http://www.dind.com/blog/design/ en-us Fri, 18 May 2012 19:38:30 PDT Fri, 18 May 2012 19:38:30 PDT SiteCrafting.com GearBox 1.1 (beta) http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/bulletproof-critique/ I ran across a neat article from Sitepoint via Stylegala that you all should read on how to make your HTML 'perfect'. In the world of design, the concept of perfect is non-existant. There is no solution that will work for solving every problem, and there are exceptions to every rule. This article is no different. Read the full article, and then check out my comments.FAQ #1-#7I can't really say anything about these, because they are factual definitions.#8 Yes, HTML 4.01 Strict is a good choice, but XHTML 1.0 Strict, or even better, XHTML 1.1, is preferable. If you need to use deprecated tags or attributes, you really should use HTML 4.01 Transitional. We use XHTML 1.1, for a number of reasons, but we do use some prohibited attrributes (title on tags other than abbr and acronym, target) and syntax (our rich text editor in the cms mucks up the code). We do this because we know the strengths and weaknesses of each decision we make, and we don't make them lightly.#9It's good to make sure your markup validates, but I know that this article won't and I know why. Some errors can be tolerated (like the ending '/' on image tags.), and some can't - a misplaced </table> destroys your layout.#10Too many times I've seen sites where the HTML was terrible, but it rendered properly. Most designers want to make their sites look right, but it's the attention to detail that separates the good from the great.#11-#14Again with factual definitions. I also got bored halfway through #12 - Charset.#15Be careful with using character entities outsite your charset, because The entire range from  through Ÿ are invalid characters. I bet you didn't know that, did you? It's ok, I didn't either until I read this article on A List Apart.#16-#18Not a whole lot I can say about these, but there are some details to pay attention to, like using h# tags in sequential order.#19You can make block level elements look like inline elements, or inline elements look like they are block I am a div displayed inline, and so am I.and I am a span displayed block.The article states this, but I wanted to make a little clearer.#20 & #21If you didn't know this already, please make sure to read it again.#22This item should have been much earlier in the article, at least #8. They've been using semantic for awhile, but they just get around to defining it  now?#23Again, make sure you are using the tags as they were meant to be used. If something needs to be italic, use <i>, if it needs emphasis, use <em>.#24This deserves to be said again: table layouts are bad, for all the reasons in the article.#25<div> is not the new <table>, and documents should not have <div> soup. The div element is a generic block-level tag. It is best used to store other elements in meaningfully connected ways. For example, <div id="header"> is common here, but having six div's within that for each the page title, navigation, login information, and to separate those items is bad. Be like us, resist the urge to replace <table> with <div>#26Just remember to use <table> for the right reason.#27-#31This is all very useful information, much of which I didn't know. Make sure you get it all.#32I would much rather use target="_blank" than Javascript to open new windows, especially because all browsers support the target attribute, and most don't let javascript open new windows with user intervention anymore. In this case, the ideal solution is broken because of the era of the pop-up.#33Actually, the alt attribute should be omitted, but only rarely. At SiteCrafting, we use image icons to add meaning to links, for example, a plus sign on links to add new enteries to a database. If I added an alt attribute to that image, and it didn't display, my link would look like [Add] Add Item rather than Add Item. #34You can have many elements of a given class, but only one element (on a page) with a given id. This does make you wonder why getElementsByClassName isn't in the Javascript core.#35 & #36Essential, but I can't add anything to these.#37This reminds me of the era of frames. Frames were bad, and undead frames like object include and iframes should not be allowed to work. But we had to use iframes a couple of times, because there was no other option to make the system work. Here's the bottom line: Learn the rules of HTML, and this article is a good place to start. Then when you have learned the rules, you can bend them, or even break them, as long as you know why you are doing it. Wed, 01 Nov 2006 09:16:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/dollars/ Two dollars is a small amount, but two is a magical number. Despite it's seeming insignificance, two represents the difference between doing a job, and doing it right.One summer while I was still in college, I worked in a brewery in Colorado waiting tables. I recommend that everyone work in a restaurant at some time in their life. It teaches you a lot about life and service. While I was working there, I began to understand the value of such a small amount, and how much good work is worth.If you don't know, servers (at least in the US) rely on tips as their soruce of income. In Colorado, I earned a paltry $2.25 per hour, and that was only enough to cover the taxes on what I earned in tips. Washington is a little better, because retaurant owners are required to pay the minimum hourly wage, unlike Colorado where tips count towards that sum.Often, the difference between a great tip and an average tip is two dollars, and the same is true between average tips and poor tips. In a place like the one where I worked, the average customer bill was around $12 ($8 for dinner, $4 for a drink). When 3 or 4 people came into eat, they usually ended up ordering about $40 worth of food and drinks. On that total, a 10% tip is $4.00. A 15% tip is $6.00. That's a two dollar difference, but it makes a huge difference for the server. The actual value of $2 is small - sometimes I can find that much in the seats of my car, and it costs me more than that to do my laundry. The result of the extra $2 is huge. Your server is happier, and happy servers mean better service, increased patronage, and more satisfied customers.What it comes down to is that the $2 represents a willingness to go the extra mile,  or the difference between just doing something, and doing it right. Or the difference between doing something right, and getting it perfect. I've heard many stories about people that wanted to make a website - to help their business, to show off their talents, or just for fun - but they balk when they hear what their idea is going to cost. Many people miss the fact that it takes effort to do anything, and whether the cost of that effort is time, money, or blood and sweat, the difference between doing it right and not is huge.This happened to me last year. For every day for about two weeks, and when ever I wasn't in class or asleep, I was working in my studio on a piece for my senior art exhibition. Every day I'd get up at 8:00am, and work until around midnight. I hated the piece while I was working on it because it was so much work, and took so much effort. But, I realized that I had come up with something that could be really good. And so I put in the effort to make sure that it was perfect, that every component of it worked like it was supposed to. When I was done, the only words that I could use to describe it was 'Wow.'For all you developers out there, heed my words. If you take the time to do your projects right, it will only benefit you. Encourage clients that are willing to let you do your job the way you know how. And for anyone looking to hire someone to make a website, establish a level of trust with your developers and then let them do their job. It's ok to want proof of their abilities, but if you don't trust them they will only disappoint you. The $2 attention to detail ends up producing products that are much more valuable than you could ever imagine. From the client point of view, if save two minutes of work a thousand times, that adds up to two thousand minutes, or 33 and a third hours. Little by little, those small savings add up into something huge. And for developers, having a few really happy clients makes more clients that are willing to refer you to people they know. And that means better work, and continued success. Anybody can do this, but you have to actually work for it. And make sure to go that extra mile for the people that take care of you. Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:39:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/design-art/ When I was back in school, I would often tell people how my combined Art and Computer Science majors did not mean that I was doing graphic design, web design, or any other kind of mix of computers and art. To them, it was obvious that I would combine two usually separate majors into the usual combination. To me, however, art and computer science are totally separate. The purpose of art is in my mind to either 1) evoke an emotional response in your viewer or 2) create something beautiful. Computers are a communication medium, and the purpose of communication is to deliver information. You can see examples of this every day - in websites of art schools that are impossible to divine information out of, or in strictly information websites that have no graphical content whatsoever. In the case of these two ideas, the graphic-less sites win out in function and usability, but the art school sites look better. The problem is, that the art school sites are impossible to use, and so it doesn't matter how good they look. The clear winner here is the plain, yet content centric site. And the lesson to learn is that content is king, and communicating that information well and effectively is the key to building a good website.For practical examples, let's take a look at two actual websites, craigslist.org and Seattle's School of Visual Concepts. Craigslist is a well known classified ads site, and very successful. They have thousands of posts everyday, and get all that information across to the users in a clear and effective means. But the site looks terrible. Even so, people all over the world use craigslist to buy everything from old couches to hot tubs to fill dirt. Craigslist works because the information is easy to find, and readily available.SVC, on the other hand, is a piece of digital art. It's got a downhome/street grunge design that's really appealing. When I first saw this site, I loved it. But today, I think differently of it. While it's not the worst site I've ever seen, it's pretty close to the worst. Trying to find any kind of useful information on the site is futile, because all the text looks the same, and the busy-ness of the design distracts from the information. Try looking class information from the homepage. The class schedule isn't too hard to find, but once you're there, finding information about a specific class, say something in Advertising is terribly difficult. It's hard to find the Advertising category in the first place because the text that denotes "advertising" is really small, has low contrast, and on top of that, isn't actually text - it's an image.Once you've found the class you are looking for, try clicking on the class name to get more information. You'll see a popup window that barely matches the rest of the site design. You can't scroll (at least, not on a Mac or with Firefox) down if the information is too long to fit in their pre-defined window, and if you've got an extension like FireBug on, you'll see that there's a continuous Javascript error.Once that window is open, click on the Course Outline link on top. I think that's supposed to open in a new window (how many windows, exactly, does this site want me to have?) but it opens in a tab that I can't read because I can't scroll the popup window. I'd expect more from a school that teaches web design classes, but I can't be too surprised because their intro course covers such topics as "Frames ? Advantages, disadvantages, how to create" and "HTML tables and how they can be used to create interesting layouts". Personally, I'd never want to hire or work with anyone that learned how to make websites from this school. They're only about 10 years behind current web technology. The moral of this story is that having a good design does not mean that you will have a good website, but taking time to insure that your content is easy to access goes a long way to establishing a great site. And to anyone at SVC - I didn't intent to be mean to you site; I love how it looks. But seriously, redo it. You can do better. I'd even manage the project in exchange for free tuition.Most people confuse design with art because it's visual, but design is more than just ink on a page or pixels on a screen. Design, or at least good design, is about the communication of information. Graphic design is not exempt from this. Many schools, including PLU, teach students how to use Photoshop or Illustrator to make pretty pictures, and largely those schools succeed. That's not design. What they are teaching is best described as digital art. Good design is something that few classes will teach you, and fewer people actually learn.That's partly why good designers are hard to find. To be a good designer, you have to have obvious eye for what looks good and what doesn't. You have to be able to communicate the important information to people using the website, and you also have to be able to communicate well with the people that are hiring you to design the site, and also the people that build the site. It's very frustrating when the designer gets second guessed by clients or users simply because said client or user has delusions of grandeur. At the end of the day, what makes websites successful? Good content, and information that is easy to access. Pretty images are not useless, but they can't be used in place of good information. But as sites like craigslist show, you can have an ugly design and still have a great website. All the best websites are the best because they have good functionality, information, and content. But it helps if your site looks good, too; it's just not vital. Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:15:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/safari-png-headaches/ I just finished coding a new photography contest application for a client, and our graphic designer alerted me to some weirdness that Safari has with PNG images. To make a long story quite short, Safari doesn't translate PNG colors to match CSS colors reliably; it darkens them just a bit. The details are beyond me, so instead check out this article for those, and you can see an example in this image. The example labeled "Your Version" is the Safari rendering, and the box labeled "Our Version" is the Firefox rendering.For you, this means that you shouldn't use PNG images where color matching is important, use GIF instead. However, if PNG use becomes more widespread, hopefully the treatment of PNG images by browsers and OSs will become more standard and can replace GIFs - which have fewer colors and larger filesizes. Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:48:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/buttons/ Depending on how well of a response I get I might be doing this more. Figured since the holidays are right around the corner and you all have been pretty good lately I could give you a free mini button set. :) EnjoyDownload Buttons Mon, 17 Dec 2007 14:56:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/understanding-web-design-at-alistapart/ Being very fond of the analogy of web design/development-as-architecture, I was overjoyed with this article, by Jeffrey Zeldman, on Alistapart: Understanding web design.There isn't much more to say; it's the usual web-design-isn't-just-looks,-guys, but very eloquently and effectively worded. The kind of stuff to put on the wall. Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:03:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/faux-paw-in-footer/ In web design we commonly put footers in the bottom of the page which include links, legal information, and usually a copyright date. But why? And is there something else we should include?Read on and I promise not to use any more bad puns.Web design has become an offshoot of print design. Granted, the medium of web has very different attributes from print, but that is the case whether you are designing a book, magazine, billboard, or any of the  media within the print category. Most print designs include a copyright date at the bottom. Historically, this was to mark the date from which the copyright range is calculated. In a book, this is important because the book itself could last until the end of the copyright. But the web is a strange medium; it is intended to be updated regularly, which really changes the meaning of the copyright date.The argument goes that users can use the copyright date value to see if the data on the page is up-to-date. Imagine happening upon a page titled "WOW! New iPhone to hit the market." A quick glance at the footer could tell you that this page from 2007 might be out of date and will not include a word about the new GPS system.For blogs, the dating of content has become particularly important. The majority of blogs display the date in which the entry was posted (as is this one). Now, if you are viewing this page a while down the road, you can quickly see that the dialog here is old. Knowing this doesn't change the content of the page, but it does change the context. I suggest that we add this type of information to all sites.At one point in web development posting the last updated date was considered the norm; now it has become a faux pas. With this new wave of web development (note, not web 2.0), I think it is time to re-evaluate. There is a lot of pressure on the users of the Internet to determine the "truthiness" (Colbert, 2005) of the information they read. Adding a date to the already present footer information can only be beneficial for the end-user. Moreover, when web content is printed out it cannot be updated, so the publication date has particular importance in such an event.I believe our footers should include both a copyright date (for historical reasons) and an published date. It is relatively easy to post this new date, especially in the age of dynamic content. Looking to the future, as meta-content starts to take hold, the best search matches will be made from content of a similar time period. Without displaying the published date, your site will completely miss out on this wave.So what needs to be done? I suggest we take from the success of the blogosphere and start to include a published date on all the content we publish to the web. While updated dates were at one point a faux pas, I believe blogs are starting to change that opinion. By placing a publication date in the footer we will give context to our content, something that will help end users. Lastly, it will help evolving the web into the next stage of content, where multiple sources are mixed to form a clear message. Remember, it is only one variable, and only a few characters at the bottom of a page, that holds all this power. Mon, 30 Jun 2008 08:00:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/company-email-signature/ As a company brand evolves, it's often easy to forget about little things such as the email signature. The email signature, which appears at the close of a message, is usually where contact information exists, consisting of info like your name, title, dept, website, address, and phone number. I say "usually" because many people feel this is a spot to showcase a little bit about themselves. They do this with such things as banners, animated gifs, inspirational quotes, and even their photo. Adding such elements is perfectly acceptable for personal signatures. However, when you represent your company, it is important to follow their branding guidelines on such an element since a simple email can easily be seen by thousands. My advice to companies and other designers who need to create a signature for a company is to keep it simple and keep it plain text. You must remember that an email client is not a web browser. Many email clients can render html but not all will render it correctly, especially once it gets forwarded. Another reason I advise against html signatures is because of the likelihood of your email being marked as "spam" due to the embedded images and html. A good signature is a simple signature and I recommend you keep it short and concise. Our company signature is as follows:FirstName Surname | Titleemail@sitecrafting.comhttp://sitecrafting.com | 253.272.2248I'm not saying this is the only way to do it I'm just showing you our solution. Feel free to post your advice on this topic and your solutions. Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:48:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/buckle-up/ Our logo (the gear) lends itself to many-a-unique uses. It's been used to depict Rudolph on last year's Christmas card, a throwing star held by a ninja on some company t-shirts, and even used as a knock-off of the good 'ol Jolly Roger. We're always trying to come up with new ways to use and new things to put it on. As a treat this year, Mandi decided to surprise the staff with a brand new use for our logo ... a belt buckle!So, with a little help from a client, Mandi secretively crafted these wonderful pants holder-uppers for the staff. She sent our logo to Tacoma Steel, who went through a couple rounds until they were satisfied with the outcome. Mandi then attached the cutouts to some blanks and delivered the polished buckles to us.It's always fun to be able to work with our clients and utilize some of their services. So here's a big "thank you" to Tacoma Steel for their help in creating these buckles! Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:20:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/obamas-new-on-internet/ At 12:00 PM, Eastern Standard Time, most eyes were on the swearing in of Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States. But at the same time, a total redesign of the President's official website, whitehouse.gov, was being launched. A few technical observations: jQuery appears to be the javascript framework of choice. They've managed to avoid flash almost entirely. For example, the home page slideshow is entirely javascript-based along with other galleries. Top navigation is well laid-out (splitting long menus up into columns) and works fine in IE6 The designers were nice to the developers: no rounded corners, no drop-shadows over a variable backgroundAnd a few complaints: The footer nav is a little too long; you really only need the top level down there... they've kept pages short enough that it's not an epic struggle to return to the top for the full drop-downs Breadcrumb navigation items are not links Some search results are spitting out inline CSSThey have also introduced a contact form for the Office of Public Liaison, essentially the closest you'll get to being able to e-mail the President, and an extension of the campaign's long-standing use of internet resources to communicate more directly with the citizenry. There is also a promise of "many more ways for you to interact with OPA-IGA at this page in the weeks and months ahead," though what those will be, who can say? My one complaint about the form is treating subject as a dropdown rather than a free text box (the first subject option is "Congratulations", by the way). Also, I suspect we'll see a CAPTCHA of some kind popping up within a couple spam-filled days.(No, I didn't test it for SQL injection. I don't think the Secret Service accepts "but I was just trying to help you improve security" as a defense when they spot a message like that from your IP address)All told, it's a solid website that really emphasizes the new administration's promises of openness. There is a page for Obama's weekly video address, a blog, and pages set aside for the listing of all proclamations and executive orders. I look forward to seeing how it expands with content in the coming weeks.(Plus: it validates.) Tue, 20 Jan 2009 16:17:00 PST http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/making-legalese-easy-to-understand/ As I was checking out the consumerist.com today, I noticed an article about Aviary.com and their Terms of Use. Normally, Terms documents are terrifically difficult to understand. This one, however, includes plain English explanations alongside the legal-jargon. This is a fantastic little step forward to a better web, and one that I would love to see become more popular. Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:54:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/to-create-3d-pie-chart/ I'm constantly intrigued by how other designers execute different effects and styles on the web. The other day I figured out a quick way to create a fantastic looking pie chart in Adobe Illustrator.The only requirements for this tutorial are:  Adobe Illustrator CS3 or CS4One clarification is that once you select the slice choose the "color mode" in the Color Panel for whatever format you will be using the graphic for. Web/Screen will be RGB and Print will be CMYK.I hope you enjoyed this quick little tutorial if anyone has any input on future tutorials just let me know in the comments. Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:30:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/twitter-takes-on-search-1/ With the recent homepage redesign it is clear twitter is out to take a chunk of the search market. Searching the web using twitter is a different type of search though.Traditionally search results are presented to a user because the search engine tells them these are the results that are most relevant. The end user really has no connection to that result and really doesn't understand why such a result is ranked and presented to them. Nearly all of the data in these search engines is either crawled by bots or submitted by individual sites.The twitter search approach is much different. When you search for a topic you are presented with a bit of commentary then a link to an article or blog that relates to the topic you are searching for. The relationship information that you get when searching on twitter is what makes it important. You now have the individual's twitter name, their commentary, as well as when it was "tweeted" so you can take this all into account before you decide if that bit of information is relevant. All of the content you are searching is user submitted so only information that users feel is relevant is added to the search pool. As usual there are people out there to game these systems but a relationship based search is definitely a smart move and I look forward to the evolution of the real-time web integrating with traditional search. Right now each type of search has its place but be on the look for a merger of the two types. From a PR perspective its potentially a reputation management nightmare but definitely something to think about.What are your thoughts on the future of real time search? Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:07:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/doing-mobile-right/ One great side effect of having no standard way to convert a website for mobile browsing (sorry CSS, it's still not happening) is taking some time to sit down and think what should go on your mobile site.Here are some tips on how we've helped our clients setup sites for mobile devices:Different audience, different use case. Tailor content for the small screen for users wanting quick info "on the go".Content top to bottom. Keep the design, navigation, and content layout simple since mobile users don't want to have to scroll sideways or zoom in to get around your site.Test and check that you're not just setting a site up for one type of device (cough! iPhone). As with any website, lay things out to provide a consistent experience across the most popular platforms.Allow visitors an "out". Re-direct mobile visitors from your homepage to your mobile site but allow them to set whether or not they always want this to be the case.Learn more about how we can help your site go mobile! Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:31:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/photoshop-cs5-refine-edge-walkthrough/ Decided to mix it up a little on the blog today. Instead of tips on coding or deep thoughts on the future of the web,  I decided to do a quick walk through on a new and improved feature that the design team has been using pretty regularly. If you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments and I'll do my best to respond.  Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:20:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/sitecraftings-design-team/ First off thank you to everyone who has already applied for the SiteCrafting Web Designer position. For those of you who are interested feel free to view the careers page. We understand finding a job via craigslist is a very cold experience and after applying and not getting a response from some applications your determination might be down. Believe me we've been there as well but it is key to be creative and follow any guidelines a company has for applying. Below are a few tips and some insider information on our Design Team which I hope will help you decide if SiteCrafting is the place for you. If you are just copying and pasting email after email with the same intro you will most likely end up not making it past HR Our designers have a passion for new technology & design and frequently visit sites like: http://techcrunch.com, http://digg.com, http://webdesignledger.com, http://alistapart.com, http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew, http://thebestdesigns.com Our iTunes/Pandora includes artists such as; DJ Jazzy Jeff, Freeway, Jake One, Dom Kennedy, Talib Kweli, Slick Rick, Bob Marley, Eliot Lipp We like caffeine - it's not uncommon for Glen to crush through 3 cups of coffee while Michael averages 4 and might kick off the morning with a Red Bull Our designers have a great sense of humor We brought Glen out of retirement and he is now #4 at foosball in the office We work with the most skilled web developers out there who aren't afraid to push us to design experiences that are challenging and never been done We primarily design for the screen and mobile phone but have the skills to execute on anything from video to print Everyday is different, routine is unacceptable to us We hire designers who enjoy taking lead Working on 6-10 projects at a time is not uncommon Awards aren't everything to us, solving the clients needs are our awards If you only send a resume you won't get past HR, a portfolio is a must.Thank you for considering to apply, if you have any other questions about this position feel free to ask in the comments section below and we'll do our best to answer. Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:51:00 PDT http://www.sitecrafting.com/blog/matter-time-dates/ When you talk to someone, would you be more likely to say something like "...I came back yesterday about noon," or, "...I came back November 17th, 2010 at 12:23pm"? I'd imagine, unless you're a robot, most people would choose the former over the latter. Shouldn't our web apps do the same?Social media has opened up a form of online conversation that often takes a casual tone that better matches a real life conversation than something like a business email or paper letter. Likewise, that conversation moves ahead so much faster than before, the element of time relative to where you currently are may make more sense then a precise measurement down to the second.On sites like Twitter, Facebook, and within some of the apps we build, dates and times are displayed more conversationally using terms like "yesterday", "today", "noon", "this morning", etc. Here's a quick PHP function you could easily expand upon for your needs, but helps clean up dates to make things flow more like most people think and talk.function friendly_date($date_given) { $date_given = strtotime($date_given); $friendly_date = ""; $this_year = date("Y"); $yesterday = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m"), date("d")-1, date("Y")); $last_week = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m"), date("d")-7, date("Y")); $today = date("U"); $tomorrow = mktime(0, 0, 0, date("m"), date("d")+1, date("Y")); // # days ago if( $date_given < $yesterday && $date_given > $last_week ) { $today_timestamp = strtotime(date("Y-m-d", $today)); $given_timestamp = strtotime(date("Y-m-d", $date_given)); $friendly_date = ($today_timestamp-$given_timestamp)/86400 . " days ago"; // yesterday } elseif( date("Y-m-d", $date_given) == date("Y-m-d", $yesterday) ) { $friendly_date = "yesterday"; // today } elseif( date("Y-m-d", $date_given) == date("Y-m-d", $today) ) { $friendly_date = "today"; // tomorrow } elseif( date("Y-m-d", $date_given) == date("Y-m-d", $tomorrow) ) { $friendly_date = "tomorrow"; // actual date } else { $friendly_date = date("M j", $date_given); // omit year if current if( date("Y", $date_given) != $this_year ) { $friendly_date .= date(", Y", $date_given); } } return $friendly_date;} Thu, 18 Nov 2010 10:30:00 PST