Week 13 - One of the Last Updates.

Hours: 5-6+

Haven't had a chance with updating the diary what with end of semester and lots of things happening that unfortunately had to take priority because they were due first.

Typed up presentation notes and set up powerpoint last week.
Also looked up and jotted down notes for the plant database, ready to be added to the site.

I went back and removed all the links that Peter originally thought up and added a Success Story section.

The site now is finally up and running in it's final form - Peter ended up doing a flash intro thing to the site, which I'm not sure about but I really don't want to be fiddling too much more with the site - given the time and day.

I had gotten the divider images, the updated map - all this was added along with a new styling stuff (especially for the links - which I wasn't too happy with either and it now comes out underlined and the same yellow as the banner). I added all the plant database information I found and styled it.

Our design page is up - I also created an email address for us in hotmail: p2_designs

Peter also changed the colors of the banners to fit with the 4 seasons - but I'm not too happy with some of the colors, I think they're a bit too 'fierce' and a bit too 'harsh' and it needs to be toned down and made more "pastely".

I'm supposed to call VicNet which I will do after this presentation - but maybe even after exams.. or sometime during then.

I'm yet to do a user guide, which I'll have to think about a bit.

There are a few issues though:
The website goes a bit funny in Firefox. This has been somethign that has just recently cropped up. It only happens in the Plant Database so I don't know if maybe it's got something to do within Peter's coding - I am beginning to really loathe Dreamweaver (and Fireworks) the code is very messy and unreadable... but there was nothing I could see that really stood out to mess with it.

So am thinking that maybe it's a Firefox thing - I know it disables my styling so maybe something has bothered it about the menu - although it's strange that it's only that particular page... but no one else has said anything about it when I've sent the site off to be "tested".

What happens is that it scrolls the banner space - so it can disappear off into never-neverland.
Image as follows. :)

Week 11 - Hmm.

Hours: 1/2hr.

I have prepared myself for a good (at least ) 4 and a half hours work... but Naomie has only sent me a page.
Which is the heathlands section.
So I've added that.
I guess I'll go back and figure out the styling later and think about the menu system and whether I want to switch it over - at this stage maybe not, though later I might... just for curiosity sake - as you know previously, I have not been happy with fireworks.

She sent a map which looks similiar if not close to being the same as Peter's but I'll have a closer look at it and we'll decide.
Granted, she hasn't been able to have a look at it for some reason - so I'll have to figure out what the problem was - coz I can see it fine and I think that Peter can see it fine too... and Iv'e tested it on two other computers and it looks fine.

I'm wondering if it has to do with the active x control thing.
Though she should have turned it off for the menu system.

She says "Once, the box disappears as soon as my mouse goes that low (to click on Park Map) and it appears to have no link."

I can think of two reasons.
One/ Mac issues.
Two/ Active X, for sure?
I'll send her the direct link so she can at least have a look - but I didn't realise she couldn't see anything! She didn't say anything! :)

Anyway. I guess styling bits and pieces and thinking more about the menu system.

Week 11 - Content Uploaded.

Hours: 2-3.

The website is up and running on my ISP account. :) With a few little glitches - i.e. the bottom navigation is still giving me issues because of the divs.

Naomie seems to be quite happy with it - she has sent it off to Tony for feedback. I also recieved some content pages from her which I have put up.

Some short notes:
- might need to change menu titles.
- more distinct links maybe
- bigger text? (though I quite like it)
- formatting of text: may have too many underlines... might need to reformat once I have the final version.

I uploaded content for the links in
- your garden (change to your park?)
- home
- plan your next visit
- ecology (with a page on red gum woodlands)
- member

I think there will probably be a need to change the menu titles, as well as a shifting around of things... I have funny feeling that a lot of the menu links we have there will be useless and instead will be combined into one more coherent and comprehensive page.

I've also started making notes on useful tags and stuff in lieu of the User Guides.
Apart from that, things seem to be going swimmingly.

Break - I have learnt...

Hours: 30min-1

I have learnt so far:
- having worked on older software and often having handcoded with nothing more than notepad and netscape composer to get me the basics coz I'm too lazy, or dreamweaver to get me basic coordinates... MX really bothers me.

I saw how the code worked for menu navigation - I basically copied and pasted the exact syntax from the working one and it won't work.

I don't like how software and computer nowadays insist on doing things for you - when all you want is to be left alone in peace. :p

Break - Fireworks is the Bane of my life.

Hours: 4-5

This menu system is absolutely frustrating me up the wall.
I love it - it looks fabulous - but it's a pain to work with when you're in layers.

I stared a long time at the screen wondering what I did wrong - because I did everything that I was meant to.

I made the navigation into seperate html file - one for the bottom and one for the top. I tried cutting and pasting code in and it didn't work - so I did it the 'proper' way, by actually inserting it into the page through dreamweaver - which took an hour or so in itself because the help files are WRONG! And all their short cut keys and "wording" leads you to not where you are suppose to go but ELSEWHERE.

I was trying to modify the pop up menu and it said to hit shift f3 to get to the proper menu. ANd it didn't work. I hit it four times, gave up and went to the trustworthy internet and google:

http://www.gordondesigns.com/mm_menu/
He had similiar if not the same problem as me : which clued me to trying to make the divs around the navigation area bigger - that maybe that was what was hiding the menu and that it was actually there, we just couldn't see it... he had problems with his z-index etc.

PRESTO!
There it was!
In absolutely funny, off-the-wall places, but at least it's there!
(Now I'm having problems with the bottom menu. *sigh*)

How to make Pop-up Menus from Fireworks MX appear in a different frame
http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_16648
I also found this interesting read - I don't think I'll need it, but definitely will keep it in mind for if I do.

I am not going to worry about the nitty-gritty tidying up parts for now - I think I should get this site up and live and send it around and poke Naomie for content, coz she was suppose to have stuff to me by now! :p And see how it runs. :)

So off to make some mock pages and then having it live! :D

Break - Stupid Bloody Menu!

Hours: 2-3 hrs.

I don't know why it won't work!
I haven't not put in any code that I shouldn't - but it jsut won't work. I even did what Peter suggested - to take my code and put it into the firefox version.

GRRR.
It still doesn't work! It's all there - but for some reason, the browser is reading a script tag as words.... I've closed it properly and everything!

I trolled through the gobbledy gook!
I think I'll bring the new site (with the iframe) back into firefox and see why the menu system isn't happy with what I've done.

Naomie emailed back saying that she would try to have something mid-week, so here's hoping! I'll be putting the site up live somewhere on my ISP anyway and seeing how the load times go and for them to have a look at.

I think I might start cssing as well - it will be easy to do because of the change - that the text area always stays white: which means that all that ever changes is the index page... and possibly the home page - which will be fabulous! I'm chuffed about that coz I've been worrying and wondering how to make maintanence easy. :)

Week 010 - Website Progress.

Hours: 3hrs.

I spoke to Peter today - we had a good discussion about the website.

I've revamped the site now - fixed up the inside iframe borders so it lines up with the footer and header images. Also I've put a border around the site and changed the inside text area to be white - I don't know why I assumed that it was the same color as the background - I don't even know why I assumed the background was that color! :)

So that's all fixed. It's looking very nice and Tom was right about the impact. It actually to me makes things look very clean now with the border around it and the colors. :)

I think we'll be sticking with the iframe version of mine - Peter sent me the sliced up version and it's a lot of code to troll through and plus the firework files are named as gobbledy-gook, though maybe it can be changed to something more meaningful? I'll have to ask him.

We thought about making the site a bit bigger - so Peter will be working on bigger banners and hopefully emailing it to me by tonight.
I tried copying the menu from his site to mine but it didn't work... it probably doesn't recognize it. I'll have another play with it tomorrow and see if there's another equivalent - i.e. a html tag or something.

For now, I said to him that we'd get the Autumn version of the site up to scratch - the changing seasons are just a matter of changing the banner colors and the color scheme.

I emailed Naomie yesterday - so hopefully she'll be busy writing and gathering together content for us. I said to her that I'll be emailing her a mockup very soon - and I think I'll email her this mockup tomorrow (hopefully with the updated menu system) so she has a good idea how the site is turning out.

Peter came up with a good idea actually - to upload the site to our ISPs for now, so we can see it working - so I think I'll definitely do that, especially when content starts coming in.

Peter wants to make the menu black - but I had a look at the menu code and I think we can change it, I don't know if we can use CSS to manipulate it - but I really like the colors like that. And I want it to opacitate.