Tools of the trade

Posted on November 16, 2007. 9 comments.

The Blueprint ecosystem is growing at what seems like an exponential rate. Even I have trouble staying up to date with all the cool tools people are releasing. Most of the tools here are works in progress, so please treat them as such.

List-o-matic

• Christian Montoya is working on a webapp called Semantify. It takes the URL for a page using Blueprint as input, and lets you create semantic class names instead of using the admittedly semantically questionable BP markup. (You didn’t think I was in denial of that fact, did you?) :)
• Min Kim has developed an Adobe Air app for generating customized Blueprint grid files. I’ve never used Air, but if that’s your thing, please check it out.
• Don Albrecht is working on The Blueprint Layout Tool, which is a WYSIWYG editor for creating your own grid. Impressive work in progress. He also has a cool name. The Don (yes, I had to) has also created a plugin called SilkSprite, which lets you use a vast number of icons out of the box in your HTML.
• Alejandro Vasquez has started working on a much requested cheat sheet for Blueprint. You have no idea how many people requested this.
• Here’s a simple tool for creating grid backgrounds with Javascript for your desired setup, created by Jonah Fox.
• The aforementioned Blueprint Grid Generator is still going strong, complete with support for Blueprint 0.6. This tool has made my life much easier.
• This next tool is right down my alley: A Ruby on Rails plugin for using Blueprint. Mad, raving props to Ariejan de Vroom for putting this together.

I’m a busy man. Give me a shorter list!

We’re trying to collect all the tools on This Blueprint Wiki page, but I thought I’d highlight some of them. If you feel something is missing, let me know in the comments. Although that’s not a prerequisite for commenting. Actual constructive comment content rarely is.

Finally, here’s the article which should complement what you’ve just read through.

Now, back to reading frantically on all the courses I’ll fail either way. Damn you Blueprint! Maybe I should intimidate my professors by changing my name to Don.. I’ll get back to you on that.