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#1 2013-02-04 13:38:48

carlahearne
Member
From: Milton Keynes, UK
Registered: 2011-11-13
Posts: 29
Website

XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

This is one of my first Textpattern powered sites that I’ve actually shown to anyone.. It’s about 80% complete; I still have a lot of styling to do on the forms and a few other areas but it’s getting there..

The website is at www.xtremehire.co.uk

The website is for a company who hire out GoPro cameras to people who don’t want to buy one. It’s a simple site really, but even simple things like not having to reproduce the navigation and other repeated content for each page was a huge timesaver and a reason I went with Textpattern.

I’ve used a few plugins on the site; mainly Zem_Contact_reborn but I’ve also incorporated a version of simplecart.js to power the enquiry system. The site is responsive and built around the Amazium framework.

Any comments or ideas for improvement greatly welcomed.

Thanks for taking the time to have a look.

Carl Ahearne

Update: 13/03/13

I’ve added a few little bits since the last time I posted. I’ve managed to integrate simplecart.js a little better and I’ve made use of reveal to deal with modal windows on the hire page. I hope this new layout will help the customer journey and make it as seemless and simple as possible.

One plugin I’ve made extensive use of is the glz_custom_fields plugin, which is responsible for displaying all of my product information, prices etc. The custom fields automatically populate the prices table and the ‘add to cart buttons’, so as soon as I add a product to the backend, the front-end is taken care of with no extra coding at all.

Last edited by carlahearne (2013-03-12 15:47:42)

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#2 2013-02-04 14:22:31

Dragondz
Moderator
From: Algérie
Registered: 2005-06-12
Posts: 1,529
Website GitHub Twitter

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

I really like his simplicity, good work.

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#3 2013-02-04 14:24:16

carlahearne
Member
From: Milton Keynes, UK
Registered: 2011-11-13
Posts: 29
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

Thanks Dragondz, I wanted to keep the visually quite simple and easy to use. After all, I want the user to be able to hire a GoPro in as few steps as possible, but also have all the information they need to be well informed…

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#4 2013-02-26 15:59:50

maratnugmanov
Member
From: Russia / Kazakhstan
Registered: 2013-02-24
Posts: 54
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

I like it, carlahearne. But in my opinion you should get rid of “title” attribute on slider’s images – it pops out on mouse hover and doubles the caption information for no useful reason – at least I cannot see one.

Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-26 16:00:44)

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#5 2013-02-26 16:08:19

carlahearne
Member
From: Milton Keynes, UK
Registered: 2011-11-13
Posts: 29
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

maratnugmanov, I hadn’t really noticed that.. Good point, I think I’ll look at removing the title attribute depending on whether or not it will hurt SEO. Saying that, I’m not really wanting people to be searching for images so I guess the title isn’t that important for SEO purposes…

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#6 2013-02-26 16:11:54

maratnugmanov
Member
From: Russia / Kazakhstan
Registered: 2013-02-24
Posts: 54
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

carlahearne what a css file! So clean and simple! Did you’ve used any template? Really clean CSS to me. I want to steal that structure :D . Every time i’m trying to find a good css template the search gives me themes. All I need is good grouping of common items like in your sheet.

And it would be cool (not too important, but im using it sometimes) to support facebook’s feature (vk.com also eats this) in which you can specify excerpt and image for page. It appears when you pasting URL into Facebook’s message on your wall. Forgot its name – anyway it looks like one of meta tags.

One more note – labels and connesponding inputs are messed a bit (using Chrome last stable). Clicking on “Phone” label takes you to input that is 1 line lower. It’s not about functioning (it looks the code is fine), it’s about usability. Before you actually click on label, you will be confused – which one is which. How about “label {display: block}” and deleting <br/>?1

And one more thing again :D
I’m a textpattern newbie, I don’t know this stuff and how it behaves in details – keep that in mind. Here’s an URL to the cameras – http://www.xtremehire.co.uk/ category /cameras/ . Can it be http://www.xtremehire.co.uk/ equipment /cameras/ ? It is also more SEO friendly AFAIK – it contains more or less relative keyword equipment.

1 Not tested (and testing footnotes behavior)

Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-26 17:32:58)

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#7 2013-02-27 09:19:22

carlahearne
Member
From: Milton Keynes, UK
Registered: 2011-11-13
Posts: 29
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

maratnugmanov, I’m using a modified version of Amazium which is a responsive framework that I’ve customised a bit over the last few months.

The Facebook feature you’re talking about id Open Graph tags which I use on my sites. @philwareham posted some tips on how to generate these dynamically based on the content of the page. I’ve not implemeted it yet but I intend to at some point soon..

I’m aware of the contact form; I’m using Zem_Contact_reborn to generate that form and I’ve not got around to styling it yet but it will get done soon.

The last thing I think can be solved with another plugin which can re-write URL’s but I’ve not got my head around it yet. There is another thread here http://forum.textpattern.com/viewtopic.php?id=39408 that has a nice site and they have nice URL’s so Ive asked over there..

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#8 2013-06-11 14:15:20

carlahearne
Member
From: Milton Keynes, UK
Registered: 2011-11-13
Posts: 29
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

Update to the site…

Since the last post, I’ve moved over to Bootstrap (A few pages yet to move, but almost there..) I’ve incorporated the Dynamic Open Graph Tags which populate depending on the content of the page; it works pretty well so thanks to @philwareham for the pointers on that one…

Other updates include the Twitter feed in the footer and a few small updates to the graphics and general layout of the page…

One area that I need to look at is form validation on the enquiry page; it’s a bit of a tangle as the page is getting values from simplecart.js as well as user defined fields from the form which is being passed to a php page. I’ve tried a few different js approaches but they all get a bit complex because the simplecart.js and my lack of js knowledge.. Other than that, I’m happy with the way it’s going..

Carl

Go have a look Xtremehire.co.uk

Last edited by carlahearne (2013-06-11 14:16:29)

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#9 2013-07-26 01:42:09

Keepital
Member
Registered: 2013-07-11
Posts: 13

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

Can you post specifics for how you got your Follow Us block? I LOVE the way it looks with the icons all in straight-little rows, and the giant letters spelling out Follow Me above the icons. I am just beginning to delve into understanding what/which plugins I need to use to be able to do that to my site. I am afraid to try any of them, as I’ve never used a plug-in before, and there doesn’t seem to be support for very many of them out there. Your site is recent, and I enjoy the simplicity of the way your Follow Us block looks, so if you could post specifics I could maybe work from there>?

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#10 2013-07-26 06:23:17

Gocom
Developer Emeritus
From: Helsinki, Finland
Registered: 2006-07-14
Posts: 4,533
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

Keepital wrote:

which plugins I need to use to be able to do that to my site.

You don’t need a plugin to be able to do that. On the site Carlahearne’s made, those are simply hyperlinks, wrapping an image – basic, normal HTML.

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#11 2013-07-26 07:35:51

philwareham
Core designer
From: Haslemere, Surrey, UK
Registered: 2009-06-11
Posts: 3,564
Website GitHub Mastodon

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

That’s true for any social media stuff. Don’t use plugins for that, seriously there is no need – the APIs provided by Facebook, Twitter etc. change constantly and will break those plugins – you either then have to wait for an author to update the plugin or, if the plugin is unsupported, find an alternative. Stick to their official code for implementing.

Saying that, I do use arc_twitter occasionally, although that’s just in admin-side to allow authors to auto-tweet new articles.

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#12 2013-07-29 07:18:09

carlahearne
Member
From: Milton Keynes, UK
Registered: 2011-11-13
Posts: 29
Website

Re: XtremeHire - GoPro Hire Website

As Gocom said, There are no plugins for that part of the site; just plain old links with images. Just as Phil does, I use arc_twitter on the site and I also use the code from Facebook and Google+ using their code generators.

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