PAdict [aka: bottom of the inbox]
January 18th, 2006
Now that I have information for half the classes I will be taking this term, it is a good a time as any to show what the other subject of the last week was about: padict.sf.net. Still in development (edit: as of time of writhing), although the style is mostly done. (when it is done, it will be moved to a static portfolio folder)
There were a issues to work out with this design, which I might as well go over.
Ranges of Resoultion
Being software for a handheld computer, this page could conceiveably be viewed on a screen ranging from 320px wide to over 1600px wide. In addition, it might be on a platform on which I have no control of fonts.
Mostly this was solved by using max-width (and min-max.js - *sigh*), as I have done with this page’s current theme. I had to take special consideration on page margins and floating images. Also, setting font size with 1em + % allows the whole page to scale nicely.
CSS and Image support
While the design could stand more testing, design was from the bottom up - It is quite readable with CSS and/or images disabled.
Handling structure
The previous version of the page is much more monolithic - one page gives you most of the content. As it stands now, all the pages share a header and footer include. The header, in addition, includes this:
<?php
$order = array(
'features' => 'features',
'documentation' => array(
'installation',
'walkthrough',
'preferences',
'support'
),
'developers' => array(
'binaries',
'sourcecode',
'resources',
'contributions'
)
);
?>
All content pages are snippets of html in another folder, included accordeing to the page requested. The above set of arrays specifies position and section - and some simple tests build the two levels of navigation.
The design still needs some tweaking as of now, content updating - but it is always nice when betas are useable.
-Sud.
Posted in PAdict |