This is it... it's almost the end of the line. This weekend, I'm preparing for the final deliverables including the final reports, and the project which are due on Tuesday, 3rd November. I can't believe it's almost over already.
Last week has been the "bug fixing" week. I didn't get to fix the header problem the way I wanted to work in the end. I ended up using CSS to replace the header and the only problem now that the header is not clickable. =( However, I did fix the the other problem with the drop-down menu. Alastair adviced me to use the PHP command instead of JavaScript. So it solved my problems!
Last week was also the peer presentation day! Thanks to the UTS server that went down, I became one of the few people who was able to show my project because I was using a different host server. As a result I was interrogated and reviewed by a larger group that I would have prepared for. =)... It was fun though! Thank you all for giving me your valuable feedback.
Well, it has been fun and a valuable learning experience through this semester. However, I can't wait for the holidays to start.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
WordPress theme problems...
I seems to have so many problems this week with this project. It's so close to the finishing line, it's so frustrated to find bugs you don't know how to fix.
I have been building my website project using a local server in my machine (by using MAMP). For the final deliverable, I have to of course upload the site to a host server. I have a hosting with godaddy so I decided to use that instead of the UTS server.
Anyway, the problem started when I uploaded my whole WordPress files onto the server. For some reason, my images won't get uploaded. I have tried changing the permissions, etc. However, on the theme I was using, I was able to upload a header image to replace the blog title. I can upload it in WordPress admin system, I can see the file is uploaded on the server. However, my theme doesn't pick it up! =( I don't know what is going on and how to solve it.
The way around it now as temporary measure, I placed the image using CSS. I slowly has to update all the links which previously pointed to my local server to the new location so it loads up properly.
Anyway, there were still a few issues with the project, which I'm not so sure now if I have time to fix them all. If you're interested, you can view it from: Jade Remedies Website
Any feedback and comments are most welcomed!
I have been building my website project using a local server in my machine (by using MAMP). For the final deliverable, I have to of course upload the site to a host server. I have a hosting with godaddy so I decided to use that instead of the UTS server.
Anyway, the problem started when I uploaded my whole WordPress files onto the server. For some reason, my images won't get uploaded. I have tried changing the permissions, etc. However, on the theme I was using, I was able to upload a header image to replace the blog title. I can upload it in WordPress admin system, I can see the file is uploaded on the server. However, my theme doesn't pick it up! =( I don't know what is going on and how to solve it.
The way around it now as temporary measure, I placed the image using CSS. I slowly has to update all the links which previously pointed to my local server to the new location so it loads up properly.
Anyway, there were still a few issues with the project, which I'm not so sure now if I have time to fix them all. If you're interested, you can view it from: Jade Remedies Website
Any feedback and comments are most welcomed!
Problem with my JavaScript Menu...
I've been trying to solve my JavaScript menu problem with no luck =(. I've tried a few different options but the solutions I have experimented so far are not exactly what I'm after.
Here's what I want to do:
A friend suggested that I should give an 'id" for each page and tell JavaScript to behave a certain way when go to the particular page. I'm going to try to do this next.
If anyone has other suggestions, please let me know.
Thank you in advanced.
Here's what I want to do:
- I have a menu listed on the side bar like this:
- Menu 1
- Menu 2
- Menu 3
- Menu 2 has a child menu like this:
- Menu 1
- Menu 2
- Sub-menu 2.1
- Sub-menu 2.2
- Sub-menu 2.3
- Menu 3
- I want the menu on the home page to be like no [1], but when the user click on Menu 2, it goes to page 2 and the sub-menu is opened automatically like on no [2]. If the parent doesn't have a child menu then it won't opened.
A friend suggested that I should give an 'id" for each page and tell JavaScript to behave a certain way when go to the particular page. I'm going to try to do this next.
If anyone has other suggestions, please let me know.
Thank you in advanced.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
PHP include and JavaScript
2 weeks to go...
Yesterday lecture was on more JavaScript and AJAX. There are alot of these fancy things that JavaScript can do which I still need to get my head around. I'm afraid time is running out for me to complete the final report and the project..=(
I'm planning to package the final report together and create a mini website with links to all the reports we need to hand in. I've learnt a few tricks of using PHP to include my navigation on every page so I can have my navigation in a separate file (e.g. nav.html) and use PHP command to include that file in every page. The advantages of this of course, if you decide you want to change your navigation, you only need to do it once in your navigation file. Alastair helped me with the code which actually pretty simple. All you need to do is to include the function called "include ("your file name here") inside the php tag.
And make sure you then save your file to .php files instead of .html file to make the code works.
The other thing I was trying to experiment with is to have a drop-down navigation menu or more like an accordion menu. Alastair showed similar behaviour I'm trying to recreate during the lecture, but it doesn't work for my menu. I'm going to do more research on the JQuery library and see if I can find something there to make them work.
As for the project, I think I'm happy with the state it was in now. I just need to figure out how to upload it and install it to the server.
So this week would mainly be finalising the project and trying to finish up my report as much as I can.
Yesterday lecture was on more JavaScript and AJAX. There are alot of these fancy things that JavaScript can do which I still need to get my head around. I'm afraid time is running out for me to complete the final report and the project..=(
I'm planning to package the final report together and create a mini website with links to all the reports we need to hand in. I've learnt a few tricks of using PHP to include my navigation on every page so I can have my navigation in a separate file (e.g. nav.html) and use PHP command to include that file in every page. The advantages of this of course, if you decide you want to change your navigation, you only need to do it once in your navigation file. Alastair helped me with the code which actually pretty simple. All you need to do is to include the function called "include ("your file name here") inside the php tag.
And make sure you then save your file to .php files instead of .html file to make the code works.
The other thing I was trying to experiment with is to have a drop-down navigation menu or more like an accordion menu. Alastair showed similar behaviour I'm trying to recreate during the lecture, but it doesn't work for my menu. I'm going to do more research on the JQuery library and see if I can find something there to make them work.
As for the project, I think I'm happy with the state it was in now. I just need to figure out how to upload it and install it to the server.
So this week would mainly be finalising the project and trying to finish up my report as much as I can.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Guest Lecture - Chris Mills from Opera
We had the Guest Lecture: Chris Mills from Opera last Tuesday. I couldn't make it to the 4pm talk because I couldn't get out of work early enough. Anyway Alastair managed to record the video for our 6pm class. It's a little bit hard to see what he looks like. However, the talk was interesting. Particularly when he talked about the development and future of web technologies and how it evolves overtime. It becomes apparent even further when he talked about the needs to support different browsers and devices.
A question I was going to ask him if I was there when he did his talk, I'm interested to know why there's another browser in the market like Opera? How is it different from the other browsers we used to like Firefox, etc? What is the advantages of Opera browsers on desktop compares to other browsers?
I'll keep pondering until I get the answers =)
A question I was going to ask him if I was there when he did his talk, I'm interested to know why there's another browser in the market like Opera? How is it different from the other browsers we used to like Firefox, etc? What is the advantages of Opera browsers on desktop compares to other browsers?
I'll keep pondering until I get the answers =)
Deadline Getting Closer...
Weeks went by so quickly and we only have less then three weeks before the deadline. This week my focus is to finalise the project whether I like them or not and start working on the revising my Macro and Micro Analysis, System Plan and doing the Final Report.
Thank you for those in my team who gave me their feedback on my Macro and Micro Analysis and System Plan. I'll start working on them this week.
Thank you for those in my team who gave me their feedback on my Macro and Micro Analysis and System Plan. I'll start working on them this week.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
From Design Research Workshop by Kelly Goto
Hi Everyone,
I went to the "Design Research: The art of getting it done" workshop by Kelly Goto yesterday, Wednesday, 7th October. This workshop is part of the Web Directions South 2009 Conference. The workshop was held at the Masonic Centre, Sydney. I've gained a lot of information and knowledge in one day. It's a pretty intensive workshop and we went through things very quickly. However, it was a pretty hands-on practical approach. Overall, it was a fun and enjoyable session.
I would like to share with you a few notes that I took, which I might be useful to you. I didn't take many detailed notes (I apologised in advance!). As I said before, it's pretty hands-on and we pretty much went straight into doing the practical exercise.
As mentioned before, the topic is about design research. To put it simply, it felt like I was doing a whole semester subject pack in one day.
We had lectures on Design Research. Kelly used a quote from Liz Sanders of Dubberly.com to describe what Design Research is. According to Sanders, "Design Research is a jumble of approaches that, while competing as well as complimentary, nonetheless share a common goal: to drive, inspire and inform the design development process". This includes research methods such as user needs analysis, usability testing, card sorting, contextual inquiry and so on.
I went to the "Design Research: The art of getting it done" workshop by Kelly Goto yesterday, Wednesday, 7th October. This workshop is part of the Web Directions South 2009 Conference. The workshop was held at the Masonic Centre, Sydney. I've gained a lot of information and knowledge in one day. It's a pretty intensive workshop and we went through things very quickly. However, it was a pretty hands-on practical approach. Overall, it was a fun and enjoyable session.
I would like to share with you a few notes that I took, which I might be useful to you. I didn't take many detailed notes (I apologised in advance!). As I said before, it's pretty hands-on and we pretty much went straight into doing the practical exercise.
As mentioned before, the topic is about design research. To put it simply, it felt like I was doing a whole semester subject pack in one day.
We had lectures on Design Research. Kelly used a quote from Liz Sanders of Dubberly.com to describe what Design Research is. According to Sanders, "Design Research is a jumble of approaches that, while competing as well as complimentary, nonetheless share a common goal: to drive, inspire and inform the design development process". This includes research methods such as user needs analysis, usability testing, card sorting, contextual inquiry and so on.
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