On September 17th, Ivan Stegic will be conducting the following workshop in Minneapolis: Web Design Bootcamp - Web 101, Drupal 101 & Basecamp 101 ("a full day seminar of everything you should know before you design your first website"). We asked Ivan to give us a few Basecamp tips. Here's what he sent along:
- Use <code></code> to escape most any HTML or XML in messages - great way to show literals.
- I use the textile codes *strong*, _italics_, * bullets, # ordered list -- these are obvious, but kinda important to know.
- If you're familiar with HTML, you can add divs with classes to your messages to make things stand out. Something like:
<div class="flash_notice" id="Flash">Yippeeee, I'm right on!</div> -- for green boxes
<div class="flash_alert" id="Flash">Uh ohhss, boo-boo :(</div> -- for red warning boxes
<h1 class="blankslate">Info bar in yellow!!!</h1> -- for yellow info boxes
- Create an "Announcements" category for your messages. If you're ever creating more than one message that is important at the same time and for the same people, do so -- but don't notify them of the messages' existence yet. Instead, create one message that is categorized as "Announcements" and refer to those messages (using links) in this announcement. Make sure you notify everyone with this announcement... this also lets you categorize the important messages appropriately. It helps in preventing your users (most often clients) from getting too many messages and lowers the risk that they get confused.
- Be sure to associate To-do lists with Milestones. You can do this with more than one to-do list and they are all retained as belonging that milestone. Break up your milestones further into manageable chunks of things to do, and sort them all into nice lists associated with milestones. (see screenshot -- three to-do lists associated with the milestone "Launch Website")
The 9/17 bootcamp will cover the following topics relating to Basecamp:
- Simple, simple, simple project management
- It’s a web app, everyone can use it
- Different plans, choose the right one: we use time tracking
- Organize into clear projects and companies
- The dashboard, and why you’ll love it
- Do all your communication through Basecamp: messages, files, threads and comments online, through email or an app.
- To-do lists, milestones and when to use each one
- Writeboards, for those of us who are writers! Or, need to share private information.
- Throw Microsoft Project in the trash
