GeodSoft.com Tools and Mechanics
Though I had some general notions, I did not know exactly
where I was going with either the design or all the site
organization. For the organization, too much of the content
is open ended. Where it looked like and area would only
be one page, that would go in the root directory. As soon
as it was apparent there would be multiple related pages,
they would be made into a new directory.
On the design, I roughed out several pages, using dummy
text originally. Initially there were only a few pages
and each change I made would be moved to all pages using
the text editor, TextPad. For a form or to work out was
happening to a table when something wasn't right and it
was not obvious what the problem was,
I would open the page in Dreamweaver
to see what it showed me about the page structure. Both
TextPad and Dreamweaver detect changes to a file they
have open by outside sources making it very easy to work
in both products at the same time. When I saved changes
in one product, I would simply accept the default and
have the new page loaded into the other development tool.
For each feature, I would make changes as they seemed
appropriate to the page I was working on. As the number
of pages grew, I would only put the new changes into
other pages in the same area. For example, I made
many minor adjustments to the Search form and the Site
Map. I limited these changes to the Home Page and the
About Us section.
I had considered doing a script early that would standardize
pages and automatically change standard page elements as the
site evolved. I decided that it would
be too confining to do such a script early as I am still
not sure what will be standard throughout the site and what
will vary from area to area or page to page.
If a script were done too early, the changes that
I made would tend to be limited to those that are easy
to program. I decided to keep the updating
manual and free until I was quite confidant of the whole site
design. For example, if I scripted the standardization up front,
I would probably have made all the links in the part
of the site map that represented the current area a different
color than the others. From then on, that's how the site would work;
once the script was written there would be a strong inclination
to work within the confines of what the script could do.
By keeping the design manual in the earl stages, I remain
free to experiment with different ideas. If they
work then I will leave them and try with them for a
while. For example, on the site map, I'm experimenting with
having the main page for each area, plus the page that you
are on highlighted with a different color. If I decide that's
what I want then it will be reasonably straight forward to
write a script to accomplish this. If it's not easy at least
I will know what I'm working towards without compromises.
If instead I wrote the script first, then it would be very
hard not to compromise on what's easy to program rather than
doing everything possible to make the site as good as
possible.
Top of Page -
Site Map
Copyright © 2000 - 2014 by George Shaffer. This material may be
distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in
http://GeodSoft.com/terms.htm
(or http://GeodSoft.com/cgi-bin/terms.pl).
These terms are subject to change. Distribution is subject to
the current terms, or at the choice of the distributor, those
in an earlier, digitally signed electronic copy of
http://GeodSoft.com/terms.htm (or cgi-bin/terms.pl) from the
time of the distribution. Distribution of substantively modified
versions of GeodSoft content is prohibited without the explicit written
permission of George Shaffer. Distribution of the work or derivatives
of the work, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes is prohibited
unless prior written permission is obtained from George Shaffer.
Distribution in accordance with these terms, for unrestricted and
uncompensated public access, non profit, or internal company use is
allowed.
|