Author Topic: First website for a client (Read 45271 times)

Curt · « **Reply #25 on:** June 22, 2008, 09:10 AM »

... too sharpened?

I agree: it's getting better and better!!
-Perry Mowbray (June 21, 2008, 09:26 AM)

- you may have been right, Perry Mowbray, but now there is a new picture, and it is just fine. Though they didn't take the time and effort to first cleanse the wall it is easy to read, and the colours blend fine with the page itself, which is still getting even better.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #26 on:** June 22, 2008, 10:38 AM »

Just done a load of new updates.

The news section has changed completely.

The new wall photo is better but unfortunately the wall had got dirty. We are still trying to track down the original wall photo so that I can produce a decent version but at least it is readable now.

I have also tidied up all the picture positioning and it now either uses straight text formatting if it is in a clear space within text or a float style to embed it cleanly with some padding around.

I have also added a PHP script to force the PFD membership application form (the menu 'Become a friend of GOVI') to download rather than open in a browser window. I think I may actually point this to the 'You can help page' and provide the option to download or open the PDF form. Maybe I should make it a fillable form on a webpage which can then be printed and posted. Since it involves bank details I don't want to have to get involved in secure web transfer.

Next things to do -

add RSS news feed.
sort out banner image.
sort out the links page and make it useful.
consider using dynamic news page generation so that others can add and comment on articles.

Not sure I want to get into the last of those as it is pretty easy to add articles now 'cos they are just dropped into a simple template. The person who is editing articles isn't really keen to make it a site where lots of people can contribute directly - and I suppose realistically at this point the contributions are from a fairly limited pool of contributors that have direct knowledge.

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #27 on:** June 22, 2008, 09:40 PM »

Just done a load of new updates.
-Carol Haynes (June 22, 2008, 10:38 AM)

I reckon!!

The news section has changed completely.
-Carol Haynes (June 22, 2008, 10:38 AM)

Much easier for finding the actual bit you want to read...

The new wall photo is better but unfortunately the wall had got dirty. We are still trying to track down the original wall photo so that I can produce a decent version but at least it is readable now.
-Carol Haynes (June 22, 2008, 10:38 AM)

You can't "clean" it?

I have also added a PHP script to force the PFD membership application form (the menu 'Become a friend of GOVI') to download rather than open in a browser window. I think I may actually point this to the 'You can help page' and provide the option to download or open the PDF form. Maybe I should make it a fillable form on a webpage which can then be printed and posted. Since it involves bank details I don't want to have to get involved in secure web transfer.
-Carol Haynes (June 22, 2008, 10:38 AM)

Ummm... I just tried it now and it loads the help.html page. Which is also a little confusing because the menu, although correct, was not what I clicked on.

Maybe you removed the script?

Next things to do -

add RSS news feed.
sort out banner image.
sort out the links page and make it useful.
consider using dynamic news page generation so that others can add and comment on articles.

Not sure I want to get into the last of those as it is pretty easy to add articles now 'cos they are just dropped into a simple template. The person who is editing articles isn't really keen to make it a site where lots of people can contribute directly - and I suppose realistically at this point the contributions are from a fairly limited pool of contributors that have direct knowledge.
-Carol Haynes (June 22, 2008, 10:38 AM)

Would be nice if the links are searchable, eh? Well, I know they are now (within the browser), but if you categorised them and/or tagged them (especially if they could grow in number), returning a search result would be interesting.

As for news, you couldn't just point to a blog? A real blog would have its own RSS feed as well.

Great work Carol!!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #28 on:** June 23, 2008, 05:26 AM »

Does anyone know of a PHP/MySQL blog that can be embedded in a DIV so that you can just see the content (not all the other stuff you usually get in something like WordPress)?

I know you can probably do this in WordPress by using a customised theme but I didn't want to go down the road of trying to figure out how to create a suitable theme - looks time consuming and not totally straight forward.

Ideally I would like something that you can just take the content section (and possibly a search module) and embed it into the news window and then access the admin side through a separate URL so that articles can be added, edited etc.

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #29 on:** June 23, 2008, 07:35 AM »

What about doing the integration through an RSS Feed?

Google have some neat javascript code that imbeds RSS feeds into DIV objects.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #30 on:** June 23, 2008, 08:28 AM »

I think I have figured a way to do it with WordPress

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #31 on:** June 23, 2008, 04:01 PM »

RSS feed added.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #32 on:** June 24, 2008, 02:03 PM »

Could some kind soul check out the latest incarnation of www.friendsofgovi.org.uk in Internet Explorer 6. I don't have it on my system except in a VMWare installation of Windows 98 and I am getting bad whole page flickering from the menu.

I had to change the CSS tags on div:hover in the menu as it didn't seem to work in IE6 at all. I have instead used a:hover in the menu which works but every time I move the mouse down the menu the whole page flickers and I can't seem to work out why. Is it an ancient hangover of Windows 98 version of IE6 or have I got real problems?

Cheers

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #33 on:** June 24, 2008, 10:28 PM »

Could some kind soul check out the latest incarnation of www.friendsofgovi.org.uk in Internet Explorer 6. I don't have it on my system except in a VMWare installation of Windows 98 and I am getting bad whole page flickering from the menu.

I had to change the CSS tags on div:hover in the menu as it didn't seem to work in IE6 at all. I have instead used a:hover in the menu which works but every time I move the mouse down the menu the whole page flickers and I can't seem to work out why. Is it an ancient hangover of Windows 98 version of IE6 or have I got real problems?
-Carol Haynes (June 24, 2008, 02:03 PM)

Looks OK here Carol.

The hover over the Creadit Card doesn't highlight as the others do, and the text dims: ie the link hovers OK. Correction: Just on the News and Help pages.

Your RSS logo is antialiased for the cream background, you should probably swap the image that is antialiased to the Indian Red (???) background.

Help, Become_A_Friend & Links pages have centred titles where all the others are left aligned.

News and Help do not have the RSS logo/link.

Have you thought about adjusting the colours of your links to match the colours of the site?

What about using an image to mark the TANGO links? In fact it's not a bad idea to indicate links that access external sites.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #34 on:** June 25, 2008, 05:57 AM »

The hover over the Creadit Card doesn't highlight as the others do, and the text dims: ie the link hovers OK. Correction: Just on the News and Help pages.

Help, Become_A_Friend & Links pages have centred titles where all the others are left aligned.

News and Help do not have the RSS logo/link.

All the pages should have identical menus because they all come from a template and all the icons should turn red when hovered over. Try emptying the browser cache or refreshing individual pages.

Your RSS logo is antialiased for the cream background

Thanks - didn't notice that. (Can't see the wood for the trees any more which is why it is great to get fresh eyes to have a look).

Changed it for a different logo (and removed text - anyone who wants RSS is likely to know what it is and if they don't they can click and find out

)

Help, Become_A_Friend & Links pages have centred titles where all the others are left aligned.

Fixed.

Have you thought about adjusting the colours of your links to match the colours of the site?

Changed to use picture frame colour for menu text and hover colours. What do you think?

Have you thought about adjusting the colours of your links to match the colours of the site?

I was thinking of that - I'll sort it out when I sort out the links page.

Thanks Perry - appreciated.

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #35 on:** June 25, 2008, 06:18 AM »

Picture frames: if it was me I'd be keeping them simple. Though I don't mind what you've done.

Odd concerning the cache...

The new RSS logo is probably better. I think one of the struggles with all these graphics is to get them to fit within your site's style. Too many different types of icons and I think it makes the site look "disjointed" type thing.

Have you tried making the outside border a slightly lighter/darker shade? I wonder if it may help define the content of your page more strongly??

Veign · « **Reply #36 on:** June 25, 2008, 07:09 AM »

Not sure if this was mentioned but your Design By link at the bottom of the main page doesn't work.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #37 on:** June 25, 2008, 07:21 AM »

Picture frames: if it was me I'd be keeping them simple. Though I don't mind what you've done.

Odd concerning the cache...

The new RSS logo is probably better. I think one of the struggles with all these graphics is to get them to fit within your site's style. Too many different types of icons and I think it makes the site look "disjointed" type thing.

Have you tried making the outside border a slightly lighter/darker shade? I wonder if it may help define the content of your page more strongly??
-Perry Mowbray (June 25, 2008, 06:18 AM)

Colours changed - I think it looks better

Not sure if this was mentioned but your Design By link at the bottom of the main page doesn't work.
-Veign (June 25, 2008, 07:09 AM)

Thanks - really don't know how that happened!!! It was set correctly - I must have twiddled the mouse wheel at the wrong moment!!

jgpaiva · « **Reply #38 on:** June 25, 2008, 07:43 AM »

Just giving some feedback on the navigation panel: I like the new colors (the darker red) way better than the previous ones.

Also, I think you should move "A UK Charity supporting "The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired"
(Registered Charity 1070173)" somewhere else and move the top banner up. I say this because it's stealing too much screen real-estate. One of the rules with web pages is to not make them long, but if the top banner and text are taking 1/3rd of the screen, this task becomes more complicated.

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #39 on:** June 25, 2008, 08:00 AM »

Also, I think you should move "A UK Charity supporting "The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired"
(Registered Charity 1070173)" somewhere else and move the top banner up. I say this because it's stealing too much screen real-estate. One of the rules with web pages is to not make them long, but if the top banner and text are taking 1/3rd of the screen, this task becomes more complicated.
-jgpaiva (June 25, 2008, 07:43 AM)

I'd have to agree. Can it go at the bottom of the navigation panel? Maybe behind a graphic? Or maybe a small one liner under the banner?

I really like the darker border

Really defines the content, eh?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #40 on:** June 25, 2008, 08:04 AM »

OK I have moved it to the bottom - better? The message is equally clear at the top of the home page in the main text anyway.

I have to agree - changing the colour makes it pop a bit more - I have changed the picture frames to match the background to.

Incidentally all of these colours came from the banner photos.

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #41 on:** June 25, 2008, 08:44 AM »

Carol: I've just been playing with your code locally and I think that the Paragraph tags in the body is what is mucking up the vertical alignment. Try changing them to a Span maybe?

Not sure about the other pages, I was just playing with the main page.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #42 on:** June 25, 2008, 09:12 AM »

Sorry not sure what you mean - can you give me an example? (use the BBL code, #, tag to enclose the example)

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #43 on:** June 25, 2008, 09:27 AM »

You had:

Code: HTML [Select]

<p align="left">Friends of GOVI has been a <a href="http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/showcharity.asp?regno=1070173" target="_top">registered UK charity</a> since 1998. We support the only School for the Blind in the Gambia working with and alongside GOVI, The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired.
Many of the children come from very poor families and depend upon having two meals a day at the school so this year our main priority will be to fund those meals.</p>

I changed it to:

Code: HTML [Select]

<span align="left">Friends of GOVI has been a <a href="http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/showcharity.asp?regno=1070173" target="_top">registered UK charity</a> since 1998. We support the only School for the Blind in the Gambia working with and alongside GOVI, The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired.
Many of the children come from very poor families and depend upon having two meals a day at the school so this year our main priority will be to fund those meals.</span>

That aligned the two columns locally for me...

jgpaiva · « **Reply #44 on:** June 25, 2008, 09:47 AM »

OK I have moved it to the bottom - better?
-Carol Haynes (June 25, 2008, 08:04 AM)

Yep, I think you're doing well, the site is looking good

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #45 on:** June 25, 2008, 10:07 AM »

Yep, I think you're doing well, the site is looking good
-jgpaiva (June 25, 2008, 09:47 AM)

I second that!!

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #46 on:** June 25, 2008, 10:31 AM »

OK I have moved it to the bottom - better?
-Carol Haynes (June 25, 2008, 08:04 AM)
Yep, I think you're doing well, the site is looking good
-jgpaiva (June 25, 2008, 09:47 AM)

Thanks

You had:
Code: HTML [Select]
<p align="left">Friends of GOVI has been a <a href="http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/showcharity.asp?regno=1070173" target="_top">registered UK charity</a> since 1998. We support the only School for the Blind in the Gambia working with and alongside GOVI, The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired.
Many of the children come from very poor families and depend upon having two meals a day at the school so this year our main priority will be to fund those meals.</p>

I changed it to:
Code: HTML [Select]
<span align="left">Friends of GOVI has been a <a href="http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/showcharity.asp?regno=1070173" target="_top">registered UK charity</a> since 1998. We support the only School for the Blind in the Gambia working with and alongside GOVI, The Gambian Organisation for the Visually Impaired.
Many of the children come from very poor families and depend upon having two meals a day at the school so this year our main priority will be to fund those meals.</span>

That aligned the two columns locally for me...
-Perry Mowbray (June 25, 2008, 09:27 AM)

Interesting - is this in IE 6? I can't see any difference (except that it screws up the spacing with the image below) in IE 7. In FF2 it does change the alignment to line up with the sidebar but it also screws up the image spacing.

I have a standard single style for images in the main part of the page which doesn't add margin at the top - this is because pictures are always put at the top of paragraphs or the top of the div so I don't want it shifting down.

The other disadvantage of using span like this is that I lose control over the p style changing font face site wide. I suppose I could add a global body text style but then I would have to edit the whole site to apply it to all the text!

Given that it doesn't fix the problem in both of the two common browsers I think I will not change to <span. - at least not at the moment.

I have however added a global style change for p and h3 which seems to align the columns better in FF2 (doesn't seem to do much in IE7 though - what about IE6?).

Safari, FF3 and Opera seem OK now.

Anyone using any other browser got any comments?

Perry Mowbray · « **Reply #47 on:** June 25, 2008, 10:53 PM »

No, I was using FF3! Sorry it wasn't a compete answer

I guess that I hoped that finding the culprit was halfway to finding the problem

Interesting - is this in IE 6? I can't see any difference (except that it screws up the spacing with the image below) in IE 7. In FF2 it does change the alignment to line up with the sidebar but it also screws up the image spacing.
-Carol Haynes (June 25, 2008, 10:31 AM)

No, it was in FF3 $:-\$

I have a standard single style for images in the main part of the page which doesn't add margin at the top - this is because pictures are always put at the top of paragraphs or the top of the div so I don't want it shifting down.

The other disadvantage of using span like this is that I lose control over the p style changing font face site wide. I suppose I could add a global body text style but then I would have to edit the whole site to apply it to all the text!
-Carol Haynes (June 25, 2008, 10:31 AM)

Sure: its never easy. CSS is great, but if you have lots of little breaks in the rules you get lots of styles.

I have however added a global style change for p and h3 which seems to align the columns better in FF2 (doesn't seem to do much in IE7 though - what about IE6?).
-Carol Haynes (June 25, 2008, 10:31 AM)

Here it is in IE6:
Screenshot - 26_06_2008 , 1_39_45 PM.png

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #48 on:** June 26, 2008, 03:42 AM »

That's what I am getting too and similar in IE7.

Currently alignment seems to be working fine in FF2, F3, Opera and Safari. It is only IE 6 and 7 that seems to refuse to do what it is told! I haven't tried any of the other browsers.

I think I am just going to have to live with the IE variation - I am not sufficiently up on how to force different behaviours in different browsers and at this rate I think I could spend my life getting nowhere with this!!!

Can anyone offer a simple solution?

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #49 on:** June 26, 2008, 12:42 PM »

Don't you just love it when software is 'helpful' !!!

I found this in the template auto generated by Dreamweaver:

[Select]

I removed it and guess what .... fixed in IE 6 and 7 .... WTF!

ARGHHHHHHH !