|
During April 2001 I made many changes to the site, some of which were long overdue. I've
listed them here so that those that have been here before can find the new content without having
to explore the whole site.
New Sections
- About
- Some people were curious about me and/or the site, so I decided to include some information
about both. 5 pages.
Novice- The basics of creating a Web page at Spaceports. Having reduced the number of questions
in the Spaceports Forums about CGI (or at least made it easier to answer them with a link to here),
I've added a section specifically aimed at the other subject most asked about - getting
started. 7 pages.
Planet- A new section about the Spaceports Web site servers. 3 pages.
SSI- A long overdue section on the basics of Server Side Includes. 4 pages.
PHP- The basics of using PHP. 4 pages.
MySQL- The basics of using a MySQL database. 2 pages.
The Web- Topics relating to the Web in general. 7 pages.
Site Map- I added a map of the main site to make things easier for everyone.
Tales- In effect this is a separate site as it is more for entertainment than informational
purposes. It contains a range of complete classic novels and short stories. 130+
pages.
Updated Sections
All the sections were updated to the extent that the layout was changed, but some of them also
have new or modified content.
- FAQ
- A new page on the Spaceports rules was added, with all other
pages being updated slightly.
- FTP
- A new page on uploading files using Browser FTP was added, with
an update made to the WS_FTP tutorial now that passive mode is required (thanks meggie).
CGI-BIN- Two new pages added - System Info which tells how to find
out more about modules installed and one on choosing between the
options available.
News- This page was added, of course.
Redesign
Although the last redesign seemed to be popular and several people asked if they could use the
layout on their own site, I wasn't entirely happy with the amount of space for the main content for
640 by 480 users.
I have moved both navigation menues to the right hand side of the page, thus allowing more space
for text and adding a little more whitespace (yellowspace) around it.
Navigating the site should also be slightly easier.
The section heading logos have changed again - mostly because the last graphic utility I used
was an online one. I wouldn't have much of an opportunity to access it to create headings for
the new sections.
I also made several adjustments to the overall layout, but kept the basic colour scheme from
before.
The HTML 3.2 standard is now used (I used HTML 4.0 Transitional before) - with a touch of
CSS. The site should now look roughly the same to all browsers of version 3.0 and above.
The banner code remains HTML 4.0 Proprietary though (it's the target attribute that makes it
4.0). The only difference this should make is that older browsers won't open a new window if
the banner is clicked on. I can live with that, so I'm sure most others can.
Corrections
I started work on this new design just over five weeks ago, and typically some new changes to
the Spaceports services came into effect while I was distracted.
Thanks to the feedback from users of the Spaceports Forum (especially meggie who must have
looked at every page), the site should now be correct and up to date.
|
