Well I’m not completely finished, but I got what I’ve done uploaded and ready for testing. I’m completely brain fried, I think I’m getting too old for these kinds of intense hours!
Anyway, if anyone wants to try out what I’ve done on the new site, feel free to go to www.daryllancaster.com
Please note that only half the pages are completed, if you click on a link and the page isn’t done, it will just say, “Under Construction”. FYI, the About Me section should be done, those pages were easy since I just had to basically cut and paste from my resume. The schedule and worshops aren’t done. And the gallery is only halfway there. It took me the whole day to rebuild the Garment Gallery 2000-2005. I haven’t decided if I will ultimately put my earlier work, I go all the way back to about 1975, but I think it is too much information and not relevant to my current body of work. 2006-2010 isn’t up yet. But I did do the HGA Challenge page, because I finally figured out what button to click to get the text to wrap around the picture instead of on top or below. A big DUH! (To further the duh moment, the technique for doing this very simple thing (the align left key), is the same one I use to use back in the Microsoft FrontPage days. It never occured to me that this maniacal program would use something so simple…
Feel free to comment about any part of the site, I’m still building it, so I’ll take any feedback under consideration. The pages with a large amount of text or images have a built in scroll bar, see if it is intuitive to figure it out. Should the gallery images go from oldest to newest on the bottom, or the other way around? Same with things like my published work. I know you can’t click on the home page images, I hadn’t intended that. It is just a JPG in photoshop. Does it make you nuts that you can’t click on them? I was hoping visitors would just go right into the site.
The biggest question is, does the Spry menu bar work in Safari browser, I heard there were some compatibility issues. If it doesn’t, what happens? My husband has Safari browser on one of his computers, so after his ski trip (yes, another one, they left tonight for Vermont), I’ll get him to check. If anything wacky comes up on your screen, let me know what browser you are using.
Anyway, I’m tired. No progress on the jacket, I wanted to get this site up and working before I go any further on it. There is one other issue I’d love some feedback on, and that is the contact page. There are two schools of thought here. Publishing my personal information, my address and such is thought by many to be a no-no, after all, I will eventually have my schedule posted and that’s an invite to unwanted visitors while I’m away. On the other hand, there is the school of thought that often a guild or other important person needs to send me something by snail mail, or they need to plan airfares by the closest airport, so by not putting it, which I haven’t ever on the old site, I know very annoyed program chair people will spend an hour cruising through my site and finally email me in disgust, because they can’t find my address. Any opinions here?
Your website is looking great! (And unfortunately I do still wish I could click on the pictures on the front page to see big versions and hear what you have to say about each one…..so much beautiful work! But that’s not a big deal or top priority – and I might be alone in that wish!) As far as contact info, to me it seems like most weaving teachers do put their contact info on their site (although maybe not their cell phone). Just because you’re traveling, doesn’t mean your house would be empty. And putting that info on the… Read more »
I like the new site – clean design, nothing over-fancy (ie that slows things down and makes me get impatient and just click on), good clear photos with decent detail but small enough to load quickly. The scroll worked well, I didn’t even notice I used it until I got to the bottom when it was very slightly awkward to get to the last half page. I didn’t mind no links from the photos on the front page at all as I was going in. Later, after I had looked around, there were a couple of images I had missed… Read more »
Thanks Judy, I know the couple of gallery pages are quite long, and it takes scrolling the main browser window in addition to my scroll bar. The only solution would be to make an additional gallery page, or two or three… Yep, there are a lot of images missing in the gallery, like everything I’ve done since 2005! Once finished, all the home page collage images should be in the galleries. I wanted something clean, that loads fast, it is amazing how many in the fiber community still use dial-up. Today I posted the Artwork page in the gallery. Whew,… Read more »
Hey I am allowed to ski again.
The ski season is only so long and I need to pack it in, also allows me to bond with our son!
Cheers, love
Kevin L.