So a few days ago I went into the whole development.html thing. This was a huge HTML file covering many aspects of the web publishing guidelines. After careful consideration it was determined that there was just too much there. So I split the file into its sub-components, and because of the careful structuring it took less time then trying to redo everything. I found that all I had to do was copy and paste and do a couple of find-and-replaces to change the headings. So kudos to hard work paying off. I am slowly coming towards the end of the web manual project. Almost half of the appendices was formatted using my structured methods before we decided to split it into seperate files like the development file. Once I finish putting the content into place the final step will be simple CSS clean-up and formatting.
I was browsing around slashdot about a month ago when there was a release of some "Scaleable Vector Graphics" software that rivaled Adobe Illustrator. I decided to check it out and apparently the source was released for Linux and BSD machines for free where if you want it for windows it is $80 minimum. My linux laptop was down at the time so I decided to hold off until I had a stable system. Well last night I decided to give it a shot since everything is running smoothly now (except maybe Xgl). So I went ahead and grabbed the source for x86 (amd64 wasn't available) and I went about the usual process of configuring and making. After about a half-hour of compiling I ran the software for the first time and it is amazing. The capabilities of this program are astounding. I will post a few screenshots soon, but Wow.
the first time I tried XGL I got it to work for 4 hours before it did not want to respond, since then I have wiped the Linux side of my system and completely reworked my laptop from the ground up. I was attempting to use Gnome 2.16 before it was unmasked in portage, but that ended up blowing up in my face. After many hours of unmerging, then re-emerging to a lower verison everything is back up and working. I am running Gnome 2.14 on X and I am trying to run Xgl. I have discovered a way to keep all of my X settings and have Xgl on my system at the same time. Using this I can test one configuration in a nested window vs. trying a set of settings then turning around and re-enabling X. Other than Xgl being a pain everything else seems to be working. Hopefully I will have some more good news soon, since I am re-compiling Xgl with the Ubuntu code base.
Today I continued my work with the web manual. I am happy to say that four of the 6 pages have been re-arranged or re-ordered to follow the same format and navigation has been added to all of these pages. I have put together some useful styles that will be useful in the upcoming redesign. I am still having problems with the development page where the text is running over the edge of the div it is contained within. I think I will have to re-copy all of the data over and work from there. I have noticed that this content was definitly pulled from Word mostly because of the use of 50 cajillion (I think that's a number) " "'s just to shift the text over a little. I have worked around this by placing the text within a <span> tag with the style="float: right; margin-right: 20em" this floats it to the right, but then kicks it back from the right edge so it looks correct in any browser and the code is clean. Hopefully I can tackle that tomorrow and move forward on the CSS unification, becuase I know that has the potential to be a lot of work.
Today I helped error check some code with a fewoptimizations here and there. In the end we ended up removing at least 50 lines of code. Then I got to work on the new web manual, this is definitely going to be an interesting project, filling it out with content and somehow making it navigable.
This is kind of a boost, knowing that a project you worked on has been accessed over a million times. I put together statistics from our web usage systems and our homepage has had 1,249,309 hits since January 1st. It is kind of interesting to see how users navigate the site and the most frequently accessed pages. On a side note while putting this information together the one computer within the library that has accessed the homepage the most is the first computer you come to on the first floor when entering the library with 1.05% of all the hits from all the public computers. I am still unifying the CSS it is pretty slow because all this information is spread out into many files and condensing it into two files is daunting to say the least, but if approached from a structured standpoint everything can be done easily at the expense of adding a div or two to create the structure. This structure would allow cleaner HTML and CSS files across the board, including easier roll-outs of new designs and greater control over the "look & feel" which will come into play later during the redesign.
Here are a few examples I am looking at:
<!--HTML CODE-->
<div class="tier1">
<div class="tier2">
Title Content
</div>
<div class="tier2">
Content Content Content
</div>
</div>
/* CSS Code */
.tier1{
/* GLOBAL SETTINGS */
}
.tier1 .tier2{
/* REFINED SETTINGS */
}
Using this model no styles will overwrite each other and determining the active style will be made easier.
Until tomorrow,
~Chris
The dual-boot laptop is coming along slowly, it took few hours, but now X and Gnome have both been emerged. As of a few days ago Gnome 2.16 was released, but it was masked for testing in portage. After a few unsuccessful attempts and many profanities, portage is allowing me to install Gnome 2.16 as an update. After reading up on the release in the forums it looks like everything works with very few bugs. I want to try and enable the compositor within metacity so that I can have some of the cool XGL effects without having to go through the painful process of XGL. I will update with some more news and maybe a screenshot or two later.
So I am starting this blog and we will see where it goes. I have had two blogs in the past and they both lasted a few weeks (maybe). But we will see what happens. I think I have created enough categories so finding something to write about won't be that hard. The general "look and feel" should be changing in the upcoming days. It all depends on how long it take me to re-do everything. Well here it goes...
I say v1.0 but really it is like v3.0, but for the sake of documentation it is v1.0 . I have just finished the basic installation of Gentoo 2006.1 amd64. I think I am going to wait until Gnome 2.16 gets unmasked in the portage tree before emerging X and Gnome. Until then I am limiting myself to the console to set-up drivers and advanced functionality.