Plugins For Every Website

Making the Internet a nicer and visually appealing place is always a good idea. An even better one is to share how to do it.

Today I read an article about the state of underlines on the web and how they are almost as bad as this strikethrough text to do it better.

The article is called “Smarter Link Underlines For Every Website”. You should definitely read it; there’s also a nice example of how Apple’s Safari and Messages app are ahead of the curve typography-wise.

Accompanying Text

In all honesty, this was supposed to be a simple link post, but as you might know I have an ongoing struggle doing those. So, after checking that the underlines on my site looked fine as usual, decided that this topic is quite interesting and worthy of a post.

Users having more control over their own site is always a good thing. So here are more words with which you can embalm your iris.

Static sites gained popularity over the last couple of years. Recently there are popping up more services which aim to bring the convenience of WordPress plugins to the masses, no matter if you run WordPress or something else.

Two of these services I want to introduce to you today go by the name of Eager and Filament.

Why Use Them?

If you’re capable of adding JavaScript snippets to your code this might not be for you, but if you do a site for someone else – which I happen to do from time to time as a freelancer – tools like these could come in handy.

The advantage of Filament is that it’s really just one bit of JS, then the rest of the management and maintenance happens elsewhere. For a web designer/front end dev, it might seem like relinquishing control, but handing over the control to a client, giving them access to their own dashboard etc. could be seriously useful. Ian Yates (Tuts+ Web Design Editor)

I have nothing to add to Ian, so we can move on here.

Eager

Zack Bloom and Adam Schwartz run Eager.io, it’s a web service which provides plugins every website owner can use no matter if they are code-savvy or not.

If you decide that you want to apply the glorious css-hack that the SmartUnderline plug-in is, but don’t have the expertise to code it yourself, you have to do the thing. You sign-up for Eager and become a member, then you can install their plugins and start to sprinkle magic snippets all over your site.

A word of warning: don’t overdue it, you’re page performance might suffer.¹

Currently Eager offers 13 plugins:

… and lastly it is:

Free forever if you join now

Any app you add to your website during our Beta period is free for life. So strike now while the iron is hot!

Filament

Filament also provides extensions that everybody can use on their own site.

WE WANT A BETTER WEB
We’re a UX and Design company, so design and usability is our way of life. However, that’s not true for most people. Great design is a process, and typically it’s expensive. This is why we’re dedicated to building a better web by making great design more easily accessible to websites and their owners. A better web is our goal with Filament

Here’s a link to a Tuts+ article who should get you up and running: Filament: Website “Plugins” That Work Everywhere

Filament have 6 apps ready and another 8 which are yet to be released: