I'm interested in hearing your comments and suggestions on the DHVM Gallery. We are aware the site is running slowly (loading of the photographs) and we are working on that issue while the site continues to grow. Is there any other areas that we need to address in the displaying of the photographs in this area of the web site. ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum
How do we look at the gallery? I went to the DHVM site. When I clicked on "Gallery," a screen came up with 5 frames. The ones I seemed to have needed were so small, I couldn't tell what was on them. It looks like you might have to simplify the screens to make them more usable. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Peirce, Just so I understand more detail, what size screen do you have? I know laptop's are an issue in viewing the site. I've heard others talk about the frame issue too. Do you have a alternate suggestion on how to structuce the Gallery? ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum
I am using a 15-inch monitor, desktop, not laptop. This is my set-up at work, which is more advanced that at home. Most sites I visit usually limit any one screen to two, sometimes three, frames. Anything more forces some of the frames to be too small to contain any readable material. On the screen entering your gallery, for example, the two frames on the lower right of the screen were not high enough to expose one line of text. When I tried to scroll one, it would always stop between the lines. I could see the bottom third of one line and the top third of the next. I am not experienced in HTML design, but I am experienced in viewing dozens of sites a week. The best ones use the KISS principle. Here is an example of an excellent site. =It is John Combs Alaska Railroad Page: http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~combs/arr/arr.html Of course, this site, Trainboard, would be an excellent example of a site that is easy to navigate. I can't offer any suggestion on structuring your gallery until I can get into it. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Peirce, I value your honest input toward building a better site. I've been using a 19" screen when building the site and it sounds like the 17" and less screen have viewing issues. Sounds like I have some rework planning ahead of me. In the mean time, you should be able to open the Gallery in a seperate window which should allow you to get deeper into the site. Given your screen size, I would also open each "Collection" in a seperate window too. Within Netscape, you "Right Click" the link and select "Open in New Window" to open each section in a stand alone window. I'm thinking I might shift towards a layout like: Leatherstocking Railway Historical Society ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum [This message has been edited by Stourbridge Lion (edited 05 August 2000).]
Since our discussion has drifted away from the topic is this forum, photography and trains, into web site design, I will continue via e-mail. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Gary was kind enough to allow this discussion to continue by moving it here. Thanks, Gary. Here is what I had sent to Stourbridge Lion by e-mail: Here is what I have done since the last forum entry. I looked at Leatherstocking. It is well done and easy to navigate. I especially liked the way they presented the photographs in that they included a fairly detailed and informative caption with each thumbnail. The only minor negative was they displayed a couple of logos in black on a blue background. This was not as easy to see as it could have been if they used a greater contrasting color combination. I used your suggestion and opened the gallery frame as a seperate window. That helped. However, when I clicked on a name, nothing happened. On the question of monitor size, I am probably representive of a large segment of the internet community who, for economic or other reasons, just cannot keep up with all the latest technology, as much as we would like to do so. I know I am going to need an upgrade before too much longer, but for now, my office machine is close to ten times faster that what I have at home. Same size monitors, however. It looks like you are developing a site that is going to be quite valuable to both the railfan and the historian. I am happy to give whatever little assist I can to help out. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Good call GATS, we did stray off topic from Photograph to Web Design quickly. I've made some chages to the "Home Page" that should improve the viewing of the "Gallery" based on Peirce's comments. I'm also working other "Gallery" issues for "Color" and "Size"; but, they are not completed at this time. ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum
Thanks, guys. I can see the hoto and Club forums crossing lines from time to time. I'm off duty this week so I will take the time to check out the sites you are both talking about in detail. There are so many variations to deal with when designing a site. With frames, I think you need to keep in mind those who run at 800x600 or lower. They don't have much real estate to work with. Personally, I don't have troublee with many sites as I use a 17" @ 1152x862/24M at home and a notebook with 13.1" @ 1024x768/24M. Gary. ------------------ Gary A. Rose The Unofficial TC&W page N to the Nth degree!
Except for the fact the thumbnails took forever to load it seemed fine to me... I'm on a dialup at 50.6 by the way.
I tried to look at the changes you made at the DHVM site, but was "held up by construction." What I did see looks like you are on the right track. I'll check back later. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Gary, Your TC&W site looks good. You cover a lot of material and are still able to avoid a cluttered look. I had no trouble with the thumbnails loading here at work on my LAN-based work station. At home, it will probably be a differendt story. There the equipment is a lot older and slower. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Thanks, Pierce. I deliberately tried for an easy-looking layout - one that's easy for slow connections and/or smaller screens - but have thumbnails big enough to see if the pic was of interest. The real minimum I went for was 800x600. I took my own reactions to cluttered sites and modelled mine with that in mind. If it's too cluttered and not well laid out I will breeze by, which negates the reason for creating a site in the first place. The whole site is still 'under development'. As I find another site with something that is nice but simple, I try it out. If it works, I modify and upload. Hence, I'm getting away from a large banner heading and now have a simple bar with the heading within. Ok, I have been trawling around the DHVM site, Darren. I see the issue that Pierce has with the thumbnails downloading slowly. You have the full-sized pics forced to their thumb size so the actual image is being loaded, just shown in the thumbnail size (I was wondering why the thumb file was so large for it's size!) on that page. Makes for a very fast full sized pic, though kills the loading time for the thumbnails. The frames layout I just looked at had 3 frames - header, menu, and item/object. I'm using a 17"@1152x864 and the layout seemed fine. As I lowered the resolution, the picture portion of the frame created scroll bars until it only about 1/4 showing in 800x600. If this is a problem, maybe having small thumb files on the page and the full pics open in a seperate window would provide a viable solution. The thumbnails will load much faster, and each image will load itself only when selected. This way, you can have the full-sized pics on a seperate page with details, or just have the jpg come up with no formatting. Another thought would have the frames scale themselves to suit the resolution. This will create a scroll bar on the menu side as well. An example of my thinking on non-frames layout... On my site, from the photo main page each of the photo groups opens a new window. I created seperate files for the thumbs which load quickly. Then the viewer can choose which file they want, and I added the file size to the name under the thumbnail as a courtesy. The selected pic opens in the same window and I use a simple next/previous/back to thumbs layout at the bottom of each page for those wanting to wander through that section. The original photo page is still open in it's own window. Hope this helps you out. Gary. ------------------ Gary A. Rose The Unofficial TC&W page N to the Nth degree!
That's why the thumbs took so long, i didn't even think about that... I don't know about seperate windows for everything though.
I happened on that fact after looking at the source code - there wasn't a pointer to another page or seperate jpeg. After that, I opened the page and saved a couple of thumbnails. Looking at them, I found they were 44k and 46k - a bit big for thumbs. When I selected that thumbnail, the pic popped up immediately. Bingo! Providing there are not too many pages opening, I think it's fine. To access my site's photos you go through three layers. 1. The main page 2. The photo page 3. The photo section All the above have seperate windows opening. Within each photo section you are in one window only and can go back and forth to the thumbnails by using the back button or the link below the photo. Gary.
Great input. I'm looking forward to adjusting the DHVM so you the railfan can enjoy the history of the D&H via images as well as find other D&H sites via the Links section too. Just a quick note on the "Thumb Nail" speed issue. Yes, I'm using "Dynamic" thumb nails at this time while I work disk space issues out with my site provider. The DHVM plans to have nearly 2000 historical images so even thumb nail disk requirements become an issue with a site of this size. This is the #1 reason the Gallery is perfoming slowly and having seperate thumb nails per image is planned when space allows. ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum
Here is a link to a short article you might find interesting. It lists the 10 most common mistakes in web design. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990516.html ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Outside of the "Download" issue, Is there any other areas that I need to address in the displaying of the photographs in this area of the web site? ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum
I just took another look at the DHVM site. there was no trouble encountered in viewing several of the pictures. Loading both the thumbs and the blow-up were fast. I am not sure how this is done, but some of the others in this discussion might know. It would be nice if we could click on the blow-up, which occupies only about a quarter of the screen, and have it expand to full frame, of full screen. I have seen it done at one other site (PhotoPoint) where the second click goes to a full screen image. One small point. On your home page, bottom frame, the bottom line is not visible on my 15-inch screen. I suspected there was more when I noticed the frame did not seem finished. I went to opening the frame as a seperate window and discovered the fourth line. I know there is a lot of work involved in your project, but it is progressing well. You will have a site of which you can be proud. ------------------ Peirce Behrendt Southbury, CT peirce@ibm.net
Peirce, As always, THANKS for taking the time to review the DHVM and offering ideas. You might not have noticed; but, I had altered the home page settings so you can "Resize" the header and footer. This should allow you to adjust the size of the footer to fit your 15" screens needs while not taking allot of window space for the 17"+ screens. This is done by moving your mouse to the horizontal line, hold down the right button, and move the mouse up or down to adjust the horizonal line which in turn adjusts the viewable area for that frame and reduces the size of the middle frame. I did try it on a laptop and all 4 lines were displaying correctly without adjustment. ------------------ Stourbridge Lion stourbridge_lion@yahoo.com Delaware and Hudson Virtual Museum
