May 15, 2005
Web developer extension
Out of the box, Firefox comes with a small footprint. Most of the bells and whistles you'd never use are not included, unlike IE. A whole industry has grown up producing 'extensions' for Firefox, giving you the option to add the bells and whistles you want.
One of my favourite extension is the web developer toolbar. For examining how web pages are constructed to debugging errors on my own, its invaluable. if you want to know more about web sites, then I recommended this Firefox extension.
Posted by weaver at 06:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 08, 2005
Gallery Woes Resolved
Well, mainly resolved. The main problem was the table in the centre content div. It rendered fine in Firefox but due to some quirk/bug/feature of IE it spilled over into the right hand div and so pushed itself below both the left and right div.
Reducing the table size to 80% brought it back in line for 1024x768 browsers but not for 800x600 browsers. according to the web stats between 20-25% of visitors still use the lower resolution. Rather than hack them off, I further reduced the table size to 60% and it popped into place on the lower resolution as well.
I may revisit the gallery once the rest of the new style site is up and running to tidy up the comments bits, but for now, I'm just relieved that the gallery is functioning properly.
Posted by weaver at 09:24 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 04, 2005
Woes - A solution?
Could this IE bug be the cause of all my problems and could the ingenious solution offered here help me resolve the issue.
I'll have to wait until the weekend to try it out, but I'm starting to feel a bit more positive.
Posted by weaver at 10:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 02, 2005
Woe Woe and Thrice Woe
Grrhh..... One of the most frustrating days since I started maintaining this web. If you're the one who has followed this blog so far, you'll know I've spent the past few months trying to bring the site up to date using web standards. At the same time , I've been learning a new skillset that may prove useful in the future.
Well starting yesterday, the wheels started to come off. There are several features of the site that are dynamic; guestbook, forum, gallery and the diary to name a few. Out of 500 static pages, I've dealt with about 100, successfully converting them to the new style. At some stage I had to tackle the dynamic stuff. A bank holiday weekend seemed as good as any. Sum progress this weekend - nil.
Last night I tackled the gallery scripts and made some progress but it didn't render properly in IE. Most of today has been spent on the Guestbook. Again, I managed to get it to render correctly in Firefox but IE would just not play ball. I really hate CSS browser quirks. in addition, hacking or mangling someone else's scripts is no fun at the best of times but trying to understand how they intended their scripts to render cross browser is excruciating.
So, I've given up on the dynamic stuff for a bit and will go back to restyling the static pages, meanwhile doing a bit more research on browser quirks. Some days I should just stay in bed.
Posted by weaver at 10:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 25, 2005
CSS tables
There are some who mistakenly think that tables have no place on a web standards compliant page. I take my lead from Eric Meyer and Jeffrey Zeldman, two leading CSS gurus, who recommend that content, which is best displayed in a tabular manner, should be placed in a table. CSS is then used to style the table.
Progressing the MACLA site redesign, I've reached my first page which has tabulated content. So tonight was spent styling the table. The end result is relatively simple, except for one small glitch where the table content doesn't stretch the full width of the table. More research needed. Other than that I'm happy with the result and can move forward.
Posted by weaver at 10:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 17, 2005
CSS Play Area
This is a site that I wish I'd found a year ago. Its an on-line CSS play area.Enter your styles press run and see the effect. Like all brilliant ideas its so simple that you find yourself thinking ' Why Didn't I think of that?'
Posted by weaver at 06:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 11, 2005
Grrrrrh.....
CSS! Its a hateful, spiteful, unforgiving grrrrh.... Why on one page does a picture and caption render perfectly, yet doing EXACTLY the same thing, using EXACTLY the same code on another page break the style...
The more I work with CSS the less convinced I am that its a mature technology. Too many browser quirks to work around; margins, padding - is nothing consistent.
Time for a glass of red. Never mind a glass, pass me the whole bottle........
Posted by weaver at 09:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 08, 2005
Semantically Speaking
Following a link from the last article takes you straight to this one, providing excellent advice on inserting meaning into your web pages. Good stuff, Molly.
Posted by weaver at 09:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
CSS Calendar
I'm always on the lookout for good ideas to incorporate. This blog calendar is an example of good design that's also well implemented in CSS. I like it.
Posted by weaver at 09:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 06, 2005
Getting Closer
More work on the site redesign tonight.The MACLA logo was replaced with a picture logo, the old meg flour mill. There was (is) nothing wrong with the MACLA logo but the laypout looked unintersesting without a visual anchor, hence the image.
A sneak peak of progress so far.
Posted by weaver at 08:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 27, 2005
XMLHttpRequest
XMLHttpRequest is a native JavaScript object allowing further HTTP requests to be made from a page which has already loaded. Used to great effect on the Google maps page.
Another useful tool in the web developers toolkit.
Posted by weaver at 02:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 25, 2005
Double bullets
On the current Metheringham page, there is a 2 column table containing the links pertaining to the village. It should be possible to recreate these links as a double bulletted listing using CSS.
Fortuitously, there is a CSS Recipe page that enables this. A few hours pottering with it and its corresponding CSS has proved to be useful in enabling a good cross browser rendering of double column listings.
Posted by weaver at 11:43 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 17, 2005
Web Album Generator
This neat little app allows you to build albums for publishing on your website. I've only just stumbled over it and will have a play with it this weekend.
Posted by weaver at 09:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Colour Wheel
There are many tools on the web to help web designers select matching colours for a site design. This neat example helps to make life a little easier.
Posted by weaver at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 02, 2005
One step at a time.
Managed a couple of hours tonight on the site. Put the include files (both sidebars and the footer) in an include directory. This means that all the content pages will have to have a php extension if i want to use them. There are other options but this one seems the simplest.
Tidied up the menus and linked them to existing files. Removed the irritating ripple effect using CSS and changed the background colour of hovered links to a green that's more in keeping with the site's overall style.
Started to look at images, how to position them in the content div, border or not, CSS for the captions. Got most of it figured but the positioning is not as easy as it would be if i was using tables.
Made a start on about 3 of the main pages, but with over 500 to go, its going to be a long haul. Could do with a month or two off from my day job to get it completed. Not a realistic prospect.
Posted by weaver at 11:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 31, 2005
Heads down
After last night's high, it's time to get down to business. Separating out the style sheet was simplicity itself. Creating an include file for the sidebars and the footer worked fine. Installed the cut down template, css & includes on the server and everything came together as it should.
Now for the grind. Migrating all the existing pages across to the new template. This will take a couple of weeks, doing a few pages a night. At the same time a bit of housekeeping is in order, clearing out some deadwood and stale content.
A couple of tasks over the next night or so is to select a suitable image or two for the home page. Its important to get ones that set the right tone for the rest of the site. There's also a minor tweak needed to the left nav bar. The rollover effect causes a small undesirable ripple effect. Its only a pixel or two but it needs attention. Should be easy to sort.
Posted by weaver at 11:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 30, 2005
A web standards compliant page!
Today's the day (tonight at 11:40pm to be precise!) that I've achieved my first XHTML & CSS standards compliant page. This is a huge milestone in the rewrite of the site. The page, the new index page, will form the template for most of the other pages on the site once I've extracted the stylesheet to a CSS file and the sidebars to an include file.
Gosh the buzz I have is palpable. A real sense of achievement. If it wasn't so late, I'd be down the pub for a few beers. As it is, I'll have trouble sleeping tonight.
Posted by weaver at 11:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2005
Which Font?
One of the fundamental decisions a web designer has to make is which font is best to get the across the site's message. There's a cracking little site, Usable Type, that helps in the decision making progress. Full of good, sensible advice, its now on my bookmark list.
Posted by weaver at 11:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 24, 2005
Newsletter woes
One of the new years's resolutions is to migrate the old newsletters to the new format. The confident prediction that it would be a no brainer is proving to be a bit wide of the mark.
Over the past couple of days, 5 of the older newsletter have been added to the new format. Unfortunately a display bug is proving a bit elusive to track down. The headlines displayed when the full story is selected are incorrect. I know what I need to change to get it to work but not how to do it. Stretching the limits of my PHP knowledge here. Time to ask the professionals for help. The newsletter support forum is the next port of call.
I'll keep you posted.
Posted by weaver at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
January 19, 2005
Almost done
The past week has been spent working on a wedding web site for a work colleague. Apart from a few tweaks its now complete and ready to go. The groom certainly seems happy with the results.
The main web application that's been installed is Coppermine, a web based image gallery. This will be used to host all their wedding photographs. As a teaser, a few existing photos have been added.
A guestbook has also been configured to allow wedding guests and those that can't attend to leave their mark.
Finally, they have use of a diary to record their thoughts on the wedding. Wordpress has been used for this. All in all, a enjoyable exercise that should give the happy couple something to look back on with fondness over the next few years.
Posted by weaver at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2005
New Years Resolutions
The advent of the New Year is traditionally a time for taking stock , reflecting on things past and stiffening resolve for completing plans.
The MACLA site is in need of an overhaul. Its grown way beyond its original concept. Over the past 6 months , I've made some changes (upgrading the web host, removed almost all of the advertising based scripts, improved navigation and user interaction, started to reorganise the many photos on the site, started this blog), but there is much to tackle in the new year.
For 2005, in no particular order, I plan to:
- Make the MACLA site standards compliant. I'm currently working my way through a couple of books that have inspired me to master cascading style sheets. Once I've achieved this then I can work on the code that drives the MACLA Site.
- Redesign the MACLA front page to better reflect how the site is used and to shed some light on the darker recesses of the site.
- Replace or retire the MACLA Forum. Last year, I migrated away from a heavily ad infested forum to a minimalist based one that was easy to maintain. Unfortunately, its proved unpopular with only one post in 3 months. Time for a rethink.
- Migrate the old newsletters to the new format. Bit of a no-brainer so long as I remember to keep the links updated.
- Seek new ways to get the community more involved. Not sure how to go about this. Ownership is an issue but the biggest hurdle is people's perceptions. Am considering giving presentations to activity groups such as the WI & Over 60's.
- Complete, in a reasonable time frame, new & existing projects. Outstanding at the moment are a photo-essay on Nocton farms in the 1950s and the expansion of the census database.
- Revisit the events diary. Its one of the most popular pages on the site, yet almost nobody adds their own events and some months it looks very sparse.
So, enough talking about New Year's resolutions, lets try and make some progress with them...
Posted by weaver at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)
December 21, 2004
Community web developers
We are few in number. We are traditionally shy. We don't like to boast about our efforts. The warm glow you get when a new page is up and running or an email arrives from left field is enough. We are the current generation equivalent of tinkering in the potting shed at the bottom of the garden. Entrepeneurs, we are not!
I've got to admire Graham Kidd who runs the Community Web Developers Arena. This is a attempt at giving community web developers like myself a forum where they can chat, swap ideas or generally hang out. The site started off as a Yahoo group, which worked for a while but gradually decayed. It was never very active but was nevertheless a good way of finding out how other's tackled the problems we all face.
Graham took it over and tried to inject some life into it. He did his research and settled on Max Web portal, an off shoot of the asp forum package, Snitz. I've been using Snitz on our corporate intranet for about 3 years now, so can share some of the pain he has had getting the site up and running. Thus far, he's met with limited success. He's added new sections, many of which look thin at the moment, and about 8 forums on various topics. It deserves to succeed.
If you build not for profits sites no matter how big or small, then drop by, contribute and help this initiative grow.
Posted by weaver at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)
Movable Type upgrade
This blog is written using Movable Type. It's probably a bit of a heavyweight for what its used for here, with lots of bells and whistles, but as I grow into it, I'm sure that it'll meet my needs.
The guys that keep this product running have come in for some flak recently over comment spam and heavy server loads.
To give them credit, they have recognised the problem, done their homework and come up with an upgrade which I'm just about to implement. Not that I'm afflicted by comment spam yet as there is only 1 link from the outside world to this blog.. perhaps I should do something to rectify the situation...soon.... I promise.
Posted by weaver at 09:59 PM | Comments (0)