Face lift and new website

I had to give a quick facelift today to the website since certain browsers are making a mess of the texts. Rick, JB, and myself have been working on the new website which will be composed of 3 parts, and we hope to roll it out soon. The parts will be:

1. Main Portal (something like the www.ARN.org)

2. Blog for news, articles, and sort term discussion (basically a continuation of this blog)

3. Discussion Forum for long term discussion and collaboration

20 Responses to “Face lift and new website”

  1. SCheesman says:

    Very nice, Salvador! I love the new look.

  2. JGuy says:

    Hey.. where’s my radio image of the universe?! ;)

    Sal, I can find a new image to modify to fit if you want. I’ll let you know if I think I found something relevent & attractive.

  3. SCheesman says:

    Actually, I see the text still plots a bit left of the frame edge, but at least you can read it all. This is most obvious in the “questions about the moon” thread.

  4. Rick says:

    The blog site we’re working on is currently viewable at http://www.virtual-creations.net/~youngcos/blog. I’ve just performed the routine for updating the content, so it should reflect everything that’s here–well, except for this post.

  5. JGuy says:

    And this post :)

  6. JGuy says:

    SCheesman:

    Actually, I see the text still plots a bit left of the frame edge, but at least you can read it all. This is most obvious in the “questions about the moon” thread.

    I’ve seen it work well & otherwise – depending on the computer I used. It seems to be either the user’s browser version and/or a computer setting. It might also be related to the CSS code associated with the HTML – CSS can be made to force the browser to use certain font settings. Which, perhaps, might lead to these ill effects???

  7. JGuy says:

    ps. Rick et al… the new site looks good. I like the style. And the title for “Young Cosmos” at the top is a design pleasant to the eye.

    Curious.. the engine seems to still be Word Press. Is that what is driving the Forum as well? The forum is reminds me of ARN’s

  8. Rick says:

    Curious.. the engine seems to still be Word Press. Is that what is driving the Forum as well?

    Blog – WordPress; Forum – phpBB

  9. benkeshet says:

    Congrats on the overhaul.

    One suggestion, if possible, would be to add to the bar beneath the body of the post:
    (example)

    “Last Comment 09:32, July 4th by So-and-So”

    That way you can tell if new posts have been added if you can’t keep track.

    Best Regards

  10. JGuy says:

    benkeshet:”That way you can tell if new posts have been added if you can’t keep track.”

    UD has a good example of this using a column of several most recent posts. I’ve also found it useful.

  11. jb says:

    Sorry I’ve been out of the loop for a couple days. Took some time off to work on a project at home & haven’t sat down at the computer in a while.

    On the new blog site (not this one, the new one at Virtual Creations), when viewed in my browser, the text is very dim on the black background and is hard to read. I thought we were going to go with some sort of a lighter background? Didn’t we have a lighter background there for a little while?

  12. JGuy says:

    jb.

    On my browser, I see a white background behind the black text. So, it’s not dim here. However, I noticed that the background (behind the text portion anyway) flashes from black to the white (with gray lettering) at the initial page load. This seems to match what you described – snce the gray text is dim on black. So, I suspect, somehow your browser is not updating that section behind the text to white. I wonder if this is CSS related. Maybe, try making sure you have CSS enabled on your browser. If not, Rick may know what to do.

    JGuy

  13. Salvador says:

    On the new blog site (not this one, the new one at Virtual Creations), when viewed in my browser, the text is very dim on the black background and is hard to read. I thought we were going to go with some sort of a lighter background? Didn’t we have a lighter background there for a little while?

    jb,

    As insane as this sounds, it’s black on one computer and white on another. I found this out when I accessed it from different systems.

    1. Black : old version of IE and Windows
    2. White : new version of IE and Windows

    Salvador

  14. Rick says:

    As insane as this sounds, it’s black on one computer and white on another.

    Actually, this is one of the challenges of Web development beyond the stone-age basics: what will work with one browser / version is not guaranteed to produce the same effect with another. It does get frustrating at times, but such is part of Web development. Has been for years.

    I have a couple of versions of IE / Windows–one under Vista (condolences accepted), and one under XP. One’s a version 6, the other 7. Both display a white background.

    However, what I’ve done is alter the CSS so that the grey bar lined up with the header extends for the length of the screen. The look is a little different, but perhaps it will be an acceptable compromise.

    jb, or Sal, let me know if this gives you a white background on the old version of IE.

    Thanks,

    Rick

  15. Salvador says:

    Dear Faithful Readers,

    We are nearing a transition. Some may be curious why YoungCosmos will be split into 3 websites.

    1. Main Portal and Resources
    2. Discussion Forum
    3. Blog

    It relates to the mission of YoungCosmos: “exploring the possibility that life and the universe recently came into existence by an act of Intelligent Design.”

    Exploration means long term research projects. These projects can last for years, and there needs to be forum where these projects can be pursued. The heart of YoungCosmos will be the discussion forum, not the blog (which you are now reading).

    There needs to be also resources page where people can click to learn more. The main portal will serve as a gateway to everything, but especially the resources.

    Finally, the blog. It is a place for provocative entertainment and short term discussion to keep interest in YoungCosmos alive. It will feature highlights of the discussion forum and the resources page and current topics.

    We’ve worked hard to allow the logins and passwords to port to the new websites. Your password here should work on any of the 3 new websites. Well, its supposed to anyway!

    That said, I invite readers to look at the heart and sould of the new YoungCosmos suite of websites. With many thanks to JB and Rick, here it is:

    http://www.YoungCosmosDiscussion.com (it doesn’t matter if you use lower or upper case letters).

    In the future the discussion forum can be also accessed through:

    discussion.YoungCosmos.com

    but that feature is not yet enabled.

    With jb’s blessing, I consider the YoungCosmos Discussion Forum open for business. You can start posting there.

    Salvador

    PS
    Jb, is that ok?

  16. JGuy says:

    Rick,

    I have an idea on know what you’re going through. I completed an extension course in web publishing/development at UCSD a few years ago. And experienced just some of the frustratation with detecting and accomodating different browsers, plug-ins, platforms and versions. So..my condolences in that regard alone – while Vista is another issue…blechhht!!! That’s one reason I never got very fired-up about web development :P

  17. Salvador says:

    I’m off to Michigan and the beautiful Great Lakes for the weekend. Have a nice weekend everyone.

    Salvador

  18. jb says:

    “I’m off to Michigan …”

    Aw, man. I wish I’d seen this last week! (I was kind of absorbed in a house project all last week and didn’t check in).

  19. Salvador says:

    Jb,

    I passed by Ford Field on I-75 in Detroit on the way back from the UP. I might be going to the UP again this weekend.

    Sal

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.