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a little html help?

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    #16
    Re: a little html help?

    Pat - thank you.

    Pete - Business communication can and should be about understanding issues fully, using respectful language, and generally avoiding barriers to understanding.

    When you say something is "wrong" as a blanket statement, you actually run the risk of even degrading A5. It makes a newbie like me think "What? You're kidding right? I can't put two different kinds of elements on one page and format them to display correctly?" I don't buy that.

    That said, being a grownup, I wait until I'm not a wee bit PO'd at someone's tone and read the substance again. What I believe you're trying to say is that there might be a better, more reliable way to achieve my goal. So, I am watching the videos of the Alpha U stuff and mulling over a View based Grid that references both - looking at what's available for formating options, etc.

    So - even though I really kinda wanna clock you one for your imperious attitude (and someone who says he does't care about back slapping cameraderie should be able to handle that statement and get over it!), I thank you nonetheless.
    Last edited by WendyWelton; 04-23-2011, 04:08 PM.
    Wendy Welton
    Architect
    past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

    http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

    Comment


      #17
      Re: a little html help?

      Originally posted by WendyWelton View Post
      Pete - you said in an email to me at one point "I'm not into the back slapping buddy thing".
      It is odd that people publish private emails or parts of them just like that to everybody.

      I suppose you did ask Peters opinion before you decided to do this.

      Comment


        #18
        Re: a little html help?

        Ken

        You are correct, and I've edited that out.
        Wendy Welton
        Architect
        past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

        http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

        Comment


          #19
          Re: a little html help?

          Wendy, sorry for the delay. I just got back from a 12 hour drive from LA to Bay Area. 4.5 hours was just getting OUT of LA - Irvine to where 101 hits the coast and traffic clears.

          The reason your bullet points stick out to the left is one of your many CSS files is setting a default for the UL CSS tag. Its the one at http://www.afhp.co/css/PlanImages/style.css. Remove the setting for PADDING and it will instantly fix all bullet points.
          Steve Wood
          See my profile on IADN

          Comment


            #20
            Re: a little html help?

            Steve

            Thanks. I think I had that set to 0 for padding so my images in detail views would appear "full bleed". So, I guess the task for me now is to figure out why those content areas are using that CSS, which was intended only for those plan pages.

            Thanks - I'll try to follow the breadcrumbs on that - or maybe there's another way to make the plan images behave. I think part of my education at the moment is to really understand that CSS decision path that happens under the hood.

            A totally irrelevant aside, for the general amusement of anybody who likes horror movies and stops to look at train wrecks:

            I actually found yesterday also that I didn't have the UL in my main CSS set to any kind of inside or outside and any padding or margin. No idea why one content area was behaving and others not, but there you have it. And for at least a brief period of time, "correcting" that made the items on the menu bar space themselves out a lot more on some pages, but not all.

            Anyway, in the process of pushing and shoving to try and make that page with grids and content work, I kinda blew the whole thing up - had 5 stacked grey bars under the menu bar - got out, restored prior CSS, did lots of other foolishness - eventually got some funky error and it wouldn't run at all. I had to resort to a zipped backup and very carefully put the day's updated data files (16 total man & woman hours worth of work) for the plans back into it - carefully redo other things...

            So - it's an adventure. I do believe what I was trying to do can be done if one has a clue, but it sure did get me in a boatload of trouble! So, for now, having looked at Walmart for that box of clues (they're out of stock), we're not going there again. Now that I've spoken my mind to Pete about life in general, on this particular issue I may just have to send brownies to the other side of the world and establish a little back slapping camaraderie. I've been known to bake my way into or out of various things!

            OK - I'm watching the Alpha U stuff - day 2 break one is over - back to it Wendy - and stop causing trouble while your at it (she says to herself).
            Wendy Welton
            Architect
            past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

            http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

            Comment


              #21
              Re: a little html help?

              What Wendy really needs is a simple solution that includes an image and content, side by side, where the image alternates flush left to right per record. That is what she is trying to achieve, and it is common on other websites. She is using my Framework which includes content management, but that both helps and complicates things in this case since this particular behavior is not build in.

              Its possible a Grid can do this, if you can tell it to automatically alternate image left to right; it is worth a shot to try to make it work. It is more likely a little code on the A5W page will make it work, pulling data direct from the db and using code to tell the image/content to alternate left to right.

              When proposing solutions, need to keep in mind what the developer wants to accomplish - big picture as well as detail.

              EDIT: I see there is lots of advice on doing this with CSS. I Googled "css alternate image left to right".
              Last edited by Steve Wood; 04-23-2011, 06:29 PM.
              Steve Wood
              See my profile on IADN

              Comment


                #22
                Re: a little html help?

                Wendy - then you can fix it ONLY for the content areas by going in to http://www.afhp.co/css/theme/default/style.css and go to the box1 area (the style you happen do be using for the content), and add a line like this:

                .box1 li {
                margin-left:20px;
                }

                That will indent all of the bullet points but only within those content areas.
                Steve Wood
                See my profile on IADN

                Comment


                  #23
                  Re: a little html help?

                  Originally posted by Steve Wood View Post
                  What Wendy really needs is a simple solution that includes an image and content, side by side, where the image alternates flush left to right per record. That is what she is trying to achieve, and it is common on other websites.
                  Bingo. Thank you for that clarity. I'm a wordy girl.

                  Originally posted by Steve Wood View Post

                  She is using my Framework which includes content management, but that both helps and complicates things in this case since this particular behavior is not build in.

                  Its possible a Grid can do this, if you can tell it to automatically alternate image left to right; it is worth a shot to try to make it work. It is more likely a little code on the A5W page will make it work, pulling data direct from the db and using code to tell the image/content to alternate left to right.

                  When proposing solutions, need to keep in mind what the developer wants to accomplish - big picture as well as detail.
                  Yes, and not just left to right, but full width paragraphs mixed in. I'm a woman, it's my job to want things JUST SO. ;-)

                  I tried paragraphs - I can't remember if it was the content areas, grid images or both - but they don't seem to know they are tall, got treated like single lines, with stuff on top of stuff. I tried tables - that worked better, but I still had quite a bit of odd alignment stuff - things were in the right general location, but inconsistent alignments and general sloppiness - particularly along the right. And then I blew it all up. "oh that".

                  I am intrigued by the notion of a View type Grid that accesses both my plans table and the content table - where the code that places things is tucked away safely, and changing text or images is point-and-click. Maybe I have a couple of grids that are basically templates for the 2 or 3 variations I might need - arrangement of the left-right - under - right-left maybe via Freeform stuff? I'm watching the vids and thinking.

                  One of the reasons I want to figure this out in a way that requires little fussing for each page - next challenge will be pages for my builders that have their blurb and one signature image, their preferred plans (a grid list, they select from my plans) and their gallery (another grid, but where they can add records and upload images (your automatic folder sorting thingy is going to come in handy for that part).

                  These guys have big thumbs, little time and less patience. Some of them have finally switched from faxes to email. I don't think they can handle even putting an image in the way the template content has it.
                  Wendy Welton
                  Architect
                  past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

                  http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

                  Comment


                    #24
                    Re: a little html help?

                    Originally posted by Steve Wood View Post
                    Wendy - then you can fix it ONLY for the content areas by going in to http://www.afhp.co/css/theme/default/style.css and go to the box1 area (the style you happen do be using for the content), and add a line like this:

                    .box1 li {
                    margin-left:20px;
                    }

                    That will indent all of the bullet points but only within those content areas.
                    Aha! Thank you.
                    Wendy Welton
                    Architect
                    past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

                    http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

                    Comment


                      #25
                      Re: a little html help?

                      I'm a woman, it's my job to want things JUST SO. ;-)
                      Then life as a Developer must be getting me in touch with my feminine side.

                      I bet this can be done in a single grid. There is the concept of DATA and ALTDATA rows. That is how the grid allows you to alternate colors in each other record. So trick is to get the right CSS in tot the DATA and ALTDATA tags.
                      Steve Wood
                      See my profile on IADN

                      Comment


                        #26
                        Re: a little html help?

                        Wendy,

                        The CKEditor itself has the ability to assign template layout to your content area. Your content in this particular case is a static one-off page. Presently I don't think your current page looks clean enough, it's a little choppy. Given that, here are some thoughts:

                        1) Provide ONE wt_content() area on your page and use one of CKEditor's layout templates to design the entire page, placing text and images where you want. See the attached image showing where CKEditor stores templates.

                        2) CKEditor also allows you to quite nicely include an image in-line with text content. The picture of me on this page www.ialpha5.com/framework_v3 is an example. The CKEditor controls allow you to set that image flush left, flush right, center and to cause text to flow around it, hug it, etc. This is all built in to the editor. See the same image to show where CKEditor controls images - remember there are three tabs on the Images dialog.

                        3) Design the page in any modern editor, like Dreamweaver, then drop the HTML in to the content area so it is in the database and can be edited from Content Areas.

                        4) Use a Grid, see note below.

                        5) I have an update to my wt_content() function that might help. It allows you to stack multiple content areas on top of each other, with a separator between each. So you would create multiple content areas, then stack them. See the second attached image to show where I have content stacked.

                        I agree with what might have been said or implied in this thread that the content should come from a database. The Content Areas we are talking about IS in the database. If you were creating a list of homes with text content for each home, and where you have multiple homes to display, (almost) definitely a grid. However I have used hand-coded output where required.

                        Whether a grid is used or not depends on what you want to accomplish, and the quickest most flexible path. Grids are good at displaying repetitive data from at database, filtering, effective use of IRF's etc. But here you are designing a one-off static page that is not exactly symmetrical. In this case it is often easier to design the page without a grid. But it still depends on where one's skill resides. A grid is just a tool.
                        Last edited by Steve Wood; 01-10-2013, 06:07 AM.
                        Steve Wood
                        See my profile on IADN

                        Comment


                          #27
                          Re: a little html help?

                          Steve - problem is, I want my images to come directly from my plans table, where they already live, already know what design name, what page to send someone to upon click etc - that's why I was trying to use grids. I've mastered putting images on pages years ago - I hand coded all the content on my old web site.

                          So, rather than make a content area hold an image, I think I need to make a grid hold both content and the plan reference via the image.
                          Wendy Welton
                          Architect
                          past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

                          http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

                          Comment


                            #28
                            Re: a little html help?

                            I can see it in principle, will almost certainly need some helping in getting there. I'm actually going to just do my content pages via the template and traditional images for now - want to go live to at least my subscription builders on Monday. So, I have to discipline myself to stop playing and just "git er done" for now. Then I'll dig into the more elegant solution that leads to my builders pages.
                            Wendy Welton
                            Architect
                            past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

                            http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

                            Comment


                              #29
                              Re: a little html help?

                              I want my images to come directly from my plans table, where they already live, already know what design name, what page to send someone to upon click etc
                              Whether you use a grid or page layout, the images need to be told where to go when someone clicks on them. The problem with using a grid, as I look at your sample page, is that you do not have rows of data that evenly repeat - you have:

                              text | image
                              text
                              image | text
                              text
                              text | image

                              Add to that, how are you going to filter the grid to pull those two specific images, and text values from the database? You will have to add a flag to the table marked .T., and filter by that to tell it to include them on this page.

                              Then you have to figure out how to alternately configure each row to be "text | image" or "text" or "image | text". (I think I can do this with CSS and a flag in the table.)

                              Or you might instead have ONE grid row, designed in Freeform probably; but then that one row in the table has to include BOTH images and all of the text, in separate fields.... and by then it is the same as just creating a static page, no grid.

                              These are just some thoughts as I look at your challenge, I could be missing something.

                              ---

                              As an aside, I think I will modify my wt_content() function to pull content (including images) from ANY database table, and include any filter. That may not be a perfect soln here, but will come in handy in similar situations.
                              Steve Wood
                              See my profile on IADN

                              Comment


                                #30
                                Re: a little html help?

                                Steve,

                                Yeah - I see what you mean. Well, for now I'm just going to do pages and hand code the links etc. I have other dragons that are more important to slay.

                                Thanks to everybody for your thoughts. I'll be back to this one at some point.
                                Wendy Welton
                                Architect
                                past & future Alphaholic - deliberately falling off the wagon!

                                http://www.artformhomeplans.com/

                                Comment

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