New Site: Request for Opinions

[richard]

The delay so far has been due to a slightly mis-communication on deliverables. Basically I'm implementing it at the moment but it is taking time. Might be another week or two before I have something to show you all.

[richard]

Finally got a working mock-up online:

http://www.lner.info/playpen/index.shtml

The margin isn't complete. Also it is mainly based on the Gresley page but I've included a table or two and a couple of headers to get those styled.

I don't have a true smart phone to test it on, but it looks okay on my Nexus 7 which is in the "small" breakpoint.

I don't have the front page done yet.

Also before implementation, I need to pull the page apart to be used as a set of templates. This time around I'm probably going to switch from SSI to PHP. Although I don't need much templating functionality, SSI is just too clunky! This will also allow me to operate both the old and new alongside each other, as each section is converted. Permanent re-directs can then be inserted so that all the old bookmarks,etc will still work.

[richard]

Okay, I've missed off the background images. Let me try to add those... (it might not be possible to add both corners)

[richard]

I now have the style for the front page sorted out:

http://www.lner.info/playpen/home.php

And here is the style for all of the content pages (it is a mix of content):

http://www.lner.info/playpen/index.shtml

Since the posts above, I've inserted some ad slots and changed the image formatting so that images will shrink on smaller screens. This also means larger images can more easily accommodated in the future.

All pages will be converted to use a php extension rather than shtml.
Let me know what you think, I'll start splitting "index.shtml" into a templatable form in about a week and start implementing immediately after that.

[Kestrel]

Hi Richard

I clicked on http://whoision.com/share/Dmitrii_Mikit ... 1QtbDVaTTg and then on the bottom right, has anyone noticed the link button that is in what appears to be Russian? It is an e-mail link but that appears in Russian as well.

Has Putin hijacked the site, thinking the LNER is a threat to his dream of world domination?

Phil

[richard]

More than one country uses the cyrillic alphabet: My designer (Dmitrii) is from Moldova.

[Atlantic 3279]

How's this going to look / work for those of us who still use PC's not laptops (in our own time rather than stealing time and internet access from employers), and who use phones just for phone calls rather than for constant gossiping and pictorial gratification of our self-induced infomania?

[richard]

A normal PC should be fine and is essentially the same as a laptop.

The idea is that the size/etc will adapt (be "Responsive") to different devices.

It has been busy here, but I was hoping to have started by now. I have made similar changes to my main homepage and ironing out the minor teething problems.

[richard]

Conversion has started. So far, only the Articles section has been converted:

http://www.lner.info/article/articles.php

New pages have the .php suffix whilst the old have .shtml. This has the side-effect that the two can work alongside each other. However it does mean the converted pages have a lot of broken links to pages which have yet to be converted. Also, default index pages, error pages, and existing PHP pages (eg. the contact form) will be completely converted when I get to them.

Conversion will probably take a few weeks. Once completed, I will then remove the old shtml pages and add a re-direct, so all the old URLs will continue to work.

Google rankings could be all over the place and it could take until the end of the year for Google to settle down, but the end result should be higher.

[richard]

New pages should be up and running.

My internet connection is currently quite crummy, so I've just fixed a set of errors, but there might be more. I'll be running more tests over the next few days.

[S.A.C. Martin]

New site looks amazing Richard. Very well done to you and your designer.

[richard]

Thanks!

The forums still aren't mobile friendly in the eyes of Google, but it seemed the current template/skin worked better than the "responsive" ones that I've tried so far.

[Hatfield Shed]

Having just gone to look at the locomotive data - probably for the first time this year, I have my browser opening the forum directly - the front page is now like an earthquake zone, all the pieces tumbled randomly in a heap. The locomotive class list is only directly accessible from the J's onward, although one can get to all of it rather clumsily, and wth any page opened for a specific class, the text runs off the left side of the page. All the other sections are similarly impaired, other than the forum which works perfectly, thus my not noticing change elsewhere..

So OK, I am a tech retard, Vista with IE7 on my usual machine. The BBC news site keeps telling me to upgrade my software for optimal service too (when did they become a marketing division of microslop?).

[richard]

Vista shouldn't be a problem - but I bet IE7 is. That is pretty old! Later versions of IE are much more standards compliant (more so than IE's reputation would suggest!). The main PC competitors are Firefox (which I mainly use) and Chrome (from Google) - both are free downloads.


It is impossible to support every graphical browser that has ever existed. Basically it is more important to support smart phones and tablets (which are very numerous and only growing), than something like an early version of IE or Firefox (which will only decrease in usage).