered tiles up, down, left or right so that matching tiles merge and are added together.

The template is written in Swift and can be edited with Xcode. AdMob is supported for easy monetization.

7. Flappy Clumsy Dragon

Tap the screen to fly the Flappy Clumsy Dragon, avoid obstacles, and fight with enemy birds. The best score is displayed on the leaderboard, and players can share results on Facebook and Twitter.

Graphics aren’t included with this template, so you'll need to reskin it with your own assets. The developer has created a reskinning tutorial to make it easy for you to create your own version of the game.

The template is made with the Lua language and the Corona SDK, so it will be easy to create an Android version too, if you want. The template also allows admins to include a popup window to encourage ratings. If you want to see how it works, you can try the demo right now on the Apple App Store.

8. Rush Hero Game

Made with Cocos2dx and Objective-C, the aim of the Rush Hero Game is to move the hero to the left or right out of the path of falling rocks which will crush him. The template includes some fun graphics and great sound effects that are triggered when the hero gets hit.

The game comes with layered PSD files for all the assets, which makes it easy to reskin. Some of its outstanding features are the best score and game rating social features, as well as support for monetization through ad networks and AdMob banners. It is also Game Centre integrated and comes with detailed instructions for customisation.

9. Dragon Jump

With the Dragon Jump template, the player is a knight defending the kingdom from dragons flying overhead. The player can jump on the dragons to kill them or can kill them with a spear. Players may share their scores on various social media.

This template is integrated with Game Centre, so users can share their highscores, as well as with Google Analytics, ad networks, and AdMob banner ads for easy tracking and monetization. The template also comes with complete documentation to guide users through customisation.

10. Tic Tac Toe

One of the newest iOS games in CodeCanyon, this template for the classic Tic Tac Toe game allows players to play against the phone or against another player on the same phone.

Coded with Swift 3 and the latest version of Xcode, the game interface is fully customizable through Storyboard. Detailed instructions for reskinning and customising are included.

The app will auto resize for various screen sizes and supports AdMob. Users have found that “the app functions really well.”

Conclusion

This is just a small selection of hundreds of iOS game templates we have available at CodeCanyon, so if none of these featured templates quite fits your needs, there are plenty of other great options to choose from.

And if you want to improve your skills building iOS games, head on over to the site and check out some of the ever so useful mobile development tutorials and courses we have on offer.

by Lorca Lokassa Sa via Envato Tuts+ Code

Revealed: The reason you see customized content on your Instagram Explore Tab

Have you ever noticed that the Explore tab on your Instagram app has posts that are very similar to your interests? Interestingly, no two Explore tabs are the same and the posts that you see on your mobile are poles apart from your friend. This is because Instagram integrates an advanced...

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by Saima Salim via Digital Information World

Counter Style 97

The post Counter Style 97 appeared first on Best jQuery.

by Admin via Best jQuery

Product Grid Style 93

The post Product Grid Style 93 appeared first on Best jQuery.

by Admin via Best jQuery

Twitter To Change Its Inactive Account Policy And Introduce Memorialize Account Feature

Twitter, after receiving feedback, finally decided to change the way it handles the inactive account. The platform will now create “Memorialize” accounts of users who pass away. But before it, Twitter confirmed that it will deactivate inactive accounts this week to ensure accurate and credible...

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by Aqsa Rasool via Digital Information World