I have been working more on the site upgrade for Number One Pictures. I had put my gallery index with thumbnails into the left column nav and used a php include so that updating would be minimal. But there was still the galleries index page with the same data in a different format. Wouldn’t it be nice to use one data set and include it in both places?

It turns out that just this sort of thing is possible with css. I have been aware of special rules in css for several months (I have only used css in web design for a bit over a year). I had used them for a couple of minor things. Since I am doing a major rebuild of the site it seemed that it was time to delve into the matter a bit deeper.

I set up a test page on which I have the two areas side by side. I placed and named my test containers. I then proceeded to apply the special rules, and sure enough, the same data set can be formatted so that it works in both locations without any problem. This means that I can have one file that can be included in either place and display the way that I want it to in either format. It will save time when I add more galleries to the site.

I am following my plan for the rebuilds on these sites. I am taking my long winded ramblings off the home page. They are still there if anybody cares to go looking for them, but the new home pages are getting right to business. I will have an introductory paragraph and a news feed on the home page. There will be (and I had done this a few weeks ago) a scrollable galleries index with thumbnails in the left nav column as well as the articles index. There is more advertising on all the sites in the form of affiliate banners mostly in a right column.

There is still a good bit of work to do on this one before I upload it to the server. I have to rebuild all of the galleries to match the new format. Luckily, the gallery software and some auxiliary software do most of this. I do have to re-edit the html templates that the software uses. There will be a bit of time involved, but I will keep you informed.

Tags: php includes, presentation, using css

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 10:45 pm and is filed under Adventures in Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.