In 2007 I shouldn’t even have to reach for the Skip Intro link. Web site owners should be skipping the intro for me. Really. Flash intros: 1997. Thanks.
Until they’re fixed, here’s a running list:
And here they are again. This time I’m using an unobtrusive, object-oriented approach. The same customizations apply. The major difference between this version and the others is that you no longer need to add any script tags to the body of your web page.
What a difference a few years makes. The new script is much cleaner than the old one. The source with comments is below. Below that is the source without comments. Below that is the source without comments or the character replacement feature. With a few modifications you could whittle it down even further to fit only the parts you need for your site. I hope you find it useful.
Okay, I had this up last summer but, like a dope, deleted it when I upgraded my WordPress installation.
This is the RSS feed for harrylove.org displayed on the SIMILE Timeline. View the source of the HTML page to see how I did that part. It’s mostly lifted from the Timeline project examples. Basically, the JavaScript calls the PHP file. The PHP loads the RSS and transforms it with the XSL file into XML that the timeline can understand and then returns that back to the JavaScript. The JavaScript then renders the timeline in the browser.
Here’s a link to the source.php file and the rss.xsl file. Hack away and have fun. Of course, none of this would be possible without the work of the SIMILE group at MIT.
The Activity Report Form (aka The ARF) is an internal activity tracking application that I created for the librarians of the Health Sciences Library. The librarians need to see statistics, reports, and trends on the types of activities they engage in and the groups they interact with. The previous solution used a web based form from a third party provider that we customized. After capturing the data I was required to import the data into Excel each month and fiddle with the input and output to make it look the right way. Ugh!
Loveoirs is our family blog, a place to keep the Love memoirs. Love-oirs. Loveoirs. See? I redesign the site fairly often. At least once a year, I think. (I use “fairly often” liberally, especially considering this site has been redesigned 5 times in the last year.) It’s a chance for me to practice graphic design in a personal way, a way that reflects our family.
The MyHealth Toolkit on HealthLinks was created to address the needs of a growing number of users coming to HealthLinks looking for personal health information, a topic that HealthLinks wasn’t originally designed to cover. The requirements called for a simple, clean web site with a new style that would be easy to use on a variety of screens, including a touch-screen kiosk in the lobby of the Health Sciences Library. Like HealthLinks, the MyHealth Toolkit is a mini-portal to external content, so the point is to get users there as quickly as possible without distractions.
Sam Lai, Lai Real Estate, Ltd.
Sam is a friend of mine who needed a web site for his real estate appraisal business in Seattle. We met several times to discuss style and requirements of the site. In addition to listing his services and rates, Sam wanted an online appraisal request form that would allow customers to submit requests directly from his site.
Xanadu Star Theater, Cleveland, Ohio - Int.
Derek: No it’s not an exit. Not an exit.
David: We don’t want an exit.
Derek: No, that’s true.
David: Try this way.
Derek: I hope so. This way.
David: Wait, this looks familiar, though…it really does.
After stumbling around in the dark for the last several years I’ve decided to learn the fascinating Science of Computers from MIT’s OpenCourseWare. Up first, 6.001.
David: I don’t know, it’s in Indiana or something.
Calvary Chapel is a Christian church in Seattle, Washington. The old web site was built with static HTML, font tags, and JavaScript rollovers on the navigation images. It desperately needed a design face lift. As a member of the church, I originally volunteered my services to the staff to clean up invalid HTML and help with broken links and content updates. Shortly after work began I sat down with the senior pastor and proposed creating a small team to investigate redesigning the site from the ground up.
The New Books List on HealthLinks was my first experience using Perl to solve a real problem. In 2005 the Health Sciences Library wanted to have a simple way of listing the newest health sciences books from the web catalog on the HealthLinks web site. They also wanted to use the list of titles generated from Innovative’s Millennium product rather than have to type in the titles by hand.
Harry Love is a husband and father living in Longmont, Colorado. He is the curator and janitor of Jetrecord: The Online Logbook for Pilots.
Posts and links found on this blog are mostly concerned with the topics of web design, programming, Ruby on Rails, Twitter updates, movies, aviation, and the occasional jaunt into art, religion, politics, and humor.
Harry may be contacted by email using harry at harrylove.org.