Forums | MacLife

Antonio · 2009-02-20 5:56 am

Well, I'm almost there.
I've had a lot of non-engineering types just rummage through my new site for usability testing.
And, everything works solidly in all modern browsers... and even IE6.
The final change I made was a special layout for individual gallery images, because I felt they needed something more static and minimal, for the images to stand out... not sure how or even if I accomplished that, considering the whole thing is pretty minimalist.

EDIT: No longer in beta, here's the full site, running on Mocha!

Antonio's site

It's running on a CMS I've spent the past year designing and building (mochaCMS).
It's a J2EE application, built with MVC architecture. The front end is nothing more than clean XHTML with JSTL and expression language. I have IE-specific javascript for IE, and DOM-compliant for everything else, and also separate stylesheets.

Everything validates as XHTML 1.1, save for where I use FCKeditor, which of course breaks the validation - though I am thankful they were thoughtful enough to make a Java implementation with a tag library- good stuff.

Last thing worth mentioning (possibly) is that all the background imagery, to include repeating images such as the telephone pole and wrapper gradient, are hand-rendered- graphite on vellum. The wrapper in particular was a bit of Photoshop hell, moving a pixel here, two pixels there, to make it repeat cleanly and evenly, while not looking clean or even. Does that make sense? My goal was to establish a more organic feel with the design. The 'AntonioMalcolm' title header type was also done by hand, based on Helvetica.

There are only snippets of content for the time being, just enough to test with. The rest is being edited and will be placed just before everything is finalized.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and look!
Comments and suggestions are welcome smile

Last edited by Antonio (2009-03-14 6:04 pm)

sturner · 2009-02-20 6:38 am

the home link at the mid-page brings you to a generic TomCat page. You want to return to Your home page don't you?

Antonio · 2009-02-20 6:47 am

sturner wrote:
the home link at the mid-page brings you to a generic TomCat page. You want to return to Your home page don't you?

Yes and no- lemme explain that... you're talking about the breadcrumbs, which are dynamic.
Once I have the domain name in place, home will be antoniomalcolm.com. For the time being, as I'm just testing, I really haven't configured the docroot, yet, tho the Tomcat Administrator is definitely locked-down tight.

On second thought, for sake of argument, and to avoid anymore confusion.... maybe I should, anyhow.
Thanks for bringing it up.

Antonio · 2009-02-20 7:20 am

Done!
(Be mindful that the home link in the breadcrumbs will now not lead anywhere until the domain name is active).

Last edited by Antonio (2009-02-20 8:54 am)

resedit · 2009-02-20 1:07 pm

It's a very attractive site.
I can't speak to the technical aspect, but I really like it's look and feel.

Nefarious · 2009-02-20 2:32 pm

Say, that is nice looking.

sturner · 2009-02-20 2:37 pm

Gives a warm, fuzzy feeling.

Yea, I just checked, I didn't pee my pants to it's the web site.

Antonio · 2009-02-20 4:37 pm

Wow. Those are pretty big reactions!
Thanks much, guys smile

sturner wrote:
Yea, I just checked, I didn't pee my pants to it's the web site.

Coincidentally, I did pee myself, but it's really just the booze.
And this lake is really cold...

Antonio · 2009-02-20 6:40 pm

BTW, I'm fiddling with some server settings right now, so if things get wiggy for a bit, you know why.

Antonio · 2009-03-06 5:56 pm

I'm doing the last bit of editing for the first round of content...
looks like I'll be going live soon (with the proper URL).

sturner · 2009-03-06 6:58 pm

You do know that your breadcumb :

* You are at: home/mochaCMS/home

is problematic?

The home link naturally can't find a file at the IP address. The mochaCMS gives you a splash page which defaults to the home page. I like that touch, but having two links that get you to the same location isn't cool. There should be a single link.

Antonio · 2009-03-06 7:30 pm

sturner wrote:
You do know that your breadcumb :

* You are at: home/mochaCMS/home

is problematic?

The home link naturally can't find a file at the IP address. The mochaCMS gives you a splash page which defaults to the home page. I like that touch, but having two links that get you to the same location isn't cool. There should be a single link.

Antonio wrote:
Done!
(Be mindful that the home link in the breadcrumbs will now not lead anywhere until the domain name is active).

It's not the breadcrumbs widget- the breadcrumbs will work as they should once the domain name is set. I'll save you the lengthy technical explanation, suffice it to say it has to do with Tomcat and the URL, when the app isn't served up from the ROOT directory within webapps.

sturner · 2009-03-06 8:23 pm

Ok, just looking for things that aren't the way they should be. The two link breadcrumb definitely threw me.

Antonio · 2009-03-07 7:45 pm

sturner wrote:
Ok, just looking for things that aren't the way they should be. The two link breadcrumb definitely threw me.

Well, thanks anyhow- at least you noticed and spoke up big_smile
You could have just not given a damn...

sturner · 2009-03-07 9:55 pm

Hey, you're trying to put up a site, and you asked for assistance! big_smile

I can find fault with the best of them.

It's my pleasure to help you debug the site.

Antonio · 2009-03-09 2:40 pm

sturner wrote:
Hey, you're trying to put up a site, and you asked for assistance!

I can find fault with the best of them.

It's my pleasure to help you debug the site.

Well, the breadcrumbs work now, as they should, as mocha is the root webapp- it took me a few days to decide upon the best route for doing so, because Tomcat doesn't allow such without some trade off in flexibility somewhere...

EDIT: I made the configuration adjustment on my dev server... the adjustment is not live yet, but will be later tonight.

Last edited by Antonio (2009-03-09 7:44 pm)

Antonio · 2009-03-10 3:54 pm

Aaand... it's up!

http://www.antoniomalcolm.com/

Last edited by Antonio (2009-03-10 11:50 pm)

Forums | MacLife

#1 2009-02-20 5:56 am

12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#2 2009-02-20 6:38 am

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#3 2009-02-20 6:47 am

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

sturner wrote:

#4 2009-02-20 7:20 am

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#5 2009-02-20 1:07 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#6 2009-02-20 2:32 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#7 2009-02-20 2:37 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#8 2009-02-20 4:37 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

sturner wrote:

#9 2009-02-20 6:40 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#10 2009-03-06 5:56 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#11 2009-03-06 6:58 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#12 2009-03-06 7:30 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

sturner wrote:

Antonio wrote:

#13 2009-03-06 8:23 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#14 2009-03-07 7:45 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

sturner wrote:

#15 2009-03-07 9:55 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

#16 2009-03-09 2:40 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

sturner wrote:

#17 2009-03-10 3:54 pm

Re: 12th and Final Round of Live Testing! Yay!

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