Welcome to the Web Design and Development Group home page!
The Web Design and Development Group is a Google Group and also has a Facebook presence. We have long awaited setting up a website presence, just simply too busy to do so. But now its time is nearing, as I trouble-shoot this themed layout design.
The New WDADGTM Theme
This theme employs best web design practices for standard layout sizes using a standard 1000 pixels total width for the actual presntation area. Many designers settle with 999, 998 or 968-960 pixel width to ensure that users with 1024 pixel wide screen displays can view the entire width of the presentation. However, I will argue that they can. The side scroll bar may appear in a few modern computer browsers, but it simply shows up to annoy the user. Am I really going to fret over a couple of pixels when most morden computers are equipped with at least a high-definition resolution display, or better?
Dubbed "Abducted", this design offers some flexibility with single, double and triple column designs centered on one theme. Because of the constraints of the three column layout format, it is necessary to push the width restraints for modern design for lower resolution monitors and still look presentable in Hi-Def or better resolutions (without looking too much like we are still in the stone age).
The new Abucted design theme has three main parts; the header, the main section, and the footer. Additionally, the main section can be broken into the desired number of columns to address any particular content challenge.
Our single column design is specifically well suited for larger sized low resolution photography or just to use for large font format textual content, to highlight instructions or contractual agreements for high readability.
The dual column design will split up the main sextion to utilize a menu area, which could optionally used for terminology or a sidebar, should that be required.
The triple column design further spits up the presentation to allow for small badges, member or sponsor advertising.
Graphics
Please note that this theme is not for sale, nor will it be given away. Please do not pirate artistic and/or intellectual works. We will be happy to tell you how we made it once we are done and you can make one for yourself that better reflects your character, personality, professionalism and/or business brand. Or optionally consider hiring one of our listed member web designers and developers to create your worldwide web masterpeice for you.
Because of the limitations of the domain name system, and because we couldn't get a shorter name, the logo has been changed to reflect our new domain & branding. I may run a new contest to replace this temporary trademark should no one care for the update. I don't particularly care for it, myself, but our domain dictates how the brand should represent, so a change is required.
The background graphics used were taken from my photographs when I was abducted and taken aboard an alien vessel. Those little "Grays" didn't realize that I had my Android with me...
Background Imagery
OK, all kidding aside, the page graphics were generated by a fantastic little tool called Filter Forge 2. Follow the link to get the new copy of this fantastic seamless tile engine. Heck, I just clicked it and purchased the new version 3 edition of Filter Forge Pro myself, though I should note that all the images generated to make this site used the full featured time limited trial edition.
Though you may see seams on the edges of the presentation area for this page, and the other page designs, I may have a couple of work-arounds for that which I might employ once I get other things addressed. I prefer to build a design that elder browsers can be happy with before advancing the design to a whole new level which will break the elder browsers. Otherwise it gets too hard to answer all the problems of just a version or two ago in a browser's life.
The header background image file changes according to whether the layout required/selected is for a single, double or triple column design. The main section background also changes according to layout. It is possible to change the background for the menu and content area individually, but there seems no real point to this since it would only create more background image calls, and fewer larger files usually offer smaller graphics load totals than a bunch of smaller graphic files when totaled together. Plus, in the long run, yet more calls tends to slow the server and could create a psuedo resource load in peak page delivery scenarios. Finally, The footer background image will always remain the same for all layouts.
Argh, that seam IS unsightly, isn't it? Back to the drawing board... OK, that's fixed... NOT. I guess I need to go ask the WDADG what I'm doing wrong, again. But that's no problem, that's what we do, help each other out. It's tougher for freelancers because we don't have fellow employees to bounce things off of. This is our community to fill that gap.
Content Management System
I am entirely fed-up with CMSes which all the sudden have security holes, and then when the new patched version of the software that fixes these issues is released, it won't run in my web hosting environment. I am anxious to try a few new ones, now. But I will check these out on a different domain and see which works best for the group. Member input is encouraged.
This is the end, this IS the end.