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#1 2008-01-19 00:16:51

kvnmcwebn
Member
From: Ireland
Registered: 2007-01-27
Posts: 724
Website

basic 3 column site

hi,
finally just about done with this site thanks to those here that helped.
be brutal. if anyone has any suggestions im all ears.
there are about 20 pages, one for each section. for my next site id like to use less pages although at this point i didnt see a way around it as there are different headers on each page.

http://www.jfl.ie/

Last edited by kvnmcwebn (2008-01-19 00:18:49)


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#2 2008-01-19 00:57:10

els
Moderator
From: The Netherlands
Registered: 2004-06-06
Posts: 7,458

Re: basic 3 column site

Just a couple of things I noticed:
Section names (in URLs) are sometimes capitalized and sometimes not.
‘Meet the Team’ in the right column goes to a section page (displaying one article). ‘The JFL Team’ in the left column links to that same, individual, article. It would be better if that one went to the section page as well. Also you’d better set ‘Automatically append comments to articles’ to ‘no’ (in preferences), to prevent ‘Commenting is closed for this article’ showing up on individual article pages, as it does now in the left column.

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#3 2008-01-19 01:08:18

jm
Plugin Author
From: Missoula, MT
Registered: 2005-11-27
Posts: 1,746
Website

Re: basic 3 column site

Have you checked the site in Safari 3?

Personally, I don’t like URLs with id’s like /Pensions/2/pensions-retirement-planning, since the 2 means nothing. I’m also a fan of all lowercase like /pensions/pensions-retirement-planning for consistency. Plus, Pensions != pensions on Unix servers.

For page templates, I generally use four templates:

  • default – home page, search, categories
  • article – index and single article pages (generic)
  • nonstd – pages with well, non-standard, content like user input forms.
  • error_default – errors of course!

In almost all of the pages, I use if_section conditionals to reuse templates. I also use if_section in my forms. Most of header forms have if_section to output X in a certain section or category.

Last edited by jm (2008-01-19 01:14:02)

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#4 2008-01-19 07:31:42

colak
Admin
From: Cyprus
Registered: 2004-11-20
Posts: 9,090
Website GitHub Mastodon Twitter

Re: basic 3 column site

jm wrote:

Personally, I don’t like URLs with id’s like /Pensions/2/pensions-retirement-planning, since the 2 means nothing. I’m also a fan of all lowercase like /pensions/pensions-retirement-planning for consistency. Plus, Pensions != pensions on Unix servers.

I can understand why this url scheme is handy though as:

  • it is error proof for clients as there is one less thing to know/mess up when they are creating new articles.
  • there is one less thing to remember on large sites with a lot of posts

By the way the site looks fine on ff mac but looks similar to jm’s screenshot on Safari 1.3


Yiannis
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#5 2008-01-19 11:41:14

kvnmcwebn
Member
From: Ireland
Registered: 2007-01-27
Posts: 724
Website

Re: basic 3 column site

hi guys,
I was aware of the safari problem and have been looking for a way to fix it. im using the htc png fix which safari doesnt seem to like. i will try and find a conditional comment or something to serve safari a regular png. or maybe im just making a mistake with it.
ill make the other changes as suggested, thanks for the looking at the details els.
thanks a mill.

Last edited by kvnmcwebn (2008-01-19 11:53:18)


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#6 2008-01-19 11:44:39

kvnmcwebn
Member
From: Ireland
Registered: 2007-01-27
Posts: 724
Website

Re: basic 3 column site

jm
thanks for the tip on using if_section. thats what i was looking for.


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#7 2008-01-19 12:13:58

jakob
Admin
From: Germany
Registered: 2005-01-20
Posts: 4,726
Website

Re: basic 3 column site

If the header is article-dependent, you could always put the path or name of the header flash swf in a custom field in the respective article, then output it via txp:article to your page template. If I’m not mistaken, you can use txp:article twice over in a page template with different forms, e.g. once for the header, then again lower down in your template for the content. That way you’d not even need separate sections and hard-coded if_section statements.
If your header was just a background image, you could also do it with css by giving the body tag an article-specific id and then use #article-id #headerimg { background image: url(...); }

safari and pngs: htc is IE only, but safari supports pngs of all kinds anyway. The answer may be simpler: the line with the image opens with <h2 class="logo">... but closes incorrectly with </h1>. Try validating your code too as there are some other anomalies in there too. Maybe that solves the image not showing straight away. You might want to serve safari a slightly large text-size for the contact infos too, though.

Last edited by jakob (2008-01-19 12:14:46)


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#8 2008-01-19 16:32:19

colak
Admin
From: Cyprus
Registered: 2004-11-20
Posts: 9,090
Website GitHub Mastodon Twitter

Re: basic 3 column site

kvnmcwebn wrote:

hi guys,
I was aware of the safari problem and have been looking for a way to fix it. im using the htc png fix which safari doesnt seem to like. i will try and find a conditional comment or something to serve safari a regular png. or maybe im just making a mistake with it.
ill make the other changes as suggested, thanks for the looking at the details els.
thanks a mill.

I would think that as it is not safari you have to find a conditional for but use one for explorer:)


Yiannis
——————————
NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.

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#9 2008-01-19 18:09:09

kvnmcwebn
Member
From: Ireland
Registered: 2007-01-27
Posts: 724
Website

Re: basic 3 column site

jakob wrote
>>The answer may be simpler: the line with the image opens with <h2 class=“logo”>… but closes incorrectly with </h1>.

doh.. that fixed the missing ping and the font size problem….. sorry i should have validated the code before i posted the site check….

thanks for the advice on the custom fields…. i will study that..
sometimes i do different body id’s for navigation states but i never thought to use it for a header image.

Last edited by kvnmcwebn (2008-01-19 18:13:20)


its a bad hen that wont scratch itself.
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