Mate from graphic forums needed some help with implementation of xhtml/css on something he’s been working on. Looks simple enough, so I thought I’d go for it. 25minutes later, and presto:
the solution to the problem.
So, in relation to the questions:
I want the lemur graphic to stay positioned in the top left, and I want all of the buttons to stay positioned in the top right. Then I want the “LyricLemur” text to be positioned in the center of all that…
How would I go about doing that? I’ve read about CSS, and I understand it, but I’m bad at figuring out what to use to do what…
Also, is it possible to make those buttons out of CSS, rather than using graphics for the borders, etc.?
Yes it is completely possible.
Right. I’ve decided to get serious about this rants page… It will shortly be upgraded to textpattern (a brilliant little CMS I stumbled upon recently). Well, just as soon as I work out a brilliant method to upload and organise images with. This may well see me write out a completely new plugin for the little program based upon my current site (but with a bit better management… and this one might actually see the light of day).
On the issue of the site - it needs a redesign. I’m not totally sure what I want, but I want it to be a little more fun and alot more user friendly. Possibly liquid design like the old kvack.inc site, but no tables. That’s a prerequisite. XHTML1.1, CSS/DIV layout over tables and a kick arse gallery. At the same time, I’ll be kick starting either joel-courtney.id.au or jc.id.au (if available) as my photography site. Since I’ve horded a mass of photos over the past three years shooting, and with a 20D soon to be added to the stable of cameras, I’ll be needing a location to display the ‘good shots’ as opposed to the messy gallery structure I currently have. Again, I’ve got no idea what I’m going to be doing there.
In terms of blog layout, I need to have a location within to put the random sites I stumble across that I think are interesting or provide some insight into the world (be it engineering, web design, politics, photography or the price of fish in mongolia).
At the moment I have work piling up around me. While I’ve nocked down two of three seminar talks I’ve had to give for my courses, I still have a few reports to write up, as shown by the following ‘to-do’ list:
* ELEC9213 Report - Renewable Energy: Obstacles to Implementation in a National Energy Market
* ELEC9213 Assignment 3
* ELEC9214 Seminar - Distributed Temperature Sensing using Raman anti-Stokes based Optical Time Domain Reflectometry
* ELEC9214 Report on the same
* ELEC9240 Postgraduate Assignment - Three Phase Sinewave Pulse Modulated Inverter
* and finally, there *may* be yet another ELEC9240 Assignment (#3 for the course, excluding the postgraduate one)
I’ve also been doing a bit of web development at uni, in addition to the random goings on that have been occuring for friends. The Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering is being given a small facelift on the front, and an overhall at the back. I hope to have the CPVE website running on Textpattern soon, with the changeover period set for the Winter break from uni. The main problems faced are taking an existing (and woefully coded) website and bringing in web standards (X/HTML, CSS and WAI) to minimise potential legal action against the Centre over accessibility issues. So far the only *real* problem has been from Internet Explorer, though these have been minimal (experience helps when it comes down to designing sites to work in IE that are alse accessible and semantic).
Another job that I have picked up at the University is work for the Faculty of Science doing menial tasks of content management. For some odd reason the ‘people on the hill’ (also known as the uni’s manageement) thought it would be a good idea to contract a company (Interwoven) to create web-based software to handle the management of the content. This seems all good and well, and they have a slick ‘How To Use MyCMS’ manual, but its once you have to use it that you realise how absolutely appalling built the thing is. There’s no logic in how the systems work, and whoever was responsible for creating the output needs to be shot (not sure if that is UNSW, Faculty of Science or Interwoven) as it’s woeful (second time for the use of that word).
Sally Dominguez
Privately I’ve been working on a few small sites. One is a spin off to a site I worked on earlier this year for the Architect/Industrial Designer Sally Dominguez. Originally I was commissioned to design a web site for the HOG Works products ‘Waterhog’ (later expanded to include ‘Groundhog’). The specifications for the site were simple:
* targeted at builders/renovators/architects, the site must have minimal navigation complexity
* fast loading (ie minimal size)
* accessible (to prevent potential legal action over access)
Whilst it’s nothing groundbreaking in terms of looks (and please note that the footer change has not been completed pending a decision on how it should look from the client after the registration of the design and product name), it was exactly what they were after, especially with the recent conversion to Textpatten CMS. Sally approached me about a month ago when I was knocked about by what the doctors suspected was a gut infection and asked for a personal site. I immediately had this awesome idea of cards on a wooden floor. Sounds great - only thing is that due to Internet Explorer’s less than adequate implementation of the PNG format (that is, completely ommitted by the idiotic programmers on the IE team, but loved by their IEmac/Office/macOffice/MSN/OS teams) it took a couple of days of intermittent searching to find a solution that works to some degree. The aim of the site is to have it implemented in textpattern, with some work still to be done on the ‘About Sally’ and ‘Sally’s Work’ cards. There is also an option for future implentation of a blog section for her. Also, since the cards can be moved I want to add a ‘jumble’ and ‘reorder’ feature through a pull down tab in the top left - just for fun.
