Re: Help with CSS Page Layout

#21

Many, many thanks. I will look at my links when I am working on my home
computer. I think I may have screwed it up because I uploaded some things from
work and others from home. That part I understand pretty well! I appreciate
the feedback on the drop shadows as well. I'll look at that more closely when
I get.

I read the blog about the javascript fix. I know it says it is easy, but I
had trouble. Do I copy all of that script to the <body> of my html file?
Where it says content will be replaced by Flash I wasn't sure how to insert the
Flash except by using the Dreamweaver Insert>>media, which I think is not the
desired result. I discovered I have Dreamweaver 8 at work. I see I need to
upgrade to 8.02 to get the active content fix. I'm working on that!

Malcolm is right, in that I am doing this on a volunteer basis for my club,
but I may do it for others in the future for profit. This is a great
experience to learn what I need to know. $90 is a lot for the menus, but I
think they look neat and everyone seems to like the way they work.

BTW, the previous web site this club had is all written in asp and stored in
an Access databse. It looks completely foreign to me! The woman who
originally made it is long gone & since then people have only done minor
changes to information without changing any of the design. There really isn't
any dynamic content on the page, so I don't know why that was done. Is this a
"higher'-order" technique that I should set my sites on learning or is plain
old html OK?

#22

"Malcolm N_" <malcom (AT) mgnixon (DOT) org.uk> wrote

Quote:

And good as these add on's are - they don't necessarily teach you how
to do it. They effectively de-skill the process. l

Project Seven's extensions come with very well-written documentation that do
teach you what the various CSS items are doing... if you take the time to
actually read through it all. I have purchased many of their products and
will confess to oftentimes just blowing through the process at first to get
something online quickly. But when it comes time to having to modify some
sort of attribute for custome designs, all the documentation is there for me
to learn from. I will agree with you that many plug-ins and extensions will
de-skill the process/individual, however the PVII products seem to be the
exception to that rule.

#23

Quote:

There really isn't any dynamic content on the page,

If each page is pulling its contents from an Access database, then there
sure is dynamic content there.

Quote:

set my sites on learning

It is useful to understand how these things work. Did you post a link to
the site? We can tell you if there is 'dynamic' content there, pretty
easily....

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
==================

"janeinpa" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

Many, many thanks. I will look at my links when I am working on my home
computer. I think I may have screwed it up because I uploaded some things
from
work and others from home. That part I understand pretty well! I
appreciate
the feedback on the drop shadows as well. I'll look at that more closely
when
I get.

I read the blog about the javascript fix. I know it says it is easy, but
I
had trouble. Do I copy all of that script to the <body> of my html file?
Where it says content will be replaced by Flash I wasn't sure how to
insert the
Flash except by using the Dreamweaver Insert>>media, which I think is not
the
desired result. I discovered I have Dreamweaver 8 at work. I see I need
to
upgrade to 8.02 to get the active content fix. I'm working on that!

Malcolm is right, in that I am doing this on a volunteer basis for my
club,
but I may do it for others in the future for profit. This is a great
experience to learn what I need to know. $90 is a lot for the menus, but
I
think they look neat and everyone seems to like the way they work.

BTW, the previous web site this club had is all written in asp and stored
in
an Access databse. It looks completely foreign to me! The woman who
originally made it is long gone & since then people have only done minor
changes to information without changing any of the design. There really
isn't
any dynamic content on the page, so I don't know why that was done. Is
this a
"higher'-order" technique that I should set my sites on learning or is
plain
old html OK?

#24

It's http://www.ewgaphilly.com/ Any insight you can give me on the present site would be helpful!

#25

Links like this -

<A
href='http://www.ewgaphilly.com/gallery/gallery_new.asp?subPath=E%3A%5CInetPub%5CClients%5 Cewgaphilly%2Ecom%5Cgallery%5CPhotos%5C2005%2DGolf Show'>
2005 Golf Show </A>

suggest that there is plenty of dynamic activity going on there.

Where in Philly are you? I'm in Chester County....

--
Murray --- ICQ 71997575
Adobe Community Expert
(If you *MUST* email me, don't LAUGH when you do so!)
==================
http://www.projectseven.com/go - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
http://www.dwfaq.com - DW FAQs, Tutorials & Resources
==================

"janeinpa" <webforumsuser (AT) macromedia (DOT) com> wrote

Quote:

It's http://www.ewgaphilly.com/ Any insight you can give me on the
present site would be helpful!

#26

Small world! I live in Oreland (Montgomery County). Our EWGA has leagues all
over -- many of the women play at Paxon Hollow in Broomall. You must be near
the Golf Galaxy store! One of my favorites. I may have to come to you for a
tutorial session!

I, of course, inherited this web site. No one who is a present member of the
club understands how it was created, etc. I no nothing about asp, I'm afraid,
although I am an eager (but maybe overwhelmed!) learner. That page you mention
gives a list of photo gallery sites with photos that are at least 2 years old
I'm afraid. I probably should study how that is done.

I'm finding I'm running into some trouble because the site is hosted on a
windows server. My flash slideshow uses a program called ssp-director that
runs on a unix server with php. I really like the program, but I must confess
I do not understand all the details of how it works. I created my prototype
page on my own, unix server.

I am trying to work with the hosting company. We DO have access to a linux
server which I set up. I installed the ssp-director there. So, the photos are
on the linux server and the page is on the windows server. It seems they are
not talking back and forth well. My page will load fine, but the photos do not
show up in my slideshow. The code in my flash file that gets the photos is
http://x.ewgaphilly.com/ssp_director/images.php?album=2 which I can see uses
php, but beyond that I really don't know enough about how this work to try and
fix it. The hosting company hasn't been helpful so far, I'm afraid. They say
it may not work. I'm still hopeful there is a fix for it!

#27

By the way, I updated my Dreamweaver at work & it fixed the ugly border around
my flash file on the prototype site. It's always such a happy thing when one
gets something to work like this!

I have one other concern -- the top of my prototype page has EWGA Greater
Philadelphia Chapter in an image file that is part of the flash file. I'm
guessing (after all of your lessons!) that will prevent search engines from
finding us. I did it because I like the effect I put on it in Fireworks, but
maybe I should use regular text? I confess I need to learn much more about
making the site searchable and accessible.

#28

I just had an email from the hosting company. Here's what they say:

What you could do is make sure that the references in the XML file are
absolute URLS pointing to your images on the linux side. This should work
however I cannot guarantee it.

Can someone help me understand what he's saying?

#29

Hi Jane,
Your page is looking good :-)

About the ASP site. There's actually a number of errors in some pages.
If you look at the "About EWGA page, there's actually two head and two body
tags.
That's because an ASP include on that page is pulling data from a table in
the database named tbl_contents.
That table is the only thing in the database, and in it is the text for each
page on the site. The problem is, the text for each page is actually full
html page code including the <head> , <body> and more tags.
So, when the ASP include pulls this info out of the database and into a page
that already has the <head>,<body> , etc.,you end up with dupe tags.
Who knows why it was set up this way. It's possible someone meant for a
backend Admin page, where a user could edit text and update the pages and it
just wasn't ever finished. There is a page named adminedit.asp, but it's
broken.
Either way, it's some messy stuff and I wouldn't spend too much time trying
to figure that out. It doesn't look complete.

Take care,
Tim

#30

Oh, thank you! I am really happy to be learning all of these new techniques.
Are most people self-taught this way or is there a good school to go to to
learn it!

I'm not surprised about the ewga site. I did speak to the woman who has been
making minor updates & she told me she uses front page to create html that she
inserts into this table. I am completely new to this kind of organization, so
I really didn't understand what she meant. So I wouldn't be crazy to abandon
the existing pages and create my own? I really don't understand how this one
works in the first place!

Is there a prevailing opinion with regard to servers? The group is paying
about twice as much to have this site hosted on a windows server as it would
cost for a linux server (are linux and unix the same thing?). This, I guess,
was originally because they wanted to use asp. I'm thinking we could save that
money and put the whole site on the linux server (or switch to my host, which
uses a unix server).