Pared with another Export table to CSV script , this makes for a complete and simple solution to reporting needs.

We’ll post some more examples of it in use here. In fact when this site is redesigned we’ll be using the tablesorter script.

The reason I’m posting this is that I’ve found myself looking for something like this a million times.

This is assuming there is a PHP variable named “$statename”, either by POST or through reading in a database table with the previous value.

 
<select name=”statename” >
<option value=”" <?php if (!$statename) echo ” selected”; ?>>Select a State</option>
<option value=”AL” <?php if ($statename == “AL”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Alabama</option>
<option value=”AK” <?php if ($statename == “AK”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Alaska</option>
<option value=”AZ” <?php if ($statename == “AZ”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Arizona</option>
<option value=”AR” <?php if ($statename == “AR”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Arkansas</option>
<option value=”CA” <?php if ($statename == “CA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>California</option>
<option value=”CO” <?php if ($statename == “CO”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Colorado</option>
<option value=”CT” <?php if ($statename == “CT”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Connecticut</option>
<option value=”DE” <?php if ($statename == “DE”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Delaware</option>
<option value=”DC” <?php if ($statename == “DC”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Dist of Columbia</option>
<option value=”FL” <?php if ($statename == “FL”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Florida</option>
<option value=”GA” <?php if ($statename == “GA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Georgia</option>
<option value=”HI” <?php if ($statename == “HI”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Hawaii</option>
<option value=”ID” <?php if ($statename == “ID”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Idaho</option>
<option value=”IL” <?php if ($statename == “IL”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Illinois</option>
<option value=”IN” <?php if ($statename == “IN”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Indiana</option>
<option value=”IA” <?php if ($statename == “IA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Iowa</option>
<option value=”KS” <?php if ($statename == “KS”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Kansas</option>
<option value=”KY” <?php if ($statename == “KY”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Kentucky</option>
<option value=”LA” <?php if ($statename == “LA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Louisiana</option>
<option value=”ME” <?php if ($statename == “ME”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Maine</option>
<option value=”MD” <?php if ($statename == “MD”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Maryland</option>
<option value=”MA” <?php if ($statename == “MA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Massachusetts</option>
<option value=”MI” <?php if ($statename == “MI”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Michigan</option>
<option value=”MN” <?php if ($statename == “MN”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Minnesota</option>
<option value=”MS” <?php if ($statename == “MS”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Mississippi</option>
<option value=”MO” <?php if ($statename == “MO”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Missouri</option>
<option value=”MT” <?php if ($statename == “MT”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Montana</option>
<option value=”NE” <?php if ($statename == “NE”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Nebraska</option>
<option value=”NV” <?php if ($statename == “NV”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Nevada</option>
<option value=”NH” <?php if ($statename == “NH”) echo ” selected”; ?>>New Hampshire</option>
<option value=”NJ” <?php if ($statename == “NJ”) echo ” selected”; ?>>New Jersey</option>
<option value=”NM” <?php if ($statename == “NM”) echo ” selected”; ?>>New Mexico</option>
<option value=”NY” <?php if ($statename == “NY”) echo ” selected”; ?>>New York</option>
<option value=”NC” <?php if ($statename == “NC”) echo ” selected”; ?>>North Carolina</option>
<option value=”ND” <?php if ($statename == “ND”) echo ” selected”; ?>>North Dakota</option>
<option value=”OH” <?php if ($statename == “OH”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Ohio</option>
<option value=”OK” <?php if ($statename == “OK”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Oklahoma</option>
<option value=”OR” <?php if ($statename == “OR”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Oregon</option>
<option value=”PA” <?php if ($statename == “PA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Pennsylvania</option>
<option value=”RI” <?php if ($statename == “RI”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Rhode Island</option>
<option value=”SC” <?php if ($statename == “SC”) echo ” selected”; ?>>South Carolina</option>
<option value=”SD” <?php if ($statename == “SD”) echo ” selected”; ?>>South Dakota</option>
<option value=”TN” <?php if ($statename == “TN”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Tennessee</option>
<option value=”TX” <?php if ($statename == “TX”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Texas</option>
<option value=”UT” <?php if ($statename == “UT”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Utah</option>
<option value=”VT” <?php if ($statename == “VT”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Vermont</option>
<option value=”VA” <?php if ($statename == “VA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Virginia</option>
<option value=”WA” <?php if ($statename == “WA”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Washington</option>
<option value=”WV” <?php if ($statename == “WV”) echo ” selected”; ?>>West Virginia</option>
<option value=”WI” <?php if ($statename == “WI”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Wisconsin</option>
<option value=”WY” <?php if ($statename == “WY”) echo ” selected”; ?>>Wyoming</option>
</select>

The first project was to design a weekly newsletter and a method of distributing it. Geoff Matheson Design did all of the newsletter design plus the basic HTML programming.

The newsletter needed to be graphically appealing, so it therefore needed to be designed using HTML. Writing the HTML for a newsletter is very challenging because there are a lot of popular mail applications, each of which display the HTML differently. To limit our updating the HTML, we needed to test the design on all popular mail applications throughout the development process.

When creating a newsletter you must not only create a flexible design, you must also be able to code that design in a very basic type of HTML.

Once the design was coded in HTML, we needed to setup an area where the client could generate each week’s newsletter. Our client needed to type the name and the content for the newsletter and have all of the HTML generated. This was done by creating a simple custom admin area that will generate the newsletter’s HTML each week.

The last part was figuring out the best way to distribute the newsletter. After trying several methods, we ended up using Mail Chimp for newsletter mangement and distribution. Mail Chimp has a free plan: up to 2,000 subscribers; send up to 12,000 emails per month.

The next project was also a HTML email newsletter. We were used as subcontractors by Cause Design.

The problem was that the HTML would not display properly on all major email applications. We used email newsletter testing matrices to show us how the HTML would display on different mail applications.

After viewing the original matrix, we realized the HTML needed a complete rewrite. The reason is that certain mail applications do not recognize style driven design. After going through 11 revisions, we were able to create HTML that gave us a consistent look on all major email applications.

ong>If you are unfamiliar with WordPress, here is a brief description:

WordPress is a flexible, intuitive website Content Management System. A Content Management System (CMS) allows the customer to control the website’s content without any programming knowledge. Typically this is done through a WYSIWYG interface. WordPress also provides the client intuitive control to add / remove pages and reorganize the menu. Clients also can also add images within the content. EJ Host also custom tailors WordPress’ content management on a per client basis. This gives the client the ability to update specific parts of the website.

Search for WordPress designers or developers and you will see thousands of results.

How does EJ Host stand out?

We stand out from our competition by developing our WordPress websites the same way we develop all websites, with XHTML and CSS . We start with analysis and research to formulate a design with you. We graduate these ideas and concepts to create a design. This design is then developed to a WordPress theme.

Our Competition

Most other “WordPress designers” have no idea how the inner workings of WordPress actually work, nor do they care. These designers either use WordPress theme templates or are using themes as a guideline to dictate their layout.

Our Competitive Edge

We only use WordPress as a Content Management System – all of our layouts are custom designed and then integrated into WordPress. We use CSS and XHTML to control the look of the site. The content is then filled in by WordPress. We have in depth WordPress knowledge which allows us to use WordPress functionality without having to settle on any out of the box design. So when we create your website, we can design it to any specification and then integrate it into WordPress.

Why do we use WordPress

There are many other pieces of software that perform many of the same functionality as WordPress such as Joomla, Sharepoint, Drupal, and PHP Nuke.

Why do we use WordPress?

• WordPress is very intuitive for the client to use with a short learning curve
• WordPress is an active and widely used product that is constantly updated, improved, and refined.
• WordPress offers your revision history which allows the author to recover a prior version of any page or post within the website
• WordPress has great Search Engine Optimization capabilities, including search friendly links and W3C compliant code
• Modular design allows developer to include or exclude as much code as necessary
• Ability to integrate other technologies such as AJAX, JQuery, Flash, Janrain and Ruby on Rails
• Unbelievable amount of plugins available to extend functionality

Read about advanced WordPress functionality here

Questions? Feedback? Leave us a comment or spread the word via Social Bookmarking below

We established a hard budget with the client during the estimation and proposal process. To stay under budget while producing a high quality product, efficiency was even more important than usual. One of the main pieces that was removed was lack of design concepts and lack of revisions. We needed to get this one right the first time!
Read more about working within a hard budget here.

We felt confident using this method of development since we had excellent communication with the site owner. We understood his expectations and felt like we were on the same page with him. Conceptually, we shared his vision and understood that he needed the site done quickly.

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Last edited by jesse on April 20, 2011 at 2:20 pm

Excerpt

The Wayward Roots website was developed using a custom WordPress theme loosely based on the 2010 theme. This is our typical method of WordPress development, we start with a stripped down custom theme and build upon it.

We used our set of custom WordPress functions to handle some of the sidebar and SEO items on the site.

From there we setup Posts categories and custom fields to manage News, Music, and Home page images. This allows the site owner to easily manage these lists.

The last pieces were using JQuery cycle and PHPThumb to manage the home page images. PHPThumb takes the full sizer image and does a zoom crop + maximum resize to display the image within the home page’s frame.

We had a lot of fun doing this site and check out Wayward Roots music

Working with a hard budget means that we need to work backwards to decide what type of features are included and what is excluded. Flexibility is needed by both the site owner and the developer since the project plan can shift. The reason this occurs is that different parts of the project can take more or less time than anticipated. The most important part of the process is that both the developer and the site owner focus on the most important aspects of the project.

Establishing the client’s vision and understanding the client’s expectations up front is a necessity in any project, but even more so with a budget restricted one. The project will fail miserably if developer and client do not communicate effectively.

By managing both the customer’s expectations and budget the final result is a win win for client and developer.

It has taken a long time to be comfortable working within a hard estimate and it does take a long time. Many other developers would balk at doing such a thing, and it is understandable. Sometimes the developer’s quote and the client’s budget are just way too far apart. Don’t be afraid to stay away from these types of projects and always communicate clearly and politely with the customer. By maintaining a professional attitude, you may find that the client will return once their budget increases.

Our piece of the puzzle was solely website design and web development. There were also certain elements of graphic design that were required of us, but the design and concept was done by Rodd at Cause Design.

This project was a rapidly paced project which moved quickly. We met with Rodd and he supplied us with the entire design and concept in Photoshop. We then translated this design into a web based format. Geoff from Geoff Matheson Design helped with CSS and graphic work. His work was invaluable in getting the design tweaked just right.

For this project we used WordPress as our CMS. WordPress is a superior user friendly CMS and is designed for SEO and other internet web standards.

For all of our websites that use WordPress, we design the WordPress theme from the ground up. Our theme is loosely based on the best parts of the current recommended 2010 design. We start with a stripped down 2010 theme + some of our own default goodies. A customized theme and layout is then created from this default. This is where we then build our CSS and XHTML code. Since we have such an in depth knowledge of WordPress, we can use built in WordPress functions at times, and then either use our own custom written PHP functions or create our own. The combination allows us to create anything and everything possible, while giving the site owner complete control over their site.

Other features of this website are:
1. A JQuery Cycle based home page splash. JQuery Cycle is very cool because it allows you to use JavaScript with regular XHTML & CSS. It is incredibly flexible and really easy to use.

2. Lots of WordPress Post customization. We use WordPress Posts as custom taxonomies which power pieces of the site, like the Testimonials. The site owner can then add and edit these Posts and all of the information will appear in the correct sections of the website.

3. Recent Blog posts on the home page use PHPThumb to display thumbnails of larger images. PHPThumb is one of the coolest scripts we’ve found in awhile. It allows runtime thumbnails to be created & their file size adjusted proportionately. This means that the site owner can upload any image & our script can crop this image however we tell it to. Super Cool!!

4. TypeKit fonts used for the website’s font.

5. Social Media Optimization and collaboration. Each of the Blog posts on the website have their subject and URL automatically posted on The Game Within’s Twitter feed. Once the tweet is done, it is automatically posted on The Game Within FaceBook page and then finally automatically posted on Christo’s Linked In page.

So check out the website today!

Original article about the complaints about the city of Raleigh’s website design here.

The website was built in several rolling phases. The client needed a website built immediately with the idea that it would grow as we progressed. So we picked WordPress to manage the content and so the client could blog. We bought the domain and launched the site 1 week prior to CFR opening to the public! So the site was setup in WordPress and let the client add all of the content. As the site took shape, we applied certain styles to the content and organized it.

Geoff Matheson was hired to build a brand and logo for CrossFit Rehoboth. He developed a great logo which was implemented within the website.

Over the course of the project lots of additional functionality was added to the CFR site, which in turn attracted lots and lots of visitors!! Currently the site gets an average of about 100 visitors a day and is growing each month. Go over and check it out yourself!

Rehoboth Beach Bodywork needed their content moved into a CMS so we chose WordPress for its ease of use and shorter learning curve for the user. Additionally we custom wrote a couple of web applications to handle the specific types of content, including massage types. We also did analysis of keyword density per page, and came up with improvements to the existing content. We also implemented some other Search Engine Optimization tricks within the site to increase traffic.

The project turned out to be very successful for both the client and us.

Please check out the Rehoboth Beach Bodywork website as a great example of a superior site done on a limited budget.