Created in FW5 Pro throughout, using the Slave Show/Hide Layer Action for the thumbnails.
We’re building up to launching the print and framing service properly at the end of February. This web site is an online brochure for now, to support our craft fair and networking attendance in the local area.
What I would like to do eventually is convert this to database driven, but it’s way beyond my skill levels right now. However, knowing who lives on this forum, now you can see the sort of thing I’m trying to do, perhaps we can start a thread concerning building a DB site with online payment facilities and so on that even a complete dunce like me can follow!
The usual criticisms and comments regarding the site are welcomed.
Hi Heather - I’m going to tackle this from a technical point of view, although I have to say that the overall ‘look and feel’ is of a site that’s friendly, easy to use and is visually well designed.
On most standards based browsers, the site looks fine, the exception being Safari 3.2.1 on Mac, which incorrectly renders the borders of the round cornered boxes on the left side of the home page.
On Internet Explorer 6 and 7 alas, the home page gets rather more broken. IE8 however, renders it correctly in ‘standards’ mode.
This is not really your fault, IE6 and IE7 are just full of rendering bugs and quirks, and dealing with every single one of them can take a lot of advanced knowledge. More than I have alas!
You can check how things are looking in Internet Explorer by using the following site:
Just input the url and decide which browser you want to check against and away you go. Bizarrely, IE8 on here renders incorrectly. Must be set to ‘compatibility mode’, mimicking IE7.
This all begs the question “How do I put it right?”. Without seeing the Freeway file itself, I can’t answer that as my code reading skills are not up to much, but in the past it’s been relatively simple changes in Freeway that have sorted things. Can anyone else help Heather here?
(I’m tempted to say that Microsoft could by developing an update that deletes IE6 and 7 from users machines).
This all begs the question “How do I put it right?” Can
anyone else help Heather here?
I ought to be able to fix it myself, but we took a pragmatic view that
we can’t really cater for every browser all the time. For client work,
we try to make an effort, but for now we’re content it works in most
modern browsers.
(I’m tempted to say that Microsoft could by developing an update
that deletes IE6 and 7 from users machines).
True, but ask me again when Hell freezes over.
I’m going to pipe up over in the Dynamo list, because I really want to
move the site to database-driven. This is because it’s already
becoming unwieldy as new images come to us from our photographers. I’d
only intended the present site to be a temporary “brochure” as a
backup to the fairs and networking side of things, but I really want
to get a handle on how to set it up easily for maintenance and
potentially online purchasing.
I ought to be able to fix it myself, but we took a pragmatic view that we can’t really cater for every browser all the time. For client work, we try to make an effort, but for now we’re content it works in most modern browsers.
Fair enough, and I admire the stance regarding IE! I think that’s pretty much swung it for me now - I’ll be telling clients no more support for IE6, I’ve had enough.
Just input the url and decide which browser you want to check
against and away you go. Bizarrely, IE8 on here renders incorrectly.
Must be set to ‘compatibility mode’, mimicking IE7.
Actually, you can check how it looks in various flavors of IE without JavaScript there. This is a critical distinction, because
Freeway builds in all sorts of shims for broken IE behavior using JS.
I think to truly evaluate this site, you’re going to need to look at
it on an actual Windows browser (either using a grotty PC or a
virtualized Mac).
In my VMWare version of IE6 (the worst excuse for a browser there is)
all the effects work perfectly, except for the rounded corners in the
bottom half of the home page, which are not getting the pngfix love
for some reason. The layout is rock solid, I don’t see anything going
astray. Anyone using IE < 8 is used to seeing these gray boxes on
modern sites – it’s a fact of life for them.
Walter
This all begs the question “How do I put it right?”. Without seeing
the Freeway file itself, I can’t answer that as my code reading
skills are not up to much, but in the past it’s been relatively
simple changes in Freeway that have sorted things. Can anyone else
help Heather here?
I think to truly evaluate this site, you’re going to need to look at
it on an actual Windows browser (either using a grotty PC or a
virtualized Mac).
I did take a look on our grotty works PC. Essentially, it was a mess,
so I threw up my hands in horror and walked away.
;o)
Actually, everything was there, just in a totally different order to
the one most other browsers managed.
There’s only so far I’m prepared to jump through hoops to cater for
broken browser behaviour. As I say, for a paid-for client site, I’d be
working a lot harder to make it work in IE6/7. For this “in-house”
brochure site, I’ll leave it broken for now until I can learn how to
make it work with a database.