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.

Week 009 - Short Update.

Hours: 2-3hrs

I missed last week's studio just coz things were just so crazy. :(
This week, Peter had to miss studio meeting because things were crazy for him! It's definitely a sure sign that things are heating up.

I spoke to Tom about the mockup - I think he quite liked it... Just a few minor things to fix and I'll have to email Peter about getting some seasons stuff up - Tom suggested getting the site up and working and worrying about the CSS at a later stage.

I spoke to Lindsay about a image database - and he said that was plausible, though I don't know what got into my head that it was hard to make an image database... I don't know how I'm going to pull it off, I don't even know if I have the time to stop and think about it and attempt to pull it off... I guess that'll be something I'll worry about at a later stage.

I'll have to email Naomie and start getting her to organise some content for us - I might send off the mockups to her and let her have a play with it - I think the navigation we'll still have to work on - coz I'm not entirely happy with the way that's working and I'm pretty sure that Peter had a different idea happening. But I'll send this off - along with a request for content and then everything should be happening.

I had a look the other week about CJB.NET - but am reluctant to sign anything up incase it has to be under a particular name, it should be named a particular way, etc etc. So I might figure out what information is needed and then sign up so we can see what happens when we upload - and that way, Naomie can keep an eye on the progress as it arrives...

Tom wants us to have a working site by Week 11, so we gotta get moving - but we're on the way. :)