Semiomantics Developments for WordPress assemble the best modules available to offer custom solutions to satisfy the needs of professionals. EVO is a theme base for custom design and development focusing namely on media producers, photographers, graphic and web designers.

Semiomantics EVO is based and inspired by the work of the best designers and developers out there who take advantage of the latest developments of WordPress, HTML5, CSS3, Java, Ajax and the mobile web.

Code and Scripts have been adapted and modified to satisfy Semiomantics’ highest standards of optimization for excellent publishing, targeting Search Engines and Social Networks.

Semiomantics EVO replaces the flash template Semiomantics Evo and constitutes a second cord on Semiomantics Arc.

The recent release of XO Edition 2012 remains the blockbuster product of Semiomantics in 2012; however we are working on a new XO which will replace XO 12. A new architecture will allow to eliminate some of the heavy plugins we are using at present with XO namely to satisfy the standards of mobile development.

Semiomantics EVO is the ideal platform for high quality editing, media publishing and eCommerce. Semiomantics Developers and Designers are invited to join the Ycademy February Online Seminar which is held this coming week-end.

Shoot Images and Videos with your camera or mobile device, load them to your EVO (can be done from the mobile device directly) and let EVO share your content with your friends and acquaintances on Social Networks without losing the control over your media or products. The shop is easily accessible, fully integrated and can also be added to your Facebook page for example.

Look out for more soon.

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Nothing like a Dog Beer on a hot South African day!

Dog Beer beats social networks anytime: here’s Mojo, the ‘puppy’ from next-door, instantly at the door with that special look in his eyes! Only 6 months old…

Too late…. Holly is flat under the table having a dog dream and wishing everybody a happy dog day!

Here’s to Web Design with Passion – and a difference!

This time we will make use of HTML5, CSS3 and Java Script to customize Semiomantics EVO, a Semiomantics development for Developers.

Flash is not anymore a smart option for development for as long as Apple mobile devices are as popular as they are and for as long as mobile Apple devices will not display Flash. Therefore we have been looking for an alternative to produce smashing and eye-catching sites based on HTML5.

Of course the good old Evo Flash driven sites still look great. As a lot of work has been put into them we will try to use namely all the edited images and footage in the new EVO version.

Semiomantics Evo Flash Version 2009

Semiomantics Evo Flash Version 2009

The biggest changes are:

The new EVO assembles the ultimate in WordPress design and features for modern media display. Ideal for photographers, EVO features not less than 6 different Gallery Types. Galleries can be displayed most anywhere and the number is unlimited.

EVO can also display EXIF and location data.

The high resolution background slider will assure clean display also beyond resolutions of 2500 px equivalent.

Custom sidebars for pages and categories.

Finally: the script is eCommerce ready!

Semiomantics EVO 2012 Developer Edition

Semiomantics EVO 2012 Developer Edition Light

Become familiar with a new generation WordPress Theme and develop on the given bases a personal template for further customization.

Learn how to replace the existing Evo sites with the WordPress based responsive EVO.

(More to come.)

Licensed Software is provided.

To build the new site, add a sub-domain to your main site (author blog) and call it for example media, photo or portfolio or similar. (We will discuss this at the pre-seminar call on Tuesday February 21, 2012.

Ticket price $85, the usual discounts for Ycademy Pros apply. Please ask Bianca for the discount code: bianca(at)ycademy.com.

Click to Get your Ticket

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Here’s an original image in 1600 x 900 px (16:9) – in fact, for the first time I am not working in frame aspect ratio 3 : 4 but 16 : 9 ! Therefor, all images of the movie have been edited in that aspect ratio (original size attached) to prepare for optimal HD format – at least so I thought:

I set the video dimensions to 720p (aspect 1280 x 720 = 16 x 9) – but this is the ‘excerpt’ I get (measured dimension 1298 x 730) – yet significantly cut-off on all sides:

In some pictures – like close-ups – I have no problems…

In others like this one with a carefully designed logo – it really matters. And besides… it’s something I need to understand and know … even without being a numbers’ person.

But it gets even better… I copied/pasted the whole movie (pictures and music) to a new sequence after changing the settings to 1080 (instead of 720… )… and ticking that Default issue in General Settings as was suggested in a forum and related to in yesterday’s post. Perhaps, now I have to untick it again… but one really starts stopping to tick with all these ratios and dimensions none of which giving the desired results. Of course, knowing would help – so perhaps someone out there ‘knows’?

First, however, I noticed that I lost all transitions and video effects within the copy/paste process (… not cool at all!…yet eventually solved by switching between the sequences from the timeline and nowhere else) … and then: while I now see the entire image, it has a rather large black frame (within the set frame) which I find is totally unnecessary IF my thought in terms of the chosen video dimension is correct. Which may well not be the case…but which one is?

As so much work is involved and I already assume that I would have to redo all video effects and transitions, I will ahve to find the answers before continuing. How to do it the right way from the start, and with slides and images in 1600 x 900.

This SHOULD be possible – or?

Studying the pixel aspect ratio HERE does help, yet as you will see… these are different dimensions again: “Footage has a 1440 x 1080 or 960 x 720 frame size, and the desired result is a 16:9 frame aspect ratio.”

When reducing my original image to 1440, I get  811 height (instead of 900) – which may be part of the error… but WHY? And HOW?

Duuuuhhh…

Time to get some air in the garden… this is getting a bit mucho… but the good news is: sooner or later, it will be resolved!

As part of the Wedding Website I am currently preparing – and while waiting for my new system to have more punch to edit and render video material – I have just finished a short movie based on Wedding Photography and custom Wedding Video Design. Here is my Logo Design based on the song “One Love” by Bob Marley – a request by the newly weds for this part of their wedding story on their (future) website.

Since this Wedding Lunch took place in another part of South Africa, the challenge for me was to create something out of what I got: in this case a CD of professional photos by Andrew Elliott Photography, in different shapes and sizes, using different filters, and no corrections etc.  While overwhelming in the beginning to say the least… it’s in looking through the material again and again to get a feeling for the photography, the style, the flow, finding those little gems and excerpts and – finally – discover the message one wants to focus on and translate in the video.

ADOBE Premiere Pro is my preferred editing tool, although there are tonnes of additional studies and learning for me to do.

So far, I am quite happy with the movie itself, however, this time I prepared all in format 1600 x 900 -being fully convinced that this would fill the screen on our PCs and correspond to YouTube dimensions (1280×720) – but again a hurdle to understand and correct/redo: the height does not fully display and while this is not a big issue for many pictures, it is absolutely critical for well-designed images like the ones I am showing here… and there are a couple of sequences.

Whether it’s in the Settings (ticking Default Scale to Frame Size)… or something else that’s missing… fact is, I will be back to the drawing board until this issue is solved as well…

Ta Ra Ta Ta . . .

Thumbnail sizes are set in your dashboard under Settings > Media.  When we change the thumbs’ sizes, the change will apply only to new content. These thumbnails are used by default in the XO Basic Home Page Layout.

In order to modify thumbnails created previously to a change in WordPress settings, we use the “Regenerate Thumbnails” plugin; install from your dashboard and then just run it: this will create thumbnails corresponding to the new WP Media settings for all images in the library and galleries.

The Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will have no impact on syndicated posts unless you also pull in the images to your library when syndicating.

When we upload an image from our dashboard in XO, XO creates 12 thumbnails adapted to the needs of the site and stores them in the default uploads folder for faster loading. If we change the layout settings in XO advanced home page settings, or if we change thumbnail sizes under the layout settings, the previously created thumbnails may not fit anymore.

Using the Regenerate Thumbnails plugin will create a new set of thumbnails corresponding to the new settings. Syndicated content will not be altered by the plugin, unless you pull in the images while syndicating and store them in your library.

Basically we are looking at two elements: the image and the caption.

Also XO allows for different styling of images

Yorgo Logo

inserted into a post and galleries or images and thumbs used in Custom Formats, such as Images and  Gallery Posts.

The example shows XO default style which sets borders with rounded corners, a background and some padding.

These settings can easily be modified with custom CSS, for example by adding and customizing a CSS3 property, such as some shadow:

This example uses inset box-shadow and a hover effect decreasing opacity by 30%.

For box-shadow to work in IE, we use the PIE support:

The example pulls in the PIE script; as done in previous examples (on the menu) make sure that you load the PIE.php and PIE.htc files into your child theme and link to the absolute or relative URI with the behavior property.

Captions can be customized by modifying the following selectors, for example:

You could of course chose a font-family, display the text with a reduced, fixed width or pull the caption into the image using a semi-transparent background and a negative top-margin. The limit is … your imagination.

To style Gallery Thumbnails just customize, for example:

Related posts:

Website Tutorial 1 addresses the following situation:

Some of our valued website customers are completely new to the technicalities and operation of websites and blogs and what they demand in the future, once setup and completed.

The fact is, that it is the dynamic content of the blog – meaning regular, original posts and articles vamped up with photos, images and videos etc – that keep the website alive, that keep the hungry search engine spyders coming back again and again for more (… fresh, delicious content that is)… and sending us flowers in form of top rankings on Google.

Facit: work on a website and/or blog is never complete once the website has been constructed and delivered; work continues in many different ways, including also maintenance and regular upgrades just to name a few…

Basically, the website owner has two options: to do the work him- or herself (which demands time, patience, knowledge and skills as the case may be… ) or to outsource – which is a continuing cost factor that definitely pays.

For the time being, Monkey Valley Resort has allocated a person to get acquainted with the new website and to start the blogging process once ready for it. To this end and to be the most efficient also considering time issues as we all have full working days, I am creating a series of Website Tutorials to introduce and explain this high-traffic website itself, its features and functionalities to someone completely new to this area.

The short website tutorials of about 10 – 15 minutes each will be posted on YouTube, public for general viewing, but private at a later stage when going into some intricacies of the WP based Semiomantics XO Script. This procedure will also help me to better understand where the main problem areas with people who are new to the online world of blogging lie – and to find helpful remedies in my explanations and assistance.

To be continued…

Enjoy Your Valentine and Make it a Great Day!

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It’s the 14th February 2012 – time to wish everybody a loving “Happy Valentine” from a rather cool yet dynamic Cape Town, South Africa!

While “Happy Valentine” is obviously of value under commercial aspects for those who have something to sell… meaning it is one of those many occasions where products can be pushed, it’s nice for young and old couples in love to spend a special evening together and celebrate their intimate bond.

In that sense, Thorfynn’s Restaurant at Monkey Valley Resort has prepared a special dinner CLICK HERE that you may want to enjoy while watching the sunset over Noordhoek Beach…

Meanwhile, and after my environmental journey to the North, I continue Wedding Website Developments focusing on a special lunch with the motto “Let’s get together and feel alright” – the newly wed’s favorite by Bob Marley!

Author Name Style on Semiomantics XO

We want to display the author’s name underneath the main title in small but remarkable fonts:

Note: we just use letter-spacing to gain visibility.

]]> http://touchvisiontalk.com/website-design-and-publishing-news/meta-tag-styling-on-wordpress/feed/ 0 http://touchvisiontalk.com/website-design-and-publishing-news/xo-theme-typography/ http://touchvisiontalk.com/website-design-and-publishing-news/xo-theme-typography/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:25:15 +0000 Yorgo Nestoridis http://typography.ycademy.net/?p=126

1. How to Customize your WordPress Typography
2. XO Mobile Theme with WPTouch Pro
3. Christmas Skin for XO 2011 WP Theme
4. XO Photo Press WordPress Theme
5. Transparent WordPress Theme Design

On the test site we use the Semiomantics Widgets and Theme Handler plug-in as well as a modified Supersized plug-in; the latter needs some more work to make it more responsive. Also we use TubePress which behaves fine also on mobile.

The Theme is Semiomantics XO with 3 custom child-themes; any theme can be associated with any page, post, category, tag or sidebar.

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Time again to monitor and check the performance of our new WP based Semiomantics XO 2012 Script on search engines.

Here’s a screenshot of yesterday’s post “Portraits of Africa 2012″ on Google – have a look! Positions 1, 2, 3 and 6 ahead of 10,800,000 search returns – YEBO GOGO!

When looking up “Portraits of Africa 2012″ on Google, I also checked how the images in my article were ranked – here’s the detail of the screenshot showing the Image of a “Young African Girl” on position one, followed by the Image of a “Young African Boy” on position 4… and a small ad I created ages ago peeking at us on position 2. All of them ahead of our South African presidents… just too funny! The young generation is on the move!

It becomes even more intrigueing when we look up “Portrait of Africa Images” on Google and find these young faces of Africa featuring amongst some really classy photography! And again… the random positioning is just too weird… for those who read this and understand what I mean! Welcome to the future :)

Fact is, that with the increasing importance of images and media on the Internet – and with this for our website development – … and people preferring to look at something for quick grasping of the contents rather than reading long time-consuming – and even worse: thought-provoking -  texts… that the correct tagging and classification of photos and images becomes more important. Here as with any post what counts is to be found on Google – Google Top 10 that is. Noone else looks further…

Congratulations to our young friends who’ve made it to the top ranks and find themselves in interesting and attractive company! There will be more….

Young African Girl from my series “Portraits of Africa 2012″.

Portraits of Africa 2012 – untouched… straight from my simple NIKON Coolpix P90 … just the magic of a Young African Girl.

Although the black & white version adds a specific note, I preferred to show the soft gold tones of the skin.

Within my photo series “Portraits of Africa” here is the image of a young African boy.

I just love Black & White Photography and how it adds depth to a picture, especially portraits and expressive faces.

“Portraits of Africa” are shot on a simple NIKON Coolpix P90 with a minimum of post-editing, ideally nothing at all.

We are pleased to announce that the Conference Services website  “Hakamela Conferencing & Event Management” will soon be under construction on Semiomantics XO 2012.

Hakamela Conferencing & Event Management will open its doors in Pretoria, South Africa. This high-demand Service Company  will be run by professional Conference Management Expert Lynn Sakuinje.

Web Design South Africa will be designing a simple, practical and user-friendly website that will target top 10 positions on Google under the relevant keywords and focuses on high visibility on the mobile web.

The above Screenshots represent just some of the pages, features and looks the 2012 Edition of the high performance XO Theme for WordPress has up its sleeves. The above site is the fruit of the 2 Days Ycademy Online Seminar for Semiomantics Developers and designers.

The 2012 Edition of XO is focused on even more flexibility in as much as editing, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility are concerned.

The Site displays perfectly on Mobile devices, showing responsiveness also of the plugged in scripts chosen of which some have been adapted to satisfy the high standards of Semiomantics Publishing Scripts for Excellence.

The site elaborated at the Ycademy Online Seminar this past week-end features some smashing features, such as:

The XO script is well commented and offers designers a clean and straight forward environment for custom developments. XO uses best practices for WordPress development and makes the best use of the possibilities offered by the WP back-bone, assuring smooth integration and optimized conflict handling.

XO is a great playground for designers. The DIY version allows anyone to adapt layout and colors to taste right from the back-office; there is no need to have any knowledge about coding or designing. The theme behaves like a Chameleon and adapts to specific needs with just a few clicks of the mouse: pre-configured layout elements transform your XO quickly into a Magazine, Newspaper, personal Author Blog, a Media Hub, a Shop, a Marketing Machine, a Social Media Publisher, a Product Promoter or a Fan Site or most anything your imagination dictates.

For the professional designer, XO offers a well commented environment. Custom code can be added right from the dashboard or, as I prefer using a child theme. XO is tuned for HTML5 and CSS3 use, making it a modern and inspiring framework for exceptional design effects.

Out of the box, the XO Theme for WordPress provides a stable and reliable, robust and optimized solution for common use. It provides built in features such a slider with multiple transitions and a one click selector for easy use.

Layouts can be easily adapted to needs and purpose of the site. In fact, most custom designers rely on the theme engine to format efficiently layouts.

The site featured in the above gallery uses a few pro plug-ins to add functionality in function of customer requirements. The integration of such add on scripts is a relatively simple process for designers and developers.

XO has been developed for high performance, productivity, excellence in publishing and flexibility. For the professional users, the XO Theme constitues a solid base with a huge potential for customization and creative artistic expression.

The release of XO Version 3.3.x is planned for the first week of February. The present Release Candidate has been thoroughly tested. A few minor issues will be taken care off before XO will be available to the public.

If your site is running on Semiomantics XO suing basic customization, the theme can just be overwritten. (Save your custom CSS beforehand.)

If you are using a custom version with custom developments or a child theme, some of your customization will need to be adapted to the enhancements of XO 2012. This concerns namely custom headers and footers as well as custom functions.

Support for developers and designers is available as usual at our Ycademy Online Calls and Seminars or through Semiomantics Pro Support.

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We are living in times of rapid change and the explosion of the mobile market. People use their mobile phones to search the net, to find what they want, to compare it and – to buy it. Sales figures triggered via the mobile net are staggering – and as web designers we have to adapt – which means also to focus on new technologies and learn new languages.

Over the past years, Semiomantics has always evolved along with WordPress Developments. Remarkably, the latest WP update allows for much more creativity. While our Semiomantics based author blogs display perfectly on smartphones through integration of the right plugins and settings, there’s much more scope that we will be looking into at this weekend’s Ycademy Seminar 2012 – which is also a testing ground for the new Semiomantics XO 2012 – to be released soon.

In that sense, I am looking forward to the evolution of Bianca Gubalke Mobile!