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Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 07/13/05 07:29
paul <paul@not.net> wrote:
> Thanks, yes in fact I just now uploaded some changes that make the
> list shorter. One of the buttons turns off pictures and wordy
> descriptions with a semi-permanent cookie but I figure the pretty
> pictures are appealing for the first visit.
There won't be any first visit, since the user leaves the page before
it has even loaded.
Create an index file with just the names and a _few_ (two, three, maybe
four) particularly pretty pictures. Make each name a link to a page
containing the description of that plant. Since you are using PHP, this
should be easy. No reason to set up a huge page containing all the
stuff, except perhaps as an alternative for those few who will want to
print all of your stuff on a color printer.
> Regular users will have
> to learn to change settings.
Wrong approach. Your site is not an island.
> I did duplicate the menu every 10 records to avoid the need for
> frames,
Wrong approach.
There's never need for frames (though sometimes, some people, find some
meaningful use for frames; but those two or three guys know what they
are doing, and they know how to offer noframes alternatives).
The menu should appear just once, on the page containing the list, or
perhaps on a separate main page.
And it's completely wrong to use the unreliable <button> element and
make a laborious effort at preventing the options from looking like
buttons _or_ links. (Well, the blue color suggests a link, but
otherwise they are not link-like: no underline, no change of color on
mouseover, no destination address in the status line on mouseover.)
Use either <input type="submit"> or simple links. Or, perhaps most
logically, create a single form (letting it look like a form) where the
user can make one or more choices and click on a button that creates a
new list.
> I should add the main menu also though. How could CSS solve
> this?
Stop using CSS to create problems. Rethink. Use then CSS to solve
problems, not mess things up.
> I'm also considering making the links open in a separate window
Again, stop creating problems. Backtrack a bit to remove some of the
problems you already created.
--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html
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