Viewing 15 posts - 31 through 45 (of 48 total)
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  • #5534
    Rezwan
    Participant

    amcnea wrote: Hence, it may take good understand of the HTML and the CSS in it’s entirety in order to parse it.

    I have more difficulty with design decisions, not with code. E.g., it’s harder for me to decide on colors, backgrounds, box shapes, font sizes, border thickness, spacing, etc. Once those decisions are made and someone has coded them, cutting and pasting the relevant piece of code is not a problem.

    Also, I have trouble with graphics. But once the graphic is designed, calling it up in the css and html isn’t a problem. A lot of graphics people take for granted, like the rounded corners of boxes.

    But once all the graphic assets are there, and someone has developed the code that describes the design, really, putting the code where it belongs isn’t too hard.

    Furthermore, the same CSS is going to apply to various different places in the HTML, which may be modified by other CSS dependent on structure, and other files might override previous CSS. Anyways, trying to figure all that out will be annoying at best.

    Yes, this was my other developer friend’s complaint about Joomla. It meant you couldn’t really modify the template much. You just had to choose it and stick with it.

    Also, a large portion of the CSS will be completely irrelevant to what is being displayed because Joomla is created to be heavily modifiable.

    True enough. Like in the code snippets above, there was no banner, and the em tags were empty. But this gets us back to modularity. We only need the bits of code we use. From glancing at the code, it looked pretty well documented, so you could pull out the pieces you need.

    I like doing this a la cart.

    Perhaps if you just load in all of the joomla CSS files, then maybe everything will just work magically.

    Certainly, if you loaded all the code, it should all logically (not magically) work. It’d be overkill, but not magic.

    Then there will be options from the CMS which will be fed into things like the CSS and the Javascript. For instance the blue thing which rotates is set to change once every 10 secs, however, this is just an option in Joomla which can be changed to anything or turned off. Within the joomla system, these options are easy to find and modify, but I have no clue how deeply these options are hidden in the Javascript files which are sent to the end user.

    Yes, one would need to know where those controls are.

    About that blue rotating thing. As mentioned, I preferred the one on your other site with a picture that changed when you click one of the six shown links. So you can see the relationship between image and action.

    Before I forget, I noticed on a previous post your EE script started off with:

    This will probably need to be changed to what joomla uses, which is:

    Yes, I’m all strict. Perhaps transitional is the way to go. A kinder, more forgiving approach.

    #5536
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Those are the concerns that I have off hand. I guess I just feel a little apprehension about cutting and pasting from joomla to EE because it is the approach that I know the least about and has the highest number of unknowns. I have moved joomla CMS to Drupal CMS before, and from Drupal to Joomla. I have also integrate Joomla with SugarCRM before (genesis site) in a manner similiar to that outlined in part 3 of my previous post.

    But, I don’t have a problem with giving this approach a try.

    It’s not so bad. Well, I’ve never done it before, either, so it may turn out to be bad. Let’s just start with developing a design first, and then see how hard it is to adapt the joomla code to ee templates. And no hurry.

    I have Joomla template envy, I won’t deny it. But I think ee is better in the long run (unless Joomla has changed since I looked at it before).

    EE is more customizable, less structured. EE can handle multiple web sites with ease (and we’re going to add a plasma cosmology site and the plasma network site soon), multiple weblogs, nearly unlimited number of member groups, custom fields, and so on.

    About weblogs, examples on our site would be the forthcoming “instruments” weblog that we’ll be setting up and the contenders weblog. They will have a number of custom fields for different attributes.

    Sculptable Weblogs, i.e. different fields for each one and the open-ended thinking that this fosters…

    As someone once said, things should be as simple as they can be but no simpler. Not every object to be published on a site is the same type of thing. Rather, they can be abstracted through discussion into various types, each of which type should be definable. That’s what I meant before by sculptable weblogs. Without them, objects to be published are squeezed into a standard shape of title/summary/body. When your structure is too simple for what you’re trying to do with it, you end up complicating things hopelessly.

    The other ee advantage is the “templating”, which, as noted, is different from Joomla templates:

    While I don’t think EE’s learning curve is difficult, there is an initial slow start because how to get started is different than in WP or Drupal or Joomla and friends. There’s what I call a light bulb moment when you begin to get it.

    That moment usually starts with templates. Once you understand that a template in EE is not like a template/theme in anything else, and functions like includes, complete with nested embedding, then the light bulb goes on. After that, it gets brighter, even if you’re dim like me.

    True, I haven’t exploited these attributes yet, so it just looks like the focus fusion site is a minimalist blog and/or brochure site with some basic info that fits into that structure. But I believe the site will grow in all kinds of unexpected ways, with various content applications from various different classes of members. I’m obviously not communicating it well now.

    In any case, “every girl crazy bout a sharp dressed man”, so if we get some nice design elements onto the site, that would be fantastic. Do your magic with the design for now, and let me worry about the code integration part.

    #5537
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Re: those links to ee templates posted earlier. Yep. Boring. The Joomla stuff is much more eyecatching.

    Here’s one other source of templates: http://themeforest.net

    #5538
    Rezwan
    Participant

    OK, back to the header/top navigation. I like what treehugger does. They have quite a lot going on up there, and divide it into “get informed”, “interact”, and “action”.

    This is an efficient way to organize a site that has a lot of information/interaction/action items. It’s got everything laid out in the top. All business.

    I’m looking at function more than design here, as usual.

    Screen grab attached.

    Attached files

    #5540
    Rezwan
    Participant

    The other site I really like, in terms of functionality as well as style, is http://dosomething.org

    I think a campaign like that for Focus Fusion would be great. Of course, looking at their staff page, they have a lot of dedicated people making it happen.

    So, given that no one knows expression engine around here, I just posted a job on the ee sites. http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/139233/ No nibbles yet. Could be the pay.

    #5541
    amcnea
    Participant

    So, given that no one knows expression engine around here, I just posted a job on the ee sites.

    I downloaded the Expression Engine Core 1.6.8 today, and it doesn’t look very difficult and I don’t have a problem with learning it. I also don’t have a problem with designing the site for free. The problem which I have with EE is that it seems far more difficult to make a complete redesign of the site.

    For instance that Demo which I made took me about 8-10 hours of work with probably about 2-3 hours just spent on the top logo. The rest of the time was spent searching for the template, finding the appropriate modules, cropping the other images, searching for images on google, and copy and pasting info into the site. I probably spent less then 1 hour actually working on the site layout, color schema, and things of that nature.

    With EE it seems to me like the site layout, color schema, etc. will take far longer then it does with Joomla. Probably on the time scale of a week instead of an hour. My concern would be investing a week into a site layout only to hear at the end “we don’t like this, that, and the other thing. Do it over.” Which isn’t very uncommon in the web-site design game. With Joomla if something like that happens, I haven’t lost very much. With EE the loss seems to be far grater.

    How we usually handle this is by pairing off with an artist. We have the client talk to the artist who conceptualizes the website and makes the layout. This is usually stored in an image or PDF of EXACTLY how the website will look. Once this image has been created and approved by the client then the PDF is handed to a developer such as myself. The developer then takes the PDF and turns into the final web-site. This process generally cost somewhere between $5,000 to $20,000 depending on complexity and time. I don’t usually go this route, but my brother has done this sort of thing on his spare time. He has gone through a site called lucky dog or something like that.

    Now, just for a joomla site which takes me about 5-8 days to set up, get approval for, etc. I will usually charge about $2,000 to $4,000 per site.
    ——————————-

    Anyways, I would be hesitant to go through the effort of creating an EE site without knowing EXACTLY how you want the site to look like. A possible solution to this would be to make the site in joomla initially until you have something that you want to go live with. And the Joomla site can then act as the PDF file generated by the artist. I can then take that and turn it into the EE site as previously discussed.

    My guess is that you will run into this same hesitation about site-layout for any EE designer. Especially for the price you offered. Because a single redo of the site could basically eat up the entire budget.

    #5544
    Rezwan
    Participant

    My guess is that you will run into this same hesitation about site-layout for any EE designer. Especially for the price you offered. Because a single redo of the site could basically eat up the entire budget.

    Dude! I probably just instulted all those folks on the ee forum, as well! About the pay offered, there just wasn’t a “volunteer” button on the drop down menu. But really, we want the service free, but at the same time, we want the full quote of how much it costs so that we can put it into the grant proposal. Ultimately, I’d like an in-house CTO, Chief Technical Officer who would oversee all the technical aspects of the site. Looking at the “dosomething.com” website team list, they have a lot of people working on different aspects of their site.

    Unfortunately, we have no budget right now, so it’s volunteer labor. But I do appreciate how much work it is, and I do, as soon as possible, want to get to a position where we can pay someone market rates to do it.

    As to whole site redesign idea – that’s my point. Don’t think of the whole site, just of parts. This site will change over and over, a bit comes off, another one goes in its place. It’s dynamic, and you’re right about people’s fickle tastes. A kalashnikov is the weapon of choice around the world because it’s so easy to dismantle, drop in mud, what have you. We don’t need an upholstered tank here. We really want a simple site, with perhaps a stunning header, stylish but simple navigation and nice boxes.

    No need to redesign a whole site, just pieces. A la carte.

    A la carte: for example, your great choice of matching images with well written blurbs – upbeat and to the point. I incorporated your text in the “how green is it” section. I didn’t take the graphic ’cause I don’t know if it’s creative commons or we’d need a license. Anyway, since I’m still in the structure mode of choosing those bits & writing copy (essentially setting new category headings) I’d love to hear/see more suggestions. The DPF and How green is it sections are now up, for example. Especially if you can start with the “how hard is it” icon. Sisyphus is bad karma. We need another image that conveys heroic efforts required to do something, but not the guy pushing a rock up a hill. Which, by the way, I got off some blog, and I think it’s not legal, so I must axe it.

    I suppose at some point, since you have 1.6.8 I can do that “dump” thing and you could play around with our code. I bet once you do a few quick fixes on things (like embed bits mast – replacing the header with something decent) you’ll see how quick it is.

    Yeah, get a bit more guerilla for now as we sort through the structure. Luxe design can come later.

    Now, should I go back to the ee site and put down a higher pay offer with the disclaimer that actually we’re paying nothing? Or would they feel lured under false pretenses? Which is worse, to be insulted, or to be lured? Ah.

    #5545
    JShell
    Participant

    Wow! Those screen grabs look really good! That would be a huge (and impressive) change to get the focusfusion.org webpage looking like that–

    I like the two-tiered design, especially with the way you divided up the categories in the screen shots. Very simple and effective.

    With the screen grabs, I like how the horizontal bars are very clear and involve separate categories. I think that having the homepage with the basics is nice– I feel like the Focus Fusion site does a good job of introducing the technology, and FFS too.

    You probably know much more than I do in terms of the overall structure of the site. There is a lot of content, and being able to navigate easily is important. I can see what you mean about “focus fusion” fitting within “aneutronic fusion”, which fits within the wider fusion umbrella– I guess the only other thing I would say is that as far as “permanent” content goes, sometimes more isn’t always better– once people are hooked with the basics, then in some ways they can get the latest up-to-date information from the “Recent Posts” or “Recent Forum Posts”– the main permanent site doesn’t have to be an all-inclusive source of information. For me as a newcomer this past fall, I really appreciated being able to watch Dr. Lerner’s video, to get more in-depth information that way.

    I liked the pB11 animation if that fits back in somewhere, but loading times are a concern, of course. And splitting off the plasma network as a separate site seems like a good idea.

    Focus groups are helpful, but in some ways, you’re getting a mini-focus group right here, with so many people giving feedback and contributing. . .

    Making the “Avatar characters” real to get the site redesigned and fully functional is exciting!

    all this snow in the northeast has been pretty wild,
    JShell

    #5546
    amcnea
    Participant

    As to whole site redesign idea – that’s my point. Don’t think of the whole site, just of parts.

    Hmm, the problem is that without a clear cut understanding of how the parts fit into the whole, it is very difficult to make a good looking well designed site. Things on a web-page follow a hierarchical schema. Where the CSS for the broad overview of the site such as general layout, background, etc. will permeate throughout the entire site. Then there will be sub-sections which will modify and append the CSS from the general form. Then there will be sub-sub-sections which modify and append CSS from the particular subsection.

    To use a metaphor (ok, a simile), a web-site is like a pyramid. When you say we only need to design pieces, it’s like saying we only need to design the top of the pyramid. While this is by no means an impossible task, it is complicated if one doesn’t know the dimensions of piece that your trying to make. I mean, the top of a pyramid is just a much smaller pyramid. So, that in itself isn’t that hard. It’s that I don’t know the dimensions (base and height) of the small pyramid (top) which will cause it to sit on top of the large pyramid seamlessly. Hmm, did I go little to far with the analogy there?

    Now, to give an example from the demo. Things like the font, link color, background, etc would be the base. Then the top black area would be one sub-section, followed by the blue sub-section, then there is the article sub-section below and to the left, a module sub-section below and to the right, and finally a footer sub-section at the bottom. Then in the module section there is a Paypal, login, and Photo sub-sub-sections.

    If you start by designing the sub-sub-sections and work your way out to the broadest sections, then as you alter the code in the base area, this will change the appearance of EVERY sub-sub-section. Text starts to wrap, things get pushed off of where there supposed to be, etc. Then you have to go through and modify the CSS for each sub-sub-section to be compliant with the new base CSS. Furthermore all this is complicated by multi-browser support.

    I incorporated your text in the “how green is it” section. I didn’t take the graphic ‘cause I don’t know if it’s creative commons or we’d need a license.

    I that particular image is under the GNU or Lesser GPL. It can be found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nuvola_apps_important_recycle.png. It say’s on the page the it is under the GNU. This didn’t make much sense to me so I did a little more digging and found that the picture is an icon from the “Nuvola icons” which is a Theme for KDE 3 (KDE 3 being a linux based Graphics User Interface, so basically an alternative windows). Anyways, what all this means is that the image should be good for use.

    Now, should I go back to the ee site and put down a higher pay offer with the disclaimer that actually we’re paying nothing? Or would they feel lured under false pretenses? Which is worse, to be insulted, or to be lured? Ah.

    I don’t know, I am not really a fan of insulting or luring people. Can’t you just say that your a non-profit and what your looking for?

    #5549
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Have you read Jeff Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards? I’ve adopted that philosophy.

    I don’t think we have to compromise on style, but it may be your approach to design is over-complicating things.

    amcnea wrote: Now, to give an example from the demo. Things like the font, link color, background, etc would be the base. Then the top black area would be one sub-section, followed by the blue sub-section, then there is the article sub-section below and to the left, a module sub-section below and to the right, and finally a footer sub-section at the bottom. Then in the module section there is a Paypal, login, and Photo sub-sub-sections.

    If you start by designing the sub-sub-sections and work your way out to the broadest sections, then as you alter the code in the base area, this will change the appearance of EVERY sub-sub-section. Text starts to wrap, things get pushed off of where there supposed to be, etc. Then you have to go through and modify the CSS for each sub-sub-section to be compliant with the new base CSS.

    That’s what I’m talking about. You broke it down beautifully. Yes, in the css sheets, you start with the base css. Then, having decided on the different divs of your site, you add code necessary to differentiate them. It’s like cell differentiation.

    If you’re very concerned about straightjacketing the site and making sure things fit precisely into eachother, you’ll run into design problems. If you relax that standard, you have much more freedom.

    Then the analogy becomes the website as a person. You have a body. You are naked. You want to go out in public. So…you put on a hat. That’s the header. It goes on your head. You get some matching shoes. Footer. You put a necklace on – the menu. A shirt, a vest, a jacket, some pants or skirt. Your skin tone is your skin tone, determined by your body. But say you all of a sudden want blue legs – you only change the div “tights” to blue. And so on.

    But you have to start out with that approach in mind, otherwise you may code in some messy entangled code. And then you’re dependent on Joomla’s interface to fix things and out of touch with the complex code beneath it.

    The page you designed was actually simple enough. You had a header, a menu bar, and that blue animation thing. The body, a left column, a right column, the bits. A footer. With a website, if you have it clearly defined and with the expression engine approach, you could just as easily place the header at the bottom and the footer on top, or the animation on the bottom.

    Oh, again, my philosophy to let things float. Not try to constrict them so much. Another body analogy. It’s the holidays. And you go to people’s houses, and you eat a lot of food. You want to let your belt out. Websites now and then go to different browsers and they have to let their belts out. Best to put spandex in the clothes and give them some breathing room. If you design with that in mind, you’ll be far more flexible, and still look cool. Just let go of the interlocking control aspect and go for a general fit.

    Furthermore all this is complicated by multi-browser support.

    All the more reason to keep it simple and think mostly of accessibility and the future.

    [re: image]Anyways, what all this means is that the image should be good for use.

    Good to know.

    I don’t know, I am not really a fan of insulting or luring people. Can’t you just say that your a non-profit and what your looking for?

    I did, in the text. I’m just wondering about which option to click in the drop down box that straightjacketed me into choosing an amount offered. The lowest it had was $50K.

    #5551
    Rezwan
    Participant

    Well, I cleaned up ffs css a bit. It’s more legible now. Also, inspired by your more useful footer design, I just implemented that on the site. Of course, the footer is within the “container” div for now, so it looks odd.

    We’ll have to place it outside to run across the whole bottom. But with the current blue plasmoid background, that will look odd as well.

    I get the feeling that the blue background is on its way out. It is a relic of the past, it’s been with the site since the beginning. But it always looked a bit rough. Still, it’s a piece of the history of the site.

    Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how Joomla codes that cool grey groove in the footer. I used the “hr”, but no go.

    Speaking of blue background, color palette and font palette are a key design issue.

    Of course, these can easily be changed. When you’re in expression engine templates sector, you do a search for, say the color turquoise (#069) because you want to replace it. The templates that contain #069 all show up and you can go through and see where you want to change the color. Very useful for fickle design.

    #5552
    amcnea
    Participant

    Have you read Jeff Zeldman’s Designing with Web Standards? I’ve adopted that philosophy.

    Yes I have, but I have the second edition and it’s been a while since I have looked at it (I will have to wait till after the holidays and I get back home). But if recall correctly, I don’t think he talks very much about design flow, or the end user experience. These to me are probably the more important then standards or even readable code (not that I am saying that unreadable code or lack of standards is acceptable). Because this is what the end user see when they load a page. This deals with concepts like: Where is the eye drawn to when the page loads? What lines on the page does the eye follow? What information does this lead the eye too? What is the initial response to the color schema?

    I don’t think we have to compromise on style, but it may be your approach to design is over-complicating things.

    Hmm, I think that was uncalled for, but in the spirit of mutual cooperation I let this one slide.

    Yes, in the css sheets, you start with the base css. Then, having decided on the different divs of your site, you add code necessary to differentiate them. It’s like cell differentiation.

    Yes, this is the data that I have been asking for. That is exactly what I mean when I say designing the site. Has the div structure been defined? Has the base CSS been created? Are these decisions already made? If so where can I find them? All I have been saying is that these decision should be made first. And, that I need this information to competently create the “pieces” which will be pluged into this framework.

    I don’t think the CSS and the layout of the current site should be the base CSS and layout for a new site. I think there should be a new structure, a new color schema, a new font schema, etc.

    If you’re very concerned about straightjacketing the site and making sure things fit precisely into eachother, you’ll run into design problems. If you relax that standard, you have much more freedom.

    In order to make things fit precisely one need not “straight jacket the site”. Precision is merely a consequence of understanding the code and understand how browser differentiate the displaying of that code. For example, under certain conditions it is common for IE to render with a 1px offset difference from how Firefox and Webkit renders. Now, if you are trying to make a straight line, this offset can kill the page design. 1px can be the difference between a page looking beautiful and a page looking like crap. There are many ways to do the same and still be in the w3c spec. Some of these this problem will show up, other ways it won’t.

    But you have to start out with that approach in mind, otherwise you may code in some messy entangled code. And then you’re dependent on Joomla’s interface to fix things and out of touch with the complex code beneath it.

    First off I have already given up on trying to get you to use joomla. Secondly I don’t really care about being out of touch with the “complex code” (Even though I am actually VERY familiar with the inner workings of Joomla). The majority of people don’t have a clue about the inner working of their car (such as engine, alternator, transmission, etc). But, that doesn’t mean that a person can not successfully use a car or have a beautiful car. And, it is very likely that a person will save considerable time, effort, and energy by buying a pre-made car instead of trying to design and build one themselves.

    What I do care about is having a successful site which, 1) Looks professional, 2) Looks beautiful, 3) Shows relevant information in an easily understandable form, 4) Get people to come back, and most importantly 5) gets people to donate money.

    Everything else is nothing more then a means to an end in my mind. If I have to be in touch with the complex code or simple code in order to fulfill my objective, then so be it. If not, then I am fine with that also.
    —————————————

    Anyway, I couldn’t figure out how Joomla codes that cool grey groove in the footer.

    It’s an image assigned on the div class=”copyright-block” with the CSS as follows: (image is posted below)
    background-attachment: scroll;
    background-clip: border-box;
    background-color: transparent;
    background-image: url(http://75.17.88.183/templates/rt_nexus_j15/images/footer/dark/footer-div.png);
    background-origin: padding-box;
    display: block;
    height: 89px;
    margin-bottom: 15px;
    margin-left: 0px;
    margin-right: 0px;
    margin-top: 15px;
    width: 982px;
    —————————————

    Look, I am not trying to fight with you here or dictate to you how your site will be. But, I do this type of thing everyday. I have been doing this everyday for years. What I am trying to do is pass on the lessons I have learned to you. I have learned these lessons the hard way by wasting many many hours of my life learning them. I don’t wan’t you to have to go through same learning curve I went through. I want you to jump straight to the end, so that you can have an awesome site and not have to worry about it anymore. And you can do things which will be far more productive toward raising the funds to make fusion a reality

    Attached files

    #5553
    amcnea
    Participant

    Also, I am lacking a clear cut understanding of what you want to happen. So far all I have gathered is that you want to create the “pieces” and to ignore the “site”. But I don’t know what pieces you want or what you want those pieces to look like.

    If you say to me, “I want you to take that demo, and make an EE site which looks the exact same.” Well, I can do that. I can have that for you in about a week.
    If you say to me, “I want you to take that paypal box on your demo and change the color schema to this.” Well, I can do that. I can have that for you in under a day.
    If you say to me, “I want you to take this picture and turn into html and css.” Well, I can do that also.

    But what I can’t do is take pieces and ignore the site, because I don’t know what that means.

    I guess what I am saying is I would I like to help, and I would like to know exactly how I can help.

    #5554
    Rezwan
    Participant

    My Dear AMcnea, I hold you in the highest esteem! It pains me that I have abused you with uncalled for remarks. Sincerely.

    This exchange has filled me with a sense of promise, and the feeling that a beautiful site is close at hand. It pains me that I have expressed myself defensively or grumpily. You, on the other hand, have given me nothing but joy by, first of all being available and willing to do some serious design, and secondly by coming up with a design that I’ve already started to incorporate. On top of that joy, you have now given me relief with the admission that you’ve given up on Joomla with me.

    We’ve been thinking aloud on key issues and we’re making great progress. I feel we’re converging to functional harmony.

    EXCELLENT point about the divs and the base css. I am in agreement.

    The divs have not all been defined, and many of them are improperly named.

    Like, to my embarassment, I have a div class “bluecontent” which was my temporary box to hold side content. We’ve all cringed at it.

    First of all, the name shouldn’t relate to the color. It should relate to the function. Second, we will want to later differentiate say, the paypal box from the recent posts box, so it’s terrible to put everything in a bluecontent box. The boxes may all start out looking alike, but here nomenclature and div differentiation is important.

    Anyway, more on divs, but too much to write. I’ll call you. Let me know a good time.

    For the base css – I like your taste so far. You want specific action:

    1) Come up with a color palette.
    2) Choose fonts, sizes and colors for the basic elements, e.g., h1, h2, h3, h4; p, quotes, bullets, and variations of those in sub categories.
    3) Bullet variations – I am hopeless with bullet points. Lists come up a lot on this site. Would love some nice bullets.
    4) Some box designs for those bits (specific divs!) on the side. Like the donate box, or the member log in box. (actually, I want to keep a line for member action on the top of the site next to the search box. Any reason why you left that off the top of your design? A usability issue? Want to put that on the side somewhere?)

    5) Mast head, logo area
    6) navigation – But we’re still figuring out the navigation of the site. That’s an info arch issue, right? Anyway, I do like that treehugger.com approach with info/interact/act.
    7) Animation/storyboard space: I like the blue bar with animation you have – but then again, don’t want anything moving on the screen unless acted upon. Perhaps, under the menu, you could do a big blue rectangle taking up 2/3 of the page, and have visible the options, and then as a person clicks on things, the picture and info come up, until you click through all for that thing. So the pieces unfold like a story, at your command.

    This might satisfy JShell’s interest in mystery, because you have to take some action to let the pictures unfold.

    Structure – I’m fine with your basic header, nav band, some columns (2-4, depending) and a footer. Or, a folded page, with more segments as you go down. Do you have any structural, div related suggestions?

    Photos/gallery/video divs – another conversation.

    Usability. Yes, zeldman was about the back end. The book on usability that I like is Janice Redish’s letting go of the words. Something I have a really hard time doing – but one day. So much I have to pare down and streamline on the site.

    According to the Redish book, we have to start with creating “persona”s – what is the typical person looking for on our site. That will be another topic thread!

    Thanks again for all your hard work and constructive conversation. I truly appreciate it.

    #5555
    Rezwan
    Participant

    But what I can’t do is take pieces and ignore the site, because I don’t know what that means.

    I didn’t mean to ignore the site. Rather, as you conceive of a site, make sure that the pieces are to some extent independent and can fit together with some tolerance. Don’t go for designs that are too interlocking and high maintenance to avoid this:

    Precision is merely a consequence of understanding the code and understand how browser differentiate the displaying of that code. For example, under certain conditions it is common for IE to render with a 1px offset difference from how Firefox and Webkit renders. Now, if you are trying to make a straight line, this offset can kill the page design. 1px can be the difference between a page looking beautiful and a page looking like crap.

    Yeah, so design some handsome pieces that all match/coordinate, but don’t rely on having to be exactly touching each other in certain ways. Let them all be on the site, do their job, look stunning together, but not have to be so dependent on each other. A loose, friendly affiliation, kind of like the members of this organization. Sloshing room.

    But yes, it definitely has to pull together as a site. I just want the whole site to be deconstructible into pieces.

    Then again, if it’s just up in the header, I suppose we could accommodate some tricky graphics that have to line up and lock in. What we do below shouldn’t affect that.

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