I am so pleased you took the time to look closely at my project. Your analysis is perfect, but I do have some questoins below. Some may sound dumb because I am so new to all this.
On Aug 29, 10:48 pm, Pops <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mitch, > > I have to say - excellent job, very nice. I do have some comments, > and this is not just you but nearly all the web 2.0 sites: > > - No Javascript > > Since it depends on JavaScript, and you don't want to make it work in > web 1.0, then add the following: > > <noscript> > This site requires JavaScript to be enabled! > </noscript> > That is easy to fix and I will add it. There was some thought I might create a version that did require JS but I can see now that is the impossible dream. > It is really odd to see a site go gun-ho with a fancy like web 2.0. It > must it taking alot of work, yet, they don't do some basic > fundamentals. > > - Font Size Scaling > > Don't assume one size fits all. For me, my eyes are not like it use > to be. So many times I hit ctrl + a few times to increase the size.. > Many sites don't scale correctly when the fonts change. Plus, it > really looks fantastic to be able to increase the web site font size > on a large flat screen! You would be able to demo your web site and > people see it from a distance. :-) I have the same complaint about sites using fonts that are too hard to read. Honestly I have not been thinking about eyes and I better start today. Can you offer any words of wisdom on what I need to do to scale well. Does it mean using "ems" instead of points? I dont know much about ems and not sure I understand them enough to do it right. What happens when the font is too big for its container? Like I didnt design the tabs or accordion and I dont know how to scale them. > > For your web site, > > 1) why restrict the width size? Make it work with 2 4 or 5% left and > width margins. I definitly want to restrict the width because this is a control panel like environment, not a web site. Its more like Flash. I need to know where text is precisely for this to work. That is why the height is fixed too. > > 2) You will see the run off in tab 1 if you don't auto-fit the > content. > What do you mean here but "run off" How do I see that? > 3) Tab 2 is all messy when the font size has changed. More below with > tab 2. I just did moved the font size around and I am surprised at how little is wrong with it. I didnt know that radio buttons owuld enlarge when you make the font larger but of course that makes sense now. I dont see how I can do that if the width is fixed. > > 4) Tab 3 is perfect, It scales correctly (but will look better if the > width was wider). It better look good. All that is there is a single paragraph of text. > > About tab 2, very nice looking, but there is so much. The whole goal of this was to get it on one screen so that is why its the way it is. I probably have gone a little overboard but I cant get rid of a lot of stuff on that page and still have it make sense. > > - Make it work in full screen! This is a debatable issue. I think full screen would look weird but I am open to seeing it. > > - Maybe another tab? You could put History on another tab, but the beauty is allowing people with large screens see it all. To be honest if I had to do this all over again I might use a drag and drop front end where the user could decide what to move and where to put it. I could hide the radio buttons in a drop down menu. > > - Make the location an accordion too? > - How about group it by region > > - North East States > - Mid East States > - South East States > - North Central States > - Mid Central States > - South Central States > - North West States > - Mid West States > - South West States > > Or just North, Mid, South or East, Central, West. If you used region it might work nice as an accordion. I dont see how to do that with locatoin by state, and keep in mind that the user often selects more then one location (pacific coast, california, oregon). > > Other than that - Great job! Thanks that is kind of you, given all the stuff I got wrong. Mitch > > -- > HLS > > On Aug 29, 6:21 pm, Mitch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > The Mitchies. Rating the Best GUI Plugins > > > My interface is an example of what a novice non programmer can do > > using jQuery and a number of its best plugins. > > > The goal was to build a GUI that contained a large number of web 2.0 > > features, meaning controls that gave a desktop experience inside the > > browser. Besides wanting to upgrade my very popular avian search > > engine (http://www.whatbird.com), I wanted to see how far I could go, > > how many controls could I use to make my GUI inviting and modern. I > > also wanted to see how such a GUI would work in the various browsers, > > such as IE and FF. I wanted to see how fragile javascirpted web 2.0 > > pages were. > > > I stumbled upon jQuery and instantly saw its value. Then I dived in. > > The resulting project was an inspiration to me because of how much I > > could accomplish with so little code. I had to become familiar with a > > large number of topics that were very technical, but I had a lot of > > hand holding and help from thejQuery community. > > > Below I have listed the plugins I have used in the whatbird GUI. Three > > stand out. I have given links to these so you can go get the plugin > > and try it. But you can see how it works right here by just going to > > the tab above calledSearch. > > > I decided to give each plugin my own "mitchie" which is essentially my > > own plugin rating from 1 to 5 like the kind you see on Amazon. The > > winners are cycle from Mike Alsup, tabs by Klaus Hartl and accordian > > by John Resig. > > > You can see the details and winners here: > > >http://www.whatbird.com/wwwroot/Components/Complete_Search_Tab.html > > > Thanks Mike, Klaus and Dan. > > > Mitch- Hide quoted text - > > - Show quoted text -
