NEW FII WEBSITE

[mark]

Hi guys,

I've just launched the new FlyingInIreland website this morning. I would be very interested in hearing any comments or feedback. The old website will still by available for a while until all the old web pages have been transferred. The new system in use is a lot more user friendly both for visitors and for administrators. We're also hoping to add more content that was previously not possible on the old website. Eventually this forum will be integrated with the software - but it'll be a while yet, there's lots of coding to do

I'd like to say a special thanks to Byron Smith for all his help with the new site and template.

Any suggestions are also very welcome.

Regards,

Mark Dwyer
Editor
FlyingInIreland Magazine
www.flyinginireland.com

[DonalMW]

Looks good Mark, well done

[KeithT]

Looks very well Mark, Well done

[Warthog]

Looks very well the message board could do with the same!

[alphaLaura]

It looks perfect! I very much like the new, more organized categories. Thumbs up for the wallpaper and first solo's sections.

[ceatach]

Looks great Mark!

Isn't there a rss feed capability you can use in Joomla? That would be useful if you can turn it on!

Regards...

[dhblewis]

Looks brillant! Well done!

[Nanolight]

Hi Mark,

You're looking for feedback:

I like the new style. It's certainly better, however:

*The FII logo in the top left is a bit pixelated looking can you not get a higher rez one?

*I like the changing banner at the top - class.

*Really dislike that light green colour. Think it is really manky to be honest. It reminds me of a bathroom from the 1980's

*I like the links all down the left and the 4 important ones across the top but the main body hasn't got the same structure and looks as if you just threw a few links and ads in here and there. It is not exactly easy on the eye. I would recommend resizing the 'supports of FII' companies logos so that they are all the same size and have them in a nice neat column down the right hand side, or maybe in a nice row across the top of the page I would also be inclined to enlarge the 'subscriptions to FII' banner at the top to align with the rest of the page and frame it so that it works against the white background..


Hope you don't mind the critisism - I don't want to come accross as a know-it all or anything here. This site is certainly better than anything I would ever be able do and these are just my own opinions and people will probably disagree with them but, well, you asked for it!!

[mark]

Hi guys,

Thanks for all the feedback. And Nanolight, don't mind the criticism at all.

- Agree with the logo, i have very hi-res logo but trying to get the transparency between the letters is tricky from a JPEG image. Need to source the image in some other format but I'll get it fixed.

- I like the banner too Hope to change the images now and again

- Do you not like the green colour in the background and / or in the body of the site? If I just changed the background green would it make the light green in the body of the text bareable?! Are there any other colours you think would work?

- I would have liked to have the Supporters of FII logos all the same size too but it's not really practical. It you resized the NFC logo to 200px width and then the PTC logo to 200px wide the PTC logo would look very big and disproportionate to the rest of the logos.

Apologies for any little niggly problems, I'm still trying to get my head around using Joomla and the editor doesn't always do what you want it to. Please keep the comments coming. This website has been a mis-match of styles for the last few years and I just want to bring it all together and make it more user friendly for everyone.

Regards,
Mark

[RV BLUE]

Hi Mark, I think its a great start......very easy on the eyes. I'm sure over time it will get better...."Rome wasn't built in a day".....

I like the video of the month, which I didn't notice before.....

Well done,

Al

[historical-avi-irl.i8.com]

Smuggly happy

Indeed let Mark know what you want done and we can change things around. All credit is due to Mark really. I really like the new wallpaper and flight safety sections.

Joomla does indeed have an RSS function and it will be up and running in due time. It is very much a working progress but we will get there

[alphaLaura]

Just a note on the transparency of the FII logo and fitting it in with the banners.

You could easily write some javascript to ensure that, for example, if the banner image == *some particular banner* then use *the appropriate logo*. You just have to make a set of logos which match each banner image. The logo, I assume, remains in the same position for each banner. Transparent gifs are relatively cheap in terms of bandwidth.

[historical-avi-irl.i8.com]

I agree,
I'll talk to Mark about doing this. PNG would be slightly more practical as transparent layer JS have already been written just for this purpose. The biggest problem is getting X browser compatability... hopefully no one here is using Safari or Opera

God I am getting too computerised...

[alphaLaura]

PNG is slightly unnecessary because they tend to have large file sizes. GIF is the easiest. I use Safari alot but it's a fairly robust browser - very little compatibility issues. Biggest browsers would probably be IE and Firefox.

[StephenM]

If you think current browsers are bad, I have problems with the new Firefox 3 and a second beta browser where they dont react too well to XHTML 1.1 valid designs.