Redesigning Planet Catfish navigation and layout

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 13 Mar 2005, 16:33

All~

Well, I've come to the point of no return. The next upload of the site will be the no frames and no java nav bar upload! It'll probably go down in Planet history as a black day, but we really need to change and its such a huge change that I have to start somewhere.

So, I've started this thread; please feel free to post suggestions or comments here. Point out sites or navigational layouts you like that you've come across elsewhere that kind of stuff.

The first version will see two major changes.

(a) The purple frame nav bar will be replaced by a simple text nav bar temporarily until I get rid off all references to the old layout.

(b) The Cat-eLog will no longer run in two frames (a list on the left and a page on the right). The first version you will navigate to the list (index) page you want and then click on the item you want. Horrible and simple until I get some feedback and work out for myself how better to achieve easy navigation.

I expect the thread will be fairly quiet until the first upload, when I hope we can all discuss improvements or alterations here. It'll be a few days at least before the first release...

Cheers,

Jools

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 18 Mar 2005, 20:53

As you may have noticed

V1 has been uploaded. Got a lot ahead of us to do... Looking for suggestions and comments.

Jools

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 20 Mar 2005, 18:26

Jools,
With the Cot-M,Cat-elog, there are other sub-menus. These choices are all on the first tier. The choices such as home, forums, search, etc. are on the second tier. They don't have the sub-menus. The first tier choices with the sub-menus are very zippy and like to overtake the bottom tier choices. Is there a way to separate the two tiers, so that I don't get the sub-menu for the Cat e-log when I want to click on the forums?
Thanks!

Mike_Noren · Post by **Mike_Noren** » 21 Mar 2005, 12:37

I like the changes so far.

Suggestion: remove thumbnails in the "Last 5 Cat-eLog Updates (full list)" (on the http://www.planetcatfish.com/core/index.php page). The thumbnails take forever to load, and before they're all loaded often the wrong thumbnail is shown next to an entry.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 21 Mar 2005, 20:51

Mike_Noren wrote:I like the changes so far.

Suggestion: remove thumbnails in the "Last 5 Cat-eLog Updates (full list)" (on the http://www.planetcatfish.com/core/index.php page). The thumbnails take forever to load, and before they're all loaded often the wrong thumbnail is shown next to an entry.

A lot of this is becuase of gargantuan updates to the cat-elog due to my lovely and understanding wife giving me whole weekends to catch up on site work after a couple of weeks holiday. How good is that!

Anyway, I would think that there should only be 2-3 updates (thumbs) per day max. once normal service is resumed, thus a lot less thumbnails. I agree at the moment it is slow over dial-up.

Jools

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 21 Mar 2005, 20:58

Bronzefry wrote:Jools,
With the Cot-M,Cat-elog, there are other sub-menus. These choices are all on the first tier. The choices such as home, forums, search, etc. are on the second tier. They don't have the sub-menus. The first tier choices with the sub-menus are very zippy and like to overtake the bottom tier choices. Is there a way to separate the two tiers, so that I don't get the sub-menu for the Cat e-log when I want to click on the forums?
Thanks!

How's that?

Jools

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 22 Mar 2005, 14:19

Awesome! Much easier. It's coming along nicely, Jools.

YouTube · Post by **Jools** » 27 Mar 2005, 12:15

Well, I have now finished the common names page with the ability to go to a particular letter of the alphabet. This includes all C, L and LDA numbers.

Also, the family pages now work properly as does the fixed top 100 hits pages.

Next I need to tidy up several of the pages that have broken header includes files and then I guess tackle the forum.

Jools