What I did on my vacation…

So I haven’t posted for a while, and you’re wondering where I’ve been. Maybe not, but I’ll probably tell you anyway. I’ve been completely obsessed with a website I’m working on for a large client, to be unveiled in the next couple of days. I can’t wait. It’s based on ModX with a lot of custom code, a completely custom design and some (if I do say so) ingenious devices for creating a multi-user news/blog site from ModX.

I wrote a snippet for inserting Flash movies that works like Kimili Flash Embed for Wordpress, except it’s based on UFO and doesn’t really look anything like KML ;-). Same concept, though. If you give it a target, it will replace that target, otherwise it creates a div with a random name based on the movie name and then replaces it with the Flash movie. It loads the javascript dynamically so you don’t have to include it in your template. It’s pretty slick, and I’ll package it and share it. I’m not active on the ModX forums yet, so I’d like to make an appearance there before I go releasing code. You know how it is.

I also managed to set it up so that multiple users can log in and add stories to the newsroom/blog from a front-end interface and then there’s one manager who categorizes and publishes the stories. Submitted stories go into a holding chamber until they are given a category.

The archive page features an mootools accordian menu and each category archives itself. I suppose I’ll just link to the finished site when it’s up. I have to wait for them to add enough content to fill it out now, but I think they’re ready to go with that. It will be a constant work in progress and needs a lot of SEO attention.

I’m looking forward to showing it off, and posting the UFO snippet! I’ll see you soon…