So I've been using Basecamp as the project extranet for the Lecture List. It's just fantastic to see a web-based tool so well implemented, it's a beauty, it's fast, it just works very very well :-)
One of the interface details is "fade" pannels--areas that are bright yellow on pageload, but very quickly fade to white.
The idea is sound--let's say you've just added a comment to a long list of comments. Once you click on "add my comment" the page reloads and in the process you/05/"loose your place" visually on the returned page. The "fade" pannel takes your eye right back to where you were adding something. A simple device, but very cool:-)
I implemented a similar fade-to-white effect as a page transition on the Pumpernickle site. At the time I was in the thick of another Flash-or-no-Flash argument (*yawn*) on a bulletin board and I sort of wrote it to prove to someone that you could make smooth, beautiful transitions without plugings.
Anyway, I'm no programmer, but I got something dirty together and it's served well over the last few years.
I was curious to see how 37Signals had solved the interval-time and colour-step array problems (I ended up with two arrays--one for decreasing time steps and one for colours).
I just wanted to say "wow". We are soooo not worthy;-) The 37S javascript file is absolutely tiny, the system uses only one array, the function that does the job is four lines of code and it's called recursively (of course).
If I was starting off in this industry I'd want a job in Chicago :-)
