HTMLCenter... 3.0?

Leprakawn · #1 (**permalink**) 01-07-2007, 08:28 PM

Hey, the new version of HTMLCenter is up, and it looks like it is running smoothly! Congrats to Allen!

curtiss · #2 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 05:25 AM

It looks very nice. Now, if only the blog could be templated to match the rest of the site.

Allen · #3 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 06:40 AM

yep - blog is coming this week - take a bit more to edit it cuz its cgi and you have to regen the site every time you make a tweak.

i am considering moving it to wordpress so it's easier to edit.

it is amazing how fast the home page loads now -- i removed over 200 lines of code from the old home page. wow.

Leprakawn · #4 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 11:52 AM

I do have a question: where did the huge search boxes come from? I noticed it first at acronymfinder.com... then webster.com followed suit, and now here. What's the deal?

curtiss · #5 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 12:54 PM

Obviously Allen can answer this a whole lot better than I can, but it appears that, in this case, it was meant to make it match up with the Google ads.

In addition, if you make the "Search" box big, then you end up with about a 25% decrease (just guessing at the figure here - might be less) in mindless idiots posting and/or contacting you about things that are already covered in detail on the site.

It truly is amazing how many people are successful at finding tiny little "Contact Us" links, but always seem to overlook the gigantic "Search our site" areas.

Allen · #6 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 05:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curtiss

Obviously Allen can answer this a whole lot better than I can, but it appears that, in this case, it was meant to make it match up with the Google ads.

In addition, if you make the "Search" box big, then you end up with about a 25% decrease (just guessing at the figure here - might be less) in mindless idiots posting and/or contacting you about things that are already covered in detail on the site.

It truly is amazing how many people are successful at finding tiny little "Contact Us" links, but always seem to overlook the gigantic "Search our site" areas.

Mark (designer) would have to answer the questions you guys have about the design - I only coded it

are you finding any bugs? so far i see one with the search button in ie6 on the next line left - blah

Allen · #7 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 06:22 PM

btw leppy your poll is closed??

curtiss · #8 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 06:34 PM

At a quick glance of the front page, here are some things I've found:

1) The link under "Hot Tutorial" appears to be missing the proper title element. Instead of actually having a title, it's title is "#Name#". Also, there is no title at all for the "Read the review" link, although I don't think that's actually breaking any HTML rules at this point.
2) Not a bug, but kind of an annoyance - when a summary gets truncated (for instance, the summary of ecommerce tutorial), it should end with an ellipsis. Currently, it just ends with the letter "L", simply because that was the last character in the allowed length of the summary. I think (can't remember at the moment, but I know I've done it in the past) there is a way in PHP (don't know about ColdFusion) to actually make sure a summary gets truncated at the end of a full word, rather than truncating in the middle of a word. Regardless, like I said, the summary should end with an ellipsis (you know, those three dots in a row), letting you know that there's more where that came from.
3) According to my Firefox "HTML Validator" extension, there are 15 warnings on the page that should be corrected. A few of them are parts of the ad code in the page, so there's probably nothing you can do to fix them. However, there are also three empty spans that should be removed from the page, and you have defined two different forms with the name "myform1" (the top dropdown box and the review dropdown box).

I'll try to take a more in-depth look at a later date.

BTW - I still really recommend downloading and installing the "HTML Validator" extension for Firefox. It goes way above and beyond what a normal validator will do, and it even highlights the problem areas within the source of your page.

Allen · #9 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 08:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curtiss

At a quick glance of the front page, here are some things I've found:

1) The link under "Hot Tutorial" appears to be missing the proper title element. Instead of actually having a title, it's title is "#Name#". Also, there is no title at all for the "Read the review" link, although I don't think that's actually breaking any HTML rules at this point.

fixed

Quote:

Originally Posted by curtiss

2) Not a bug, but kind of an annoyance - when a summary gets truncated (for instance, the summary of ecommerce tutorial), it should end with an ellipsis. Currently, it just ends with the letter "L", simply because that was the last character in the allowed length of the summary. I think (can't remember at the moment, but I know I've done it in the past) there is a way in PHP (don't know about ColdFusion) to actually make sure a summary gets truncated at the end of a full word, rather than truncating in the middle of a word. Regardless, like I said, the summary should end with an ellipsis (you know, those three dots in a row), letting you know that there's more where that came from.

the site is php

and i edited the title - the db has a limit not the page.

Quote:

Originally Posted by curtiss

3) According to my Firefox "HTML Validator" extension, there are 15 warnings on the page that should be corrected. A few of them are parts of the ad code in the page, so there's probably nothing you can do to fix them. However, there are also three empty spans that should be removed from the page, and you have defined two different forms with the name "myform1" (the top dropdown box and the review dropdown box).

I'll try to take a more in-depth look at a later date.

BTW - I still really recommend downloading and installing the "HTML Validator" extension for Firefox. It goes way above and beyond what a normal validator will do, and it even highlights the problem areas within the source of your page.

Thanks Curtiss - I appreciate it - there are still lots of tweaks to make before I announce its live - I want to make the forums wider, add a skyscraper ad, etc. And there are still 8 tutorials that don't fit the new template. Keep the comments coming!

Leprakawn · #10 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 09:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen

btw leppy your poll is closed??

It is?? I did not put a date on it... and I can still vote from my account.

Heck, YOU are the admin around here... you should be able to fix that!

curtiss · #11 (**permalink**) 01-08-2007, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Allen

I want to make the forums wider

Thank goodness. I was wondering if that was something you were going to work on. It looks really weird having the page header fill the whole width of the screen, and the rest of the forums only fill about 85-90% of the screen width.

I'll start checking various pages, etc. in the next few days.