Being a webdeveloper is not enough if you also want the freedom and flexibility of self-employment. You have to learn marketing skills, time management skills and come up with ways to set yourself apart from the crowd.

I feel compelled to spend this summer working on my business rather than in my business and I'm going to try and (finally) learn the following 10 skills that I'm sure will help my my webdev business:

1. Making decent looking instruction videos for my theme
2. Focusing on writing documentation for every code and every feature right after I develop it
3. How affiliate programs work (best)
4. Getting better typography in Drupal sites, using scripts like Typrography or this
5. Double the rate of drupal theme releases on sooperhtemes.com
6. Analyzing website statistics in a way that helps me improve the sales funnel and checkout process
7. Do automatic statistical analysis&selection on marketing communication design elements
8. How to get back in the top 3 in the google SERP for main keywords
9. Create a Sooper Labs section on the website to experiment with and share new technology

Ok I cant think of a 10th and number 8 and 9 aren't really skills. Any suggestions for me? And want to you want to add to your skillset over the summer?

I just released SooperFish Multi-Column dropdown menus version 0.2. Changelog:

SooperFish 0.2, 15-06-2010
----------------------

- Added classnames to indicate when menus are multicolumn
- Checked compatibility with jQuery 1.4, worked fine for me

Nothing special. I got a complaint about the menu not loading with jQuery 1.4.2. I tried it and it worked fine with 1.4.2, and also with 1.3.x. If anyone still has problems with this, let me know, and if possible also check for any errors in the firebug console!

Politika is an effort to make an amazing looking and rich-featured theme for Drupal 7 and 6. For more info check the first project politika blog post!.

As a first step to conceptualize this Drupal theme I would like some input about what types of websites you are building (yes you too) and what kinds of websites are difficult to visualize with the current offering of themes.

Here are some that I can think of:

• Information intensive websites that require big grid-like layouts, i.e. portal websites and news websites
• Photo websites, websites about photography and/or photographers, or portoflio websites for photographers or other artists
• Micro blogs (like tumblr)

That's all I can think of, just post a comment what sort of websites you build with Drupal, or would like to build with Drupal! Just post a comment, it only takes a second!

All responses to this post will be put into a poll next monday, as per the Politika schedule:

Schedule for june

1. June 7th (mon): Present and discuss project
2. June 9th (wed): Discuss Theme purpose (type of website)
3. June 14th (mon): Poll for theme purpose
4. June 16th (wed): Discuss design style
5. June 21th (mon): Poll for design style
6. June 23th (wed): Discuss modules and features
7. June 28th (mon): Questionnaire about modules and features
8. June 30th (mon): Summary of poll and questionnaire results

Also check that you don't choose something that is already covered by my previous (though not free) drupal themes because I want to build something rather unique and more in-the-moment with this project.

Thanks for your input.

SooperFish is a highly configurable solution for animated dropdown menus. It combines the features of superfish, structured programming of Droppy and a ton of new features like multi-column dropdown menus and configurable show AND hide animation with custom easing.

It was originally created to power the drop-down menus for the premium drupal themes on this site and now it's avaiable to anyone.

Demo:

Also check the Synopsis premium drupal theme for an excellent demonstration of SooperFish combined with Cufon!

Download:

For custom easing you also need an easing plugin such as jQuery easing or Sooper Easing (included with plugin).

Feature List:

• Automatic dual or triple columns based on number of child menu items
• Optional delay before hiding menu on mouse-out
• Optional automatic indicator arrows (in black or white)
• Configurable show AND hide animations
• Custom easing supported
• Works with jQuery backlava plugin (optionally)
• Works fine with Javascript disabled
• Comes with several free themes to demonstrate styling
• 3.65kb uncompressed
• 2.01kb minified

Todo List:

• Fix keyboard accessibility, menu should work with tabbing in absence of mouse input

This plugin works with jQuery 1.2.6 and higher, haven't tested it with anything lower.

Code for demo:

This goes in your header:

		<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="sooperfish.css" media="screen">
		<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="sooperfish-theme-large.css" media="screen">
		<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery-1.2.6.min.js"></script>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.easing-sooper.js"></script>
		<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.sooperfish.js"></script>
    
		<script type="text/javascript">
		// initialise plugins
    $(document).ready(function() {
      $('ul.sf-menu').sooperfish();
    });
		</script>

ul.sf-menu should be adapted to point to your own menu, using a CSS selector.

Using the features:

Here is a more advanced usage of sooperfish, with overrides for most of the settings:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('#header > div > ul').sooperfish({
    hoverClass:  'over',
    delay:     '400ms',
    dualColumn:     7,
    tripleColumn:     14,
    animationShow:   {height:'show',opacity:'show'},
    speedShow:     '800ms',
    easingShow:    'easeOutTurbo2',
    animationHide:  {width:'hide',opacity:'hide'},
    speedHide:     '400ms',
    easingHide:    'easeOutTurbo',
    autoArrows:  false
  });
});

Example simple usage:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('ul.sf-menu').sooperfish();
});

Example intermediate usage:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('ul.sf-menu').sooperfish({
    animationShow:   {'width':'show'},
    speedShow:     400,
    animationHide:  {'width':'hide'},
    speedHide:      100
  });
});

Example advanced usage:

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('ul.sf-menu').sooperfish({
  dualColumn  : 6, //if a submenu has at least this many items it will be divided in 2 columns
  tripleColumn  : 8, //if a submenu has at least this many items it will be divided in 3 columns
  hoverClass  : 'sfHover',
  delay    : 500, //make sure menus only disappear when intended, 500ms is advised by Jacob Nielsen
  animationShow  : {width:'show',height:'show',opacity:'show'},
  speedShow    : 750,
  easingShow      : 'easeOutBounce',
  animationHide  : {width:'hide',height:'hide',opacity:'hide'},
  speedHide    : 300,
  easingHide      : 'easeInOvershoot',
  autoArrows  : true
  });
});

Work in Progress

If you spot a bug or want a feature, feel free to drop a comment or file an issue at the jQuery plugin page