New Website

SiriusB · 24 Oct 2007 at 23:48

Hey guys.

The site has been delayed because for some reason I can't FTP into my hosting. I have contacted support to see if they have been mucking about. I should get an answer tomorrow.

Since there is a delay I have been wondering about a possible change to the guide's layout. At the moment it is split into about 4 pages. At least 2 pages are pretty big and are likely to get bigger as things get added. I was curious as to whether anyone would prefer it if I split up some of the pages a little more.

Two possible reasons I have found are

1: Less scrolling to find the bit you want on a page
2: Finer granularity. Links go to more specific topics rather than being presented with a huge page and saying "scroll down to xx". [See 1]. It is also more obvious what is on a page. The Ubuntu Installation page for example has stuff about graphics, resolution and sorting out repositories etc. You don't know that is there looking at the top of the page.

Thoughts?

theheyes · 25 Oct 2007 at 00:04

Less scrolling sounds good. You also might consider a printer friendly version.

SiriusB · 25 Oct 2007 at 00:07

I've already been thinking about printer-friendly versions and also a pdf version [that I will keep up to date

]

SiriusB · 26 Oct 2007 at 19:02

OK FTP to my webhost is working again [w00t] and I think the site is ready to go live. I just need to populate my DB and it should be good to go.

I am also about to go out so it could be fairly late before I can say for sure it is up and running. But thankfully the only thing I have to do is copy and paste some stuff and it should be done.

I will be expecting you people to try and break it

SiriusB · 30 Oct 2007 at 17:36

LET THE BREAKAGE COMMENCE!

http://smp.aeternum.co.uk

The Windows section hasn't been added yet [only just noticed

] but I will get it added this evening when I am back from work. I need to clean it up a little and make it easier to follow.

The static version of the site is at http://smp.aeternum.co.uk/previous/static/smp.xhtml if for any reason you are having trouble with the new site. [I don't intend to update this again so I suggest you only use it if the main site is simply not working.]

I have already started making a printer-friendly version of the page [basically a case of altering the CSS] and I have made a start on the comments feature.

Not sure how long it will take or how much use it will be, but I don't care

The site is my "learning" site.

A.N.Other · 30 Oct 2007 at 17:48

Looking good.

The links tab doesn't work from the main page, but I'm guessing you know about that?

uncle_fungus · 30 Oct 2007 at 18:09

*cough*

Code:

./configure
make
sudo make install

If you don't add that sudo you'll regret it

(Unless you're running as root of course :rolleyes:

)

SiriusB · 30 Oct 2007 at 23:37

Hmm, probably one of the many updates that have gotten lost between the two versions of the website. Once I have uploaded the admin part of my site I will add the sudo.

The Links link doesn't work because there is no links page

I will upload that with the admin pages.

I spent bloody ages on my admin pages as I changed my mind halfway through. Started out with having just one script handling it all, but I started getting lost and realising that I had both GET and POST methods I needed to capture and argh it all went to pot before I got anywhere near done. Started it from scratch yesterday morning and spent almost 12 hours straight programming it, all in separate pages. They're working like a charm. Shame you lot will never get the pleasure of using it

However, my hard work will pay off when some of my code makes its way into the comments feature

uncle_fungus · 30 Oct 2007 at 23:57

SiriusB said:
I spent bloody ages on my admin pages as I changed my mind halfway through. Started out with having just one script handling it all, but I started getting lost and realising that I had both GET and POST methods I needed to capture and argh it all went to pot before I got anywhere near done. Started it from scratch yesterday morning and spent almost 12 hours straight programming it, all in separate pages. They're working like a charm. Shame you lot will never get the pleasure of using it

Sounds like the initial mess I made of the fahinfo.org admin scripts

SiriusB · 31 Oct 2007 at 00:12

If I had thought it out a little more I probably could have made one big unified Admin script. However I am new to PHP and although I am not new to programming PHP is nowt like C# or Java. Trying to write OO code in PHP is bloody annoying. It can do OO, but its different to say C#. Basically it is too forgiving

The worst part is that although my scripts work great, I can't help but feel the code could be better [or rather better structured].

theheyes · 31 Oct 2007 at 07:28

It can never be too forgiving!

SiriusB · 7 Nov 2007 at 20:03

Could someone test my website in IE6 please. I have added content negotiation so people who have a proper browser gets XHTML while pretend browsers get HTML.

Not actually tested in IE

shadowscotland · 7 Nov 2007 at 20:57

if the link is still the one on the first post - it looks fine, much less scrolling :cool:

but the puss yellow/greeish colour boxes is grim

also a lot of the links don't work:

(p1) winSMP link (in title page text) not active

(p2) ubuntu download page links to home page - address bar reads
http://smp.aeternum.co.uk/guide/"http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download"

(p4) vmware links to home page - address bar reads
http://smp.aeternum.co.uk/guide/"http://www.vmware.com/download/server"

(p5) contact form links to home page - address bar reads
http://smp.aeternum.co.uk/guide/"contact.php"

(p6) stanfords FAQ links to home page - address bar reads
http://smp.aeternum.co.uk/guide/"contact.php"

the fahmon link (p7) is also not working - address bar reads
http://smp.aeternum.co.uk/guide/"http://fahmon.net/"

on the links page the the fahmon link is still silent-blade (but you do get redirected)

- you asked

, but nice work SB - really impressed. Now if you want we to test it word for word

dunc · 7 Nov 2007 at 23:46

There is always one who take it literally isn't there

Nice one SS, keep Mr SirusB on his toes

Kool site tho.

Dunc

SiriusB · 8 Nov 2007 at 00:31

Not overly happy with the text boxes myself. Will amend the colour tomorrow.

Will also fix the errors. So much stuff you miss when you basically recode a website. Thanks for taking the time to find all the errors, makes it much easier for me to fix

SiriusB · 8 Nov 2007 at 01:51

UPDATE:

OK, fixed all the errors apart from the first and last. Those I will sort out in the morning/afternoon tomorrow. I will also add the Windows section back in. Tis finished, just didn't get around to uploading the info.

shadowscotland · 8 Nov 2007 at 09:55

I'll have another run through tonight to make sure all is well - speedy update SB, good to see you on the ball - how many hits are you getting now?

SiriusB · 8 Nov 2007 at 11:59

Not as many as I'd like

Since the site went up I have had 550 hits, more or less. Probably more as I managed to forget to include the code that updates Google Analytics, so I have lost about a weeks worth of data

So it is probably closer to 600+

That's 250-300 hits a month. Not too bad considering the rather specialist nature of SMP Folding Clients

My SEO has probably been harmed by the change in pretty much all my links. Hopefully it will sort itself out.

EDIT: Once I have added the Windows section back in I would appreciate anyone adn everyone testing the whole site and look for issues - just like shadow

The reason I ask is I plan to give the guide site a rest for a little while. I have 2 other projects I want to tackle - one of which is folding related

I wont let anything bad happen to the site and will keep it up to date as much as I can, so I will still appreciate comments and additions in here or via the contact form. I just wont be adding any of the new features just yet. There is only so much you can take of looking at the same website