Site overhaul: suggestions welcomed

hunen · 6-2-04, 06:36 AM

My site, www.butteredcat.com, is now almost 4 years old and long overdue a complete overhaul. It started out as a 5 page personal site made just to prove I could do it, and has now grown to some 450 pages. Like many personal sites it is an eclectic mix of the things which interest me, photography, travel, fitness, poetry and so forth, but the bit which seems to attract most visitors is the alternate world history - "1933" and its associated discussion fora. Updating this alternate history is a major task in itself and part of the reason I want to overhaul the site is to make it easier to do so.

I'd appreciate any suggestions that people here might have for improving both the look and managabilty of the site. My own thoughts are that I would like to retain the simple two colour site theme with a logo off to one side (the butter splat or the triple flags as appropriate). I was impressed by the site http://trainline.com and think something similar might work for my site (without the music) - a dark background, menus across the top and text presented as a scrolling layer centred on the page - how do they do that ?. Such a layout would be very much an evolution of my current site.

It has also been suggested that using PHP would make my site easier to manage and update, but I have looked at afew PHP tutorials and don't really understand them. The idea of a database driven site seems fine in principle, but I am not sure how it could apply to my site, or if PHP sites can be made to look the way I want mine to look.

hunen · 6-2-04, 06:00 PM

I have drafted a new look for the site and placed a preview of the homepage at http://www.butteredcat.com/2005%20si...rnateindex.htm It was written in starwriter (linux 'notepad' equivalent) and tweaked in Namo Web Editor 5. I have dispensed with javascript / DHTML menus and the page now displays much more quickly. One problem I have noticed is that in a standards compliant browser like Opera, the site appears just fine but in Internet Exploder 5 the layout does not display as intended. Don't you just love Micro$ith ?

Comments would be appreciated and any advice on my previous comments about content management most welcome...

6-2-04, 06:20 PM

Hunen,

The new look is certainly better than the old website. The color combinations are ok and the site is easy to move around. Think this is more important than any other thing on a website.

6-2-04, 08:48 PM

i have cable and im wondering if your host is using dial up or perhaps tin cans with a string for there connection took almost 2 mins to load fully, i think you must haveimage mapped your links on top i think you need to do it again, i never looked further was so hot about load time,it did have a nice look to it though

hunen · 6-3-04, 05:46 AM

The site host ? Powweb of course... It seemed fine for download speed when I checked it, but if it is slow to others maybe one of the powweb staff could explain why.

oatesj77 · 6-4-04, 02:13 AM

loaded very quickly, and i liked the look a lot, but couldn't help compare it to macromedia's site, if only in the looks dept. otherwise it seems to run smooth.

you may want to add some graphical elements to your section links ei.. "Expeditions and Travel - Fighting Fit" just to make them stand out more from the sea of copy they head.

hunen · 6-4-04, 04:08 PM

I've just slightly re-arranged the site to make it better at 800 x 600 resolution, sorted the logo and picture problem and tweaked a few other things. And yes, having just visited Macromedia's site, I can see the similarity ! I guess there are only has a limited number of really appealing colours that work, or have Macromedia really started from the same Namo Webeditor theme to do their site ? We may both have diverged from the original theme, but the resemblence is still noticeable.

6-4-04, 04:46 PM

I think it looks a world of a difference from your current theme. Very nice and easy to navigate. The colors aren't hard on the eyes like your current page. On a flat screen, the colors were too bright and was giving me a headache. Your navigation bar on your current site is kind of flaky in respect to where your mouse had to be in order to click on a link. I was going to recommend the Ultimate Dropdown menu from brothercake.com if you liked that type of navbar. The new navigation bar is much better.

Nicely done.

Ken

hunen · 6-4-04, 08:07 PM

Thanks for the comments.

I want to move away from using the old style drop down navigation bar I had on the old site for a couple of reasons - foremost of which was that the Javascript / DHTML behind them took a while to download and on some compuetrs looked "flaky" (On others it didn't and I never worked out why). It did however have one great advantage - almost every single page on the whole site could be accessed from just four javascript menu files. If I added or deleted a page from the site, I had only to make a change to four files and the link was added to or removed from every page in the site.

The new site doesn't use Javascript / DHTML and so any link changes required to add or delete a page would have to be added to every page on site and there are already almost 450 pages. I don't fancy doing that ! Can anyone suggest a way of doing that ? Any comments about simple to use, inexpensive content management systems ? I would love to be able to keep the content separate from the formating and thus be able to alter the look of the site, and add / remove pages, without having to re-enter all the content and build all the links again.

oatesj77 · 6-4-04, 09:44 PM

I'm not 100% but i think you could set something up with CSS, where you would set up a link definition in a CSS file and then only have one file to update. I don't use css that much, but i'm sure someone here will see this and set us straight.

mjp · 6-4-04, 10:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hunen

any link changes required to add or delete a page would have to be added to every page on site and there are already almost 450 pages. I don't fancy doing that !

Put your header and navigation in a separate include file, then call that file from the first line of the rest of your pages.

You're still looking at editing all the pages to do that, but it would make your future navigation changes a snap.

I think you're better off going to a cms though, as you mentioned. If you're handy with php/MySQL you can write one customized to your specific needs pretty easily. The commercial/free options are all ridiculously overcomplicated (in my opinion) and try to be all things for all users.

oatesj77 · 6-4-04, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Put your header and navigation in a separate include file, then call that file from the first line of the rest of your pages.

You're still looking at editing all the pages to do that, but it would make your future navigation changes a snap.

I think you're better off going to a cms though, as you mentioned.

Interesting, you have any location one might learn that?

cms? typo?

hunen · 6-5-04, 08:14 AM

Those sound like some good suggestions.

CMS = content management system. Simplifying greatly, a cms separates the content of a website from the technical aspects of presentation and everything else needed to make the site run. As I understand it, the content data are stored in a database and then called up and displayed as required. So far, all the cms systems I have looked at are intended for enterprise applications and have been extremly complex and / or very expensive. The PHP / MySQL approach seems far too complex for me - I have a very small brain and only just manage to get basic html pages up and running.

The suggestion about putting the navigation in a separate file sounds good and appeals to me. I don't understand how to do it, but it sounds good. I guess I'll be doing an awful lot of Googling on the subject today. At the moment I have only created one page in the alternate look so now would be a good time to sort this issue out - if I can master the concept at this stage it should make things easier in the future.

Maybe once I have this update sorted I should write an article for the tutorial sites detailing what was done, how and why. It would be a true Idiot's Guide.

(jj) · 6-5-04, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oatesj77

Interesting, you have any location one might learn that?

cms? typo?

It can be done using SSI if you want to keep straight HTML or PHP can do the same thing.

CMS = Content Management System such as PostNuke, etc.

oatesj77 · 6-5-04, 04:03 PM

ahhhhh HA!
played around with nuke (just didn't know what CMS stood for), but I like to do all original stuff layout colors etc. Didn't like the lack of control over my layout, plus most-not all-of the work I do is not content driven, though if you have 450+ pages it might work for you, but you would have to do a lot of work to get it all to up and running with nuke. I would still like to know where I could learn to load navigation from one file, I would think that would speed up loading time on html pages since one file is cached and loaded over and over again, right?

If you do find any CMS systems that are fairly easy to use let me know, I built and manage a site with over 800 pages, and would be interested in a system that would allow me to update or hand off the update process without building html pages over & over again.

hunen · 6-12-04, 07:56 AM

I have looked at a few more CMS packages, but none of them met my needs - most being too expensive and too complex. City Desk did look interesting for a while but still proved a little too complex - at least for me ! They offer a trial version at http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk for anyone else that may be interested.

I'm still trying to find out how to put my links in a CSS, again to no avail so far...

hunen · 6-22-04, 04:58 AM

I have continued checking out CMS packages, but none seem to offer the right combination of ease of use, capability and low cost. Most, in fact, fall at the first hurdle - ease of use.

I still haven't managed to find anywhere yet that can offer advice on how to put links in CSS either.

*Kicks Google, carries on searching*

hunen · 7-3-04, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjp

Put your header and navigation in a separate include file, then call that file from the first line of the rest of your pages.

You're still looking at editing all the pages to do that, but it would make your future navigation changes a snap.

This is driving me mad. It sounds simple, but I can't figure out how to do it, or find a tutorial online anywhere (or even a good old fashioned book)

7-3-04, 06:33 PM

Hope I understand what you are looking for in css.

www.lagosestores.com with over 9,000 files (80% of them webpages both static and dynamic) has all the pages text, links, maintained by just a single css file and this file is simply referenced on the headers of the static pages or the header section of dynamic pages.

You may simply take a look at the source code of any of the pages on the site to see how the css file is referenced and where it is placed.

Like I said earlier, I hope I understand correctly what you need to find out about using css.

About CMS and reducing updates on your web pages have you considered using Microsoft frontage 2003? A dynamic template could help you maintain say the whole layout of your site with just a siingle template file.

All the best.

6-2-04, 06:36 AM	#1
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	Site overhaul: suggestions welcomed My site, www.butteredcat.com, is now almost 4 years old and long overdue a complete overhaul. It started out as a 5 page personal site made just to prove I could do it, and has now grown to some 450 pages. Like many personal sites it is an eclectic mix of the things which interest me, photography, travel, fitness, poetry and so forth, but the bit which seems to attract most visitors is the alternate world history - "1933" and its associated discussion fora. Updating this alternate history is a major task in itself and part of the reason I want to overhaul the site is to make it easier to do so. I'd appreciate any suggestions that people here might have for improving both the look and managabilty of the site. My own thoughts are that I would like to retain the simple two colour site theme with a logo off to one side (the butter splat or the triple flags as appropriate). I was impressed by the site http://trainline.com and think something similar might work for my site (without the music) - a dark background, menus across the top and text presented as a scrolling layer centred on the page - how do they do that ?. Such a layout would be very much an evolution of my current site. It has also been suggested that using PHP would make my site easier to manage and update, but I have looked at afew PHP tutorials and don't really understand them. The idea of a database driven site seems fine in principle, but I am not sure how it could apply to my site, or if PHP sites can be made to look the way I want mine to look.

6-2-04, 06:00 PM	#2
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	Progress I have drafted a new look for the site and placed a preview of the homepage at http://www.butteredcat.com/2005%20si...rnateindex.htm It was written in starwriter (linux 'notepad' equivalent) and tweaked in Namo Web Editor 5. I have dispensed with javascript / DHTML menus and the page now displays much more quickly. One problem I have noticed is that in a standards compliant browser like Opera, the site appears just fine but in Internet Exploder 5 the layout does not display as intended. Don't you just love Micro$ith ? Comments would be appreciated and any advice on my previous comments about content management most welcome...

6-2-04, 08:48 PM	#4
boblob Posts: n/a	loadsslow i have cable and im wondering if your host is using dial up or perhaps tin cans with a string for there connection took almost 2 mins to load fully, i think you must haveimage mapped your links on top i think you need to do it again, i never looked further was so hot about load time,it did have a nice look to it though

6-3-04, 05:46 AM	#5
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	slow loading ? The site host ? Powweb of course... It seemed fine for download speed when I checked it, but if it is slow to others maybe one of the powweb staff could explain why.

6-4-04, 08:07 PM	#9
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	a problem... Thanks for the comments. I want to move away from using the old style drop down navigation bar I had on the old site for a couple of reasons - foremost of which was that the Javascript / DHTML behind them took a while to download and on some compuetrs looked "flaky" (On others it didn't and I never worked out why). It did however have one great advantage - almost every single page on the whole site could be accessed from just four javascript menu files. If I added or deleted a page from the site, I had only to make a change to four files and the link was added to or removed from every page in the site. The new site doesn't use Javascript / DHTML and so any link changes required to add or delete a page would have to be added to every page on site and there are already almost 450 pages. I don't fancy doing that ! Can anyone suggest a way of doing that ? Any comments about simple to use, inexpensive content management systems ? I would love to be able to keep the content separate from the formating and thus be able to alter the look of the site, and add / remove pages, without having to re-enter all the content and build all the links again.

6-2-04, 06:20 PM	#3
afamative Posts: n/a	Hunen, The new look is certainly better than the old website. The color combinations are ok and the site is easy to move around. Think this is more important than any other thing on a website.

6-4-04, 02:13 AM	#6
oatesj77 Shiznizal Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 672 Reputation: 33	loaded very quickly, and i liked the look a lot, but couldn't help compare it to macromedia's site, if only in the looks dept. otherwise it seems to run smooth. you may want to add some graphical elements to your section links ei.. "Expeditions and Travel - Fighting Fit" just to make them stand out more from the sea of copy they head.

6-4-04, 04:08 PM	#7
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	I've just slightly re-arranged the site to make it better at 800 x 600 resolution, sorted the logo and picture problem and tweaked a few other things. And yes, having just visited Macromedia's site, I can see the similarity ! I guess there are only has a limited number of really appealing colours that work, or have Macromedia really started from the same Namo Webeditor theme to do their site ? We may both have diverged from the original theme, but the resemblence is still noticeable.

6-4-04, 04:46 PM	#8
DobsonCentral Posts: n/a	I think it looks a world of a difference from your current theme. Very nice and easy to navigate. The colors aren't hard on the eyes like your current page. On a flat screen, the colors were too bright and was giving me a headache. Your navigation bar on your current site is kind of flaky in respect to where your mouse had to be in order to click on a link. I was going to recommend the Ultimate Dropdown menu from brothercake.com if you liked that type of navbar. The new navigation bar is much better. Nicely done. Ken

6-4-04, 09:44 PM	#10
oatesj77 Shiznizal Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 672 Reputation: 33	I'm not 100% but i think you could set something up with CSS, where you would set up a link definition in a CSS file and then only have one file to update. I don't use css that much, but i'm sure someone here will see this and set us straight.

6-5-04, 08:14 AM	#13
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	Those sound like some good suggestions. CMS = content management system. Simplifying greatly, a cms separates the content of a website from the technical aspects of presentation and everything else needed to make the site run. As I understand it, the content data are stored in a database and then called up and displayed as required. So far, all the cms systems I have looked at are intended for enterprise applications and have been extremly complex and / or very expensive. The PHP / MySQL approach seems far too complex for me - I have a very small brain and only just manage to get basic html pages up and running. The suggestion about putting the navigation in a separate file sounds good and appeals to me. I don't understand how to do it, but it sounds good. I guess I'll be doing an awful lot of Googling on the subject today. At the moment I have only created one page in the alternate look so now would be a good time to sort this issue out - if I can master the concept at this stage it should make things easier in the future. Maybe once I have this update sorted I should write an article for the tutorial sites detailing what was done, how and why. It would be a true Idiot's Guide. Last edited by hunen : 6-5-04 at 08:23 AM.

6-5-04, 04:03 PM	#15
oatesj77 Shiznizal Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Portland, OR Posts: 672 Reputation: 33	ahhhhh HA! played around with nuke (just didn't know what CMS stood for), but I like to do all original stuff layout colors etc. Didn't like the lack of control over my layout, plus most-not all-of the work I do is not content driven, though if you have 450+ pages it might work for you, but you would have to do a lot of work to get it all to up and running with nuke. I would still like to know where I could learn to load navigation from one file, I would think that would speed up loading time on html pages since one file is cached and loaded over and over again, right? If you do find any CMS systems that are fairly easy to use let me know, I built and manage a site with over 800 pages, and would be interested in a system that would allow me to update or hand off the update process without building html pages over & over again.

6-12-04, 07:56 AM	#16
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	Still trying I have looked at a few more CMS packages, but none of them met my needs - most being too expensive and too complex. City Desk did look interesting for a while but still proved a little too complex - at least for me ! They offer a trial version at http://www.fogcreek.com/CityDesk for anyone else that may be interested. I'm still trying to find out how to put my links in a CSS, again to no avail so far...

6-22-04, 04:58 AM	#17
hunen Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 73 Reputation: 5	no progress I have continued checking out CMS packages, but none seem to offer the right combination of ease of use, capability and low cost. Most, in fact, fall at the first hurdle - ease of use. I still haven't managed to find anywhere yet that can offer advice on how to put links in CSS either. Kicks Google, carries on searching

7-3-04, 06:33 PM	#19
afamative Posts: n/a	Hope I understand what you are looking for in css. www.lagosestores.com with over 9,000 files (80% of them webpages both static and dynamic) has all the pages text, links, maintained by just a single css file and this file is simply referenced on the headers of the static pages or the header section of dynamic pages. You may simply take a look at the source code of any of the pages on the site to see how the css file is referenced and where it is placed. Like I said earlier, I hope I understand correctly what you need to find out about using css. About CMS and reducing updates on your web pages have you considered using Microsoft frontage 2003? A dynamic template could help you maintain say the whole layout of your site with just a siingle template file. All the best.

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