Art & Design

Art is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities, usually involving imaginative or technical skill. Design is the creation of a plan or convention for the construction of an object or a system (as in architectural blueprints, engineering drawings, business processes, circuit diagrams and sewing patterns). Design has different connotations in different fields. In some cases the direct construction of an object (as in pottery, engineering, management, cowboy coding and graphic design) is also considered to be design.

How programmatically add Fab (Floating Action Button) Button to iPhone, iPad and Mac (Catalyst) App

Mandar Apte Apple, Apple iOS, Apple iPadOS, Apple macOS, Apple Xcode, Art & Design, Tutorials, User Experience Design Leave a comment

When Google released Material Design Guidelines they introduced many new design elements and one of them was Fab Button i.e. Floating Action Button

Normally we see the Fab button in Android Mobile Apps but a lot of Apple iPhone, iPad and Mac App Developers has started using the Fab button in their design.

Here we will see how to add the Fab button programmatically in your iOS, iPadOS and macOS app on any view including UICollectionView or UITableView.

Step 01: First declare the UIButton variable in your View Controller

var fabButton = UIButton()

Step 02: Add this code to viewDidLoad()

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Why typing Devanagari Alphabets (Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi) on a personal computer is so difficult? And why typing Devanagari in Latin is so easy and preferred by many?

Mandar Apte Art & Design, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Inspiration, Maharashtra, Mumbai, News, Personal Experience, Typography Leave a comment

Introduction & Background

I was planning to write this blog post for the last many years. I was facing this issue since I had my first Microsoft Windows Operating System-based computer in the year 2002. And after that, it got solved partially on Mac in the year 2008. And I faced the issue of Marathi on the web when I had my website mandarapte.com in the year 2010 and then my community Marathi website chitpavankatta.com in the year 2012.

The idea of writing this blog post or writing documentation about why we face the problem of typing Marathi / Sanskrit / Hindi with Devanagari Script on a computer got more important when some category of journalists or people who started false propaganda to tell the Marathi population at large that Devanagari Script for the Marathi language is no more relevant anymore rather we should abandon Devanagari Script Alphabets and start using Latin Script to write the Marathi Language. An example given by these people was that of the young generation who are writing or chatting or texting on their mobile phone using Facebook, Twitter or Instagram that they use Latin script to write Marathi than using Devanagari Script.

At that time I attended a few lectures on Devanagari Calligraphy and Typography where I met an important person like Mr Mukund Gokhale from Pune who had done extensive work in building Marathi Typewriter with his two-three seniors in his field. He also worked with popular calligraphers, and typographers to bring Devanagari onto the computer i.e. designing popular Devanagari fonts to be used on Computers. At that time I was working at IITB as a web designer. After that, I met Mukund Gokhale at his Pune home to discuss why Marathi Typing is so difficult and why it is targeted by anti-nationals who have no linguistic background to speak about abandoning the Devanagari script itself. We discuss it at length he even showed me software that he has developed with his developer tech support to design Marathi-based digital artworks and designs. It was his initiative to create an alternative solution to Adobe Photoshop / Adobe Illustrator which doesn’t support Devanagari Script in the year 2014/17. And now it’s the year 2021. Because of these long conversations on phone or personally meeting each other and I even developed the Devanagari Learning app for iPhone, iPad and Mac.

When this propaganda was started by abusing the Marathi language and falsely showcasing its irrelevance in today’s world. I talked with popular Hindu Orators who were tirelessly working to stop this propaganda. So people like me were middlemen between people like popular Hindu orators and calligrapher/typographer Mukund Gokhale to share knowledge and know-how between them and connect the dots.

So I am going to write here my observation that I got to learn while talking with Mukund Gokhale and some observations are of my capacity as I am myself a designer and developer too who want to talk and design/develop in Marathi.

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Everyday designer’s question to pay Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) Tax or pay for individual third party design apps

Mandar Apte Adobe Creative Cloud, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Art & Design, Personal Experience, User Experience Design Leave a comment

Today I used Adobe XD for whole day. Felt it’s really competitive to Sketch app on Mac.

I really avoided using Adobe XD all this years because of Adobe Subscription TAX which normally cost me INR 5,000/- here in India. But loved Sketch App’s payment model which is almost INR 5,000/ for year then you can renew subscription or use it without update as long as you want.

But loved Adobe XD compatibility and integration with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop, it is real smooth and well done. Adobe XD’s prototype tool is smooth.

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Best Design Advice that I ever received

Mandar Apte Art & Design, Graphic Design, Personal Experience, Typography, User Experience Design, Web Design Leave a comment

Best advice I ever received about designing logos and symbols is use humanistic elements / curves / lines in your design and totally avoid mechanical drawings. As mechanical drawings can be taken care by computer itself.

This advice was given to me by Shirbhavikar sir and Pawar sir when I was doing BFA Applied Arts at Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art.

It seems I don’t follow this advice totally in my drawings / designs and illustrations. Even after 4 years of my graduation when I met Mahendra Patel sir at his SID office he told me the same.

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In-depth Review of Matrimony Website by Suyog Ranade Vivaha, aka Shree Suyog Vivaha Mandal

Mandar Apte Apps, Art & Design, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Reviews, User Experience Design, Web Design Leave a comment

I have written a complete in-depth review and analysis of the Suyog Ranade Vivaha or Shree Suyog Vivaha Mandal Matrimony website that I used for 6 to 7 months, mainly on WhatsApp groups, because of bad user experience on website format. I reported the following issues to them, but they were not ready or in the right frame of mind to accept it.

So I just unregistered myself from their portal and exited their WhatsApp groups.

Following are the points that I noticed about their matrimony service:

Point 01: No or Failed Business Model. The matrimony section mainly runs on WhatsApp Groups of 250 people. The group is unmanaged sometimes; people post their profiles multiple times. Some people even post political or comic forwards. Because all members are in an open WhatsApp group, there is no contact number security or number privacy. Sometimes admins or business owners post repeated WhatsApp Messages asking every user to register and pay a fee to use WhatsApp groups or websites. Admins even warn users they will remove everyone who never pays the matrimony section fee, which showcases the main point that there is no thought behind Successful Business Model or Revenue Generation.

Point 02: No Privacy or Security: Because of the open group with visibility of contact numbers to everyone, users are prone to scammers and fake profiles or spam calls

Point 03: Suyog Ranade Vivaha lost complete user profile data and even registered account data three times while upgrading their website and transferring the website to their new domain. They had to ask every user individually to reregister for their website repeatedly—a failed system.

Point 04: Website owners had to change their Web Domain as a similar web domain was used by its competitor with a slight name difference. It shows no thought about branding or company structure. Because of this exact domain by competitors, Suyog Ranade Vivavha’s Matrimony users were registering wrongly to competitors’ websites, thinking to competitors that they were the original company. This shows a loss of identity and company branding. And a loss of revenue.

Point 05: Even you can see in the screenshots website structure is broken and faulty with buggy coding and development.

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Choosing between Cloud Storage And Having Multiple Computers i.e. one at home, second at the office and another for being on the move / Tablet or Mobile.

Mandar Apte Apps, Art & Design, Hardware, Reviews, Tutorials, User Experience Design Leave a comment

So for the last two-three days, I started preparing for User Experience (UX) Professional Certification from a reputed institute.

 
So I have books from them for the course that I attended, then I have notes collected through websites like nngroup.com & usability.gov that I want to chunk information in short notes & collect them for future reference.

 
So the problem is every material that I collected is in physical paper form, or in digital format on my desktop computer but when I am on the move travelling from office to home or to some other place those notes are always unavailable to me.

 
So what is the solution to this problem?

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How to set up a CloudFlare Flexible SSL Certificate within 5 minutes for your WordPress website’s all subdomains & main domain.

Mandar Apte Apps, Cloudflare, Reviews, Tutorials, Web Design, WordPress Leave a comment

Prerequisite: Please make sure have active CloudFlare account and you have added your WordPress Website to CloudFlare. Also, make sure you are using CloudFlare nameservers for your domain.

 
Step 01: Sign in to your CloudFlare account

 

 
Step 02: Make sure flexible SSL certificate is enabled under the “Crypto” tab for your selected website

 

 

 
Step 03: While you are already signed in to your CloudFlare account go to > My Profile > Scroll down to API Keys and locate Global API Key & copy the same key for further use inside your website.

 

 

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My new venture into selling Stock Photography on 500px.com

Mandar Apte Art & Design, Art of Mandar Apte, India / Bharat / Hindusthan, Maharashtra, Mumbai, Photography Leave a comment

From the start of being student of BFA (Bachelor of Fine Art) – Applied Art & even before that when I started with automatic film camera I was trying to be good photographer or may be I was.

 
Last year of my graduation I bought Canon A520 Point & Shoot camera & using that camera I shot almost 6,500 i.e. Six Thousand Photos over span of 10 Years. Plus photos taken from Mobile Phone Camera that may count more than another 2,000 i.e. Two thousand Photographs.

 
In Year August 2016 I bought iPhone. Using my latest iPhone I just shot another 2,200 Photos plus Slo-mo, Time-lapse & Videos in just 9 Months.

 
So with this collection more than 10,000 Photos I have decided to post it on Flickr & more importantly on 500px.com profile of mine so that I can sell them as stock photography & fetch some price for my work.

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Colour Behaviour Study of Japan / True Black on Real Life Physical Paper & on Computer Displays or Screens

Mandar Apte Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Systems Incorporated, Apple, Apple iOS, Apple macOS, Art & Design, Graphic Design, Hardware, Print Design, Reviews Leave a comment

I am now documenting some thoughts about black colour behaviour on Physical Paper & computer displays or screens.

I was from a BFA (Bachelor of Fine Arts) – Applied Art background, so we had subjects like Illustration, Calligraphy, Typography, Print Media Design, Logo & Symbol Design, Branding & Identity Design.

We used to design our assignments using Japan Black ink which is very dark in contrast & which creates high contrast reach feeling of black colour tone on white paper.

So when we print our designs in Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, we fill the design with (CMYK) Cyan: 100%, Magenta: 100%, Yellow: 100%, K(Black): 100%, then using only K: 100%. These CMYK values use to create high-contrast Japan Black ink fill on White Paper.

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Using Google Public DNS for IPv4 & IPv6 to speed up internet browsing, A resource for Web Designers, Developers & Internet Surfers in General

Mandar Apte Art & Design, Freebies, Google, Open Source, Tutorials, Web Design, WordPress Leave a comment

As Wikipedia explains,

 

The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities. Most prominently, it translates easily memorised domain names to the numerical IP addresses needed for the purpose of locating computer services and devices worldwide. By providing a worldwide, distributed keyword-based redirection service, the Domain Name System is an essential component of the functionality of the Internet.

 
Google’s Public DNS will speedup your computer internet connections performance with faster speed for domain name lookup.

 
google-public-dns

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