I've just tried Terry's test pages in IE8 and confirm that it does not work -- the links box does not float down the page.

I wonder if IE8 has some security feature that is preventing it. I have seen this floating action use for advertisements that follow me down the page and it's *very* annoying. If so, I'm kinda glad it doesn't work

Maybe someone can do a quick test in IE7/IE6 to see what happens there....

Bruce,

It still doesn’t work in IE7 (I have that on another machine here). I think the problem is that in the code, the javascript method of window.innerwidth is used, which apparently works in all browsers except Internet Explorer.

Anyway, I have fiddled around with another script to adapt it with SS, and it seems to work in all browsers (at least for me). It is a much less complicated script, but needed a lot of changes to make it compatible, both with all browsers and SiteSpinner.

You can check it out here here

Terry

Hi Terry and Bruceee,

Oops sorry, but I'm having a good chuckle right now, I have internet explorer, and the first example doesn't work here either, the second one does though, thanks guys, it's good to know that there's some of the best brains in the world available right here on the VM forums. Thank you for trying, perhaps I'll have to get some feedback from the rest of the worldwide team on the forum, and see what everyone thinks about it, I want something that will work and please everybody, if not then I'll have to come up with another solution.

I really do appreciate your efforts, thank you so very much.

With much gratitude, my thanks,

Michael

Pakedisa,

Sorry for the late entrance into this discussion.

My suggestion for the hotel site is first to pull your info together... you are are using an incredible amount of negative space to no effect whatsoever here.

That said I won't be the one to say ditch the IFrames... I use them frequently and often as I feel they are over all still the easiest and less "gimicky" way to keep header and footer info in view and cut down on scrolling over all by lending themselvees to tight, coherent design.

On your accommodations page why not just use mouseovers rather than forcing the full image on your viewer.

An example can be seen in any one of the galleries here on one of my clients sites.

Leiolani Photography

Simple, clean functionality in a nice, tight no scroll (depending on browser settings) design.

A couple of nitpicky things.. make use of your "Page Title" & "Descripitions" input in the "Title, Meta" section of the Edit Page Properties. Even something as simple as that will help add professional touches to your page.

As far as the Richmond site goes...overall I think simple font type and size change, coupled with some creative layout could really cancel out the need for the IFrames over all. Again the same issue with "negative" or white space here.

Practice makes perfect.. keep at it!

Hello Whytchcat,
Thank you for your input, I am busy re-doing the hotel site, will have it up over the weekend, all your points noted and some of Roma's too.

As far as the Richmond site goes... the client specified font type and size, personally I stick to Arial 10 on almost everything (I am still trying to convince them to change)I took over the site from another web-designer, and I am trying to change a lot of things slowly, the marketing dept. is rather "Nitpicky" over what they want, which is a bit of an issue, but give me some time and we'll try to get all your suggestions in place, thanks for the input. while I'm here, is there a way to disable right click (copy & print) on an object in SS?
Michael

LOL.. Yes there is a way to do that (wow my first ever request for advice!)

You can enter this piece of code into the "Header" section of the Page Properties page.

<script language=JavaScript>
<!--

var message="All materials property of YOUR CLIENT HERE";

///////////////////////////////////
function clickIE4(){
if (event.button==2){
alert(message);
return false;
}
}

function clickNS4(e){
if (document.layers||document.getElementById&&!document.all){
if (e.which==2||e.which==3){
alert(message);
return false;
}
}
}

if (document.layers){
document.captureEvents(Event.MOUSEDOWN);
document.onmousedown=clickNS4;
}
else if (document.all&&!document.getElementById){
document.onmousedown=clickIE4;
}

document.oncontextmenu=new Function("alert(message);return false")

// --> 
</script>
 

Change the var message to read whatever you like.

An example in action here: [URL=Yet another photographer's gallery...]http://iraeichner.com/comgal1.htm[/URL]

Remember you can with a single click apply that to all pages or merely the one you are editing currently.

Hello Cassandra?
(Sorry not sure what your actual name is? or do I just use Whytchcat?) Just a big thank you the code works like a bomb, does make me feel a little more secure about my work, I placed it here Pakedi SA Announcements and also on the Richmond Web-site Still have lots of changes to make, but the winter flu has got me solidly, so not really getting much done. But will try to effect all improvements to sites asap.
Many thank,
Michael

Hi Pakedisa. As a newbie please forgive my blundering insensitivity. I have looked at the Richmond Web-site and asked, what is the underlying message you want to leave with visitors to meet their wants or is this really something to satisfy local stakeholders? Klimp has given some great advice (I think) on organising a lot of information you are trying to manage. As a fellow "southerner" but residing in Australia the images of Richmond feel familiar to townships in central Australia where you can: Experience the tradition of the outback; have great tucker in the local watering holes; find friendly locals to welcome you; exceed your expectations in traditional settler (with mod cons) rest overs; and transport yourself back in time into another - dreamtime- realm by buying tickets to a local corroboree /buying paintings in the local art galleries etc. All this falls within being (and experiencing) what it is to be an Australian, and as a non Australian you have shared in a personal and special privalage. Bit lengthy but I hope this helps. By the way I agree its getting really cold south of the equator. With our winter coming on I'll have to break out the woollies, all of 23C (74F) Brrrr. Byways

Hi Michael,
The Richmond site menu is a great improvement. Keep up the good work. I wouldn't use the 'Use Visible Control' parameter for your I-Frames as, in my opinion, it gives a restrained and cramped feeling. Try also to keep the I-frames in the same position on all pages in order to avoid 'jumping' effect. Get well soon

Hello Roma and Byways,
This flu is awful, feels like i've been through a meat grinder, I'm not going to be doing muck work for a few days going to bed, but just thought I'd say thank you for your positive feedback. I'm trying to convince the marketing person of the Publicity Association (It's them I've done the site for) to change font to arial and smaller size. I did try to reduce pics this morning into thumbnails that open into a larger size, but it doesn't work well in an I-frame, (must admit I also wasn't up to struggling with the problem either)In total (including the I-frames) it's 65 pages, so it was quite a challenge to work on, and I really want to get this site into tip top shape, there's still a lot of work to be done on it, although the guesthouses have reported an 80% increase in turnover since I put the new site up, and one of those amazing things happened, it suddenly jumped to a google page rank of three, and my site that's been 0 for 2 years suddenly jumped to 1, so I really do want this site to be as close to perfecvt as can be. All suggestions are most welcome, I am trying to get rid of the I-frames altogether, still a bit worrying about the page links though, as they then end up at the top of the page on scroll down.

If I think of one page in particular where I was forced to change the I-frame it was the other sideIt's actually a page direct to another photographer who doesn't live in Richmond but took the pics, it took me quite a while to figure out how to insert another web-site into the page, but I managed, only thing was that I was forced to change the size of the I-frame I would probably have to keep this as an I-frame? suggestions?

As to the "Use visible control" for I-frames, I was under the impression that they wouldn't be scrollable if I didn't use the parameter, so I'd happily not use it if the page remains scrollable?

Roma, while we're on menu's I don't know if you saw my menu on my site Pakedi South Africa but I found a horizontal drop down menu on Coffee cup that moves down the page as you scroll, I really like the use of it, as it stays at the top of the page, but gives the option to select another page without having to scroll back to the top. Honest opinion, would it work for the Richmond site if I removed the I-frames?

Byways, 23 celsius and you saying Brrrrr, it's 0 celsius here right now and was highest 5 today, Me thinks I'm at the South Pole, and we haven't even hit the lowest temp here yet, even though we are in The Karoo (Equivalent to the Australian Outback) we are the highest lying village, hence the extreme temp. OK, the web-site is for the publicity association, to encourage visitors to come to the town, which over the last 2 months, since my version of this site has been up, has seen an 80% increase in visitors, all coming off the web-site. All all of the venues etc. contribute a small portion towards the site, the aim is to advertise venues, and to advertise the village as a book town, while also trying to do something to alleviate some of the terrible poverty in this town, (Unemployment 80%+) It's the reason I came here, to set up skills development projects, although I haven't raised a cent from the corporate sector yet. Fortunately my photography has taken off, and I've managed to sell a few pieces as well as get some major commissions, so I am funding the projects out of my own pocket, and will be starting two projects at the end of the month (Was going to start next week, but waiting for equipment deliviries, and of course this winter flu to take a hike)

Any and all suggestions on making this a great site are most welcome.

Thank you all, for your wonderful support, this is still the best forum on the World Wide Web.

Michael

Ooops!

sorry "muck" is supposed to be much....
please forgive all other typo's
Sorry

I am in awe of what you are doing, pakadisa. Regional development is a huge challenge, and trying to strike the balance between informing, selling, and personalising the message while wrestling with the technical aspects.... My comments should only be seen as offering a personal check for you on that balance and consider if something is useful to explore with your client, and not implied criticism. The temperature here is coastal Brisbane and not "continental" inland so was tongue in cheek. One August I left at 4am with temps at 16C for a meeting in a small timber town the other side of the d'angular range. The grass there was white and crackling and a good 4 degrees below zero Celsius. Take care, hope you have a speedy recovery. Byways

The thumbnails with I-frames shouldn't give you tons of pages.

And actually, if you are using I-Frames with your menu you don't really need multiple main pages, which it looks like you currently set up with your new (and SO much improved!!) menu.

If you are using iFrames you can set your menu so it doesn't take you to a new page everytime you select a menu item. The beauty of iframes is that you don't have your main, static info reloading each time you change a page.

Using the "Pictures of Richmond" page as an example (if you do this with all your pages, you will have one index page which holds your menu, your Iframe and any decorative items like your scrolling text, the pic under the menu and your footer info. All the rest will have their indivdual page which displays in the Iframe) your link to that page for your menu button would have an added bit if code. In the "code" section of the link page you would add the following:

target="youriframesname"

youriframesname=name of the item SS gave to your Iframe place holder. It is in the upper left hand corner of the of "edit foreign object" menu. If you haven't named it something different it will start with "geo"

That little bit of code will tell the browser to open your link into the iframe, and as such you can put ALL the content for that topic there.

Now... if you do that your page won't jump from your index to the "Pictures of" page... as such you will need to move the sub heading onto the page your iframe will show.

You have a TON of space so you can easily resize the iframe to include room for headers and all the pics. I will say that viewed on 1028x764 your font is pretty large so you have a little more room to play. YOu can extend the width of the Iframe over to almost the edge of the menu thus giving more room.

Once you add code each of the menu pages becomes it's own page. On those pages though you WON'T add the "target" code.

So if you arrange your thumbnails at the top of the page, using the mouseover effect you will stack the full size images one on top of the other below the thumbnails.

For a reference look at this page from the site I showed you earlier

Ohana Iframe from Leiolani Photograhy

You see the thumbnails to the right, you see empty space with the mouseover instructions which is actually the full size staging area for the photos. That is where the large photos are all stacked up. The key to doing that without head ache is to put your large photo in the staging area (size it appropriately if you need to) copy it, paste a copy into the thumbnail area, resize the copy to thumbnail size, click the "specialfx>mouseover effects" button and set your mouseover effects to show the large pic on the mouseover of the thumbnail.

Full mouseover directions are in the tutorial and I think Brucee expanded on it in his tutorials as well. Same with the Iframes.

Hope that wasn't too long a post to deal with thru flu head!

Hello Byways and Cassandra,

Byways, I didn't take it as bad criticism, I'm really happy about the points you raised, it is the exact effect which needs to be achieved, what I would like to know is, am I getting close to achieving it? It's hard to see the faults when you're working so closely on it, a fresh eye is always the one I rely on to spot the mistakes. Hence, I enjoy the criticism from other web-designers, because it helps me to improve. Thanks for your support.

Cassandra,
Once again a wealth of very useful information, thank you, I had the muliple main pages from the beginning, so getting down to one will cut back on my bandwidth use. Excellent explanation, even with a flu head, but will work on it when the head is clear in a few days.
Thank you, so very much.
Michael
Pakedi South Africa

Hi pakedisa. At the risk of offending, and I apologise up front if this occurs, the following observations are made. Clearly the changes to the menu and i-frames continue to improve in a powerful way the organisation of the message you want to get across. The question is what is the message you want to finally convey? If we keep with informing, selling, and personalising elements the strongest of these I think is informing. For example, if we go with the booktown theme, this concept is very well explained, but selling features and benefits are low key. Books (secondhand and rare) are suggested as twinned with areas to relax in: To eat and drink. This enticing mix is explained across quite a few documents. However I'm not sure how large or specialised are the collections (I recall Hay -on Wye use to claim to offer the LARGEST in the world)nor what features are offered in the catering to entice me other than a "book and a cuppa".

If I can move from a specific message (e.g Booktown)to the general message. The image I get is of tradition, of history, of roots. This is a town that reflects a core cultural theme that was/is central to the nation's character and one which may still resonate and attract visitors(???). And this is also reflected in the personal comments about, and images of, the people living there. I think this because of what it is NOT saying. We live in an increasingly diversified world. South Africa has been described as experimenting with a "rainbow" culture; we see and read here a few important colours of that rainbow. Agriculture survives today through diversification. This diversification on properties, or down stream into shop goods (e.g artistically designed woollen garments) is not pushed, touching tradition is.

That's the message I receive through the web design, if it helps clarify thoughts? Byways