Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

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ButtDyno
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Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

Post by ButtDyno »

Right now when you click "schedule" it opens as a popup - so you can't right-click it and go to "new tab" or anything like that. Any chance this could just be a regular URL? You can always use an iframe if you need to get it to use the header/footer that the rest of the site uses.

That's all :)

john
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kyle.bowker
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Re: Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

Post by kyle.bowker »

I've been thinking about how we're going to redesign the entire website. I recognize the issue you describe and I would like to change it as well and I will addressed it at some point. However, I am reluctant to change it now in case there are unintended consequences. The software code was developed on another machine using another domain for testing purposes. There are many relative links in the software code. When we moved it from the test domain to capitaldrivingclub.com using the Javascript Open Window command was the easiest solution we could think of at the time to solve the problem. I am afraid the online reservation system may crash if I change it now, which could have disastrous consequences for event attendance.

So in short, I agree with you, I would like to change it as well, but since it is simply a design preference or convenience matter (and not a major functional issue) I will address it in due time. Similarly I will add an RSS feed to the forum, update the header image, add the custom mod that automatically resizes images in the message body, and....
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Re: Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

Post by kyle.bowker »

BugBomb suggested we make the main page the blog so that members get the latest announcements each time they visit. I'd like to somehow make it clear that people must click the Schedule link and use our online reservation system to sign up for events and I'm not quite sure how to do this if the main page is the blog page (the blog uses Wordpress code and it isn't the easiest to configure custom appearance). I suppose we can remove the large marquee image from the main webpage, use the smaller CDC image at the top (as seen Blog, Results, Media, FAQ, and About Us pages), switch to a vertical navigation bar, and make all the navigation links a CSS list as opposed to rollover images.

Ideas? Suggestions? I welcome your feedback.
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ButtDyno
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Re: Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

Post by ButtDyno »

kyle.bowker wrote:I've been thinking about how we're going to redesign the entire website. I recognize the issue you describe and I would like to change it as well and I will addressed it at some point. However, I am reluctant to change it now in case there are unintended consequences. The software code was developed on another machine using another domain for testing purposes. There are many relative links in the software code. When we moved it from the test domain to capitaldrivingclub.com using the Javascript Open Window command was the easiest solution we could think of at the time to solve the problem. I am afraid the online reservation system may crash if I change it now, which could have disastrous consequences for event attendance.

So in short, I agree with you, I would like to change it as well, but since it is simply a design preference or convenience matter (and not a major functional issue) I will address it in due time. Similarly I will add an RSS feed to the forum, update the header image, add the custom mod that automatically resizes images in the message body, and....
It works :) Check it out:
http://www.project-bdr.org/cdctest.html

It's no different than a frameset, other than that it can be put whereever you feel like. You would just develop a new page the same way you've built all the other pages, and then put an iframe wrapper around the registration page. I test-tried it with a fake autocrosser to make sure it would work and it appeared to work just the same.
kyle.bowker wrote:BugBomb suggested we make the main page the blog so that members get the latest announcements each time they visit. I'd like to somehow make it clear that people must click the Schedule link and use our online reservation system to sign up for events and I'm not quite sure how to do this if the main page is the blog page (the blog uses Wordpress code and it isn't the easiest to configure custom appearance).
You just need to change the Wordpress theme. project-bdr.org works the same way.
Site Admin -> Presentation -> Theme Editor -> "Header" on the right.

You can then add the navigation bar. You could convert the "media" "faq" etc pages to Wordpress pages (not blog posts, just regular pages) and then manage everything through Wordpress.

John
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kyle.bowker
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Re: Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

Post by kyle.bowker »

ButtDyno wrote:It works :) Check it out:
http://www.project-bdr.org/cdctest.html
Thanks! I've heard of iframes before but I hadn't really looked into them. Are they de rigueur nowadays? Are iframes compatible with most browsers? When you tested the CDC reservation system using the iframe you created did you get a response e-mail from rsvp [at] capitaldrivingclub.com that said your reservation was pending?
ButtDyno wrote:You just need to change the Wordpress theme. project-bdr.org works the same way.
Site Admin -> Presentation -> Theme Editor -> "Header" on the right.
I'm not 100% confident in my understanding of how the Kubrick theme works. It uses a lot of php that refers to other scripts. My web programming skills are very basic and I could use some help with coding it so that it looks good on a variety of screen resolutions and web browsers.
ButtDyno wrote:You can then add the navigation bar. You could convert the "media" "faq" etc pages to Wordpress pages (not blog posts, just regular pages) and then manage everything through Wordpress.
I dislike websites that are 100% blog driven. Even when the user puts a great deal of effort into customizing .css sheets it still looks kinda cheesy to me. I dislike is all the junk in the right margin. It's fine to have links to previous monthly archives on the main news page but I'd rather people not see it on every page. It's too much unnecessary clutter most of the time. Also, when Wordpress does a software update, it can throw everything into chaos. I don't think I want to manage the entire CDC website using Wordpress.
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ButtDyno
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Re: Website suggestion... schedule open not-in-new-window?

Post by ButtDyno »

kyle.bowker wrote:Thanks! I've heard of iframes before but I hadn't really looked into them. Are they de rigueur nowadays? Are iframes compatible with most browsers? When you tested the CDC reservation system using the iframe you created did you get a response e-mail from rsvp [at] capitaldrivingclub.com that said your reservation was pending?
Iframes have been around for a while. They were added to HTML 4.0 so they should 100% be supported in any remotely modern browser. (http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/present/frames.html#h-16.5)
I used the email address fake@example.com so I didn't get a reply :(
kyle.bowker wrote:I dislike websites that are 100% blog driven. Even when the user puts a great deal of effort into customizing .css sheets it still looks kinda cheesy to me. I dislike is all the junk in the right margin. It's fine to have links to previous monthly archives on the main news page but I'd rather people not see it on every page. It's too much unnecessary clutter most of the time. Also, when Wordpress does a software update, it can throw everything into chaos. I don't think I want to manage the entire CDC website using Wordpress.
You can shoot all the stuff in the right margin if you want. That's part of the theme too. But yeah it is harder as a Wordpress theme because you can't see everything at once and have to take a while to see how the pieces fit together.
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