This one's definitely off topic but I figure there are some Web gurus here. Well I know there is atleast one, the founder of this site

My wife wanted to start a baby website because she, and some others, didn't find the many many websites out there to truly be helpful. They felt the were geared too much around product marketing and not enough around helping people find the information they are looking for. Well am I telling everyone this? Because no it was not my idea to start a baby site, I would much rather start a control site.

But I figured this would be a good learning experience since it will be the first public website I have done and may even help me make better HMI screens. It runs basically the same Invision Board MrPLC has with varying modifications. I think the board overall is a good layout mainly because it follows Chakorules design of MrPLC. But all the other things she wants the site to have are the problems

I am more of a technical guy, kind of like in Dragnet where the guy says "Just the facts ma'am." I guess you could say this way of thinking is causing me to have a really hard time designing the home page. It definitely lacks that warm feeling she is looking for to bring people in. If I can figure the home page out hopefully the rest of it will come to me. If not, I'll be back with more questions

Anyway I figured I would get some comments, criticism, etc of what I have so far. Don't be shy, if you think it is awful please tell me. The websites name is Baby Escape or BabyEscape. I'm really not sure which one it is, guess I need to put that on my list of questions also

http://www.babyescape.com/
Thanks
TW

Cool deal. I'll check out the site as it grows. You might want to force more content into the forum to get it started and get more general info in the site. Also, the purple search page looks really bad, you might want to work on that one. Looks good all in all.

Thanks, I forgot I had the search page. That was the origonal ugly purple background

What kinds of stuff doe she want? Will she manage the website? If so, I would look at a tool like a CMS (content management system) that is WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) GUI. Like Joomla. Start with a system that you can manage the whole website, then build modules like a FORUM. Don't start with the forum then build around it like we did...start with a higher management system, then plug the forum in later. Seven years ago, they didn't have what they have now. So hind site twenty-twenty here....

MrPLC main page is soo jacked up right now. There are TOO MANY database calls. Too much custom crap to be compatible with existing commercial code and code that we write ourselves like our links script etc...

If I had to do it all over again, I would have done MrPLC with some sort of CMS system that can be managed in blocks. Joomla is my favorite so far. Here is an example that I am teaching robotics kids:

http://www.huntingtonrobotics.org/

One of the biggest draw backs for mrplc is that all the user information is mastered from the invision board login. You'll notice that most everything you do here, you can use your invision login. That didn't happen by accident. In 1999, when this website was started, that wasn't on my mind then. Seven years later, I've learned from my mistakes.

One of these days we are going to bite the bullet and make everyone re-sign back up under a new system. Just like Allen Bradley did with their Knowledge base last week. It sucks....but the days coming so we can have more flexibility of a better system out there.

She will manage it. I will look into CMS such as Joomla. I've never used any type of webpage building software. Mine have been simple for plant information and I have done them with VB.net and Notepad

The forum is only a small part though it looks like the big picture right now since it was a package and I was atleast somewhat familiar with it. Which I will tell you right now guys, there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes of MrPLC to make it what it is, and I don't know a tenth of it yet.

Won't be anything really complex. Articles, FAQs, glosery of term, calenders that offset depending on that date, etc. From there I don't know. It might last a month, it may go no where, then again she is in marketing, she might decide to really do things with it.

I'll be sure to put a link to this in our next knowledgebase gripe

Thanks
TW

Wow Chakorules, you weren't kidding about Jooma being different. Since everything on that site has to be run by the boss, figured I would try it on another site. It didn't take long at all to put together. What does everyone think about the looks of THIS one?

www.twcontrols.com

Thanks
TW

Kewl... That was fast. Your catching on. The menu system should be easy for the BOSS. I think it has everything she will need.

I have a good teacher. Where did you get your calendar or did you make it?

What calendar? The one on the robotics website? I dunno. The high school kids designed it. I just told them a few pointers and let them go.....not bad eh?

I'll ask the robotics webmaster tonight and let you know.

The robotics webmaster student said he bought it here:

http://www.easyphpcalendar.com/

Thanks for the link. I'm going to find some high school kids to finish mine or teach me

Thanks
TW
www.twcontrols.com

When I bookmark MrPLC or when I look at the MrPLC tab if firefox I see the little MrPLC icon

When I do the same with www.twcontrols.com I see the Joomla icon. Does anyone know you put which icon you wish to use?

Google

favicon

I created one in paintshop as a BMP, then renamed the extention.
It has to be a really tiny size, so it SUCKS trying to make one...one pixel at a time.....
I think I spent three days working on the one for mrplc

then upload that to your root folder in your webpage.

call it

favicon.ico

If it's not too complicated, you might could use the custom button draw feature in autocad.

It's a smiple little grid, and it saves as a .bmp

Just a thought.

I have uploaded the favicon but I'm still having trouble getting it to show. It must be something in the Joomla configuration. I'll dig around in there some more
www.twcontrols.com/favicon.ico

The funny thing is when you open the link about it does show the right icon. Just not on the normal webpages

It works for me as is.

Figured it out. I had the favicon right but I had to clear my cache before it would show up.

Thanks everyone
TW

The I icon I am working on now is in the top right of the page. www.twcontrols.com

I am having a little trouble with clarity when changing a BMP file to a JPG or GIF. The images end up looking dirty. I was just using the BMP file but someone told me that the size was too large and people on slower connections would get tired and leave before the page was loaded. I only have MS Paint to work with. If I were working with another image editor would I be able to convert these images without them distortion or am converting them in the wrong manner?


BMP - 471KB
[attachmentid=3441]

GIF - 8.17KB
[attachmentid=3442]

JPG - 21.3KB
[attachmentid=3443]

Most image editors that convert to JPEG use a compression which is about 3/4 of the original which you will see in the image quality after conversion.

I use ACDsee for quick image editing and converting. Also for batch processing photo's.
Here you can also choose the compression level when converting to JPEG.
Here is your image with the maximum quality level when converting to JPEG.
Instead of 22Kb it reduces to 73kB which is still acceptable, and the quality loss isn't that bad.

But you will never get the BMP quality when converting to JPEG.
Or you must use some professional tools like Photoshop.

By the way; I see the icon is resized on your page. This also gives "quality" loss. When using a vector image you can resize it without loosing quality, but to make one you need some skills in Photoshop for instance.

Wow that was fast, thanks PDL. I will look into ACDsee

Well unfortunately it is licensed, I am using a version that came with my digital camera.
But I am sure there are many other good freeware tools .

I find that .png graphics are a good choice.

Here's TW's bmp converted to png. (7.67k)

Here's my PNG converted through MS Paint. A bit larger than Kens at 10.3 K but pretty clear. Are all of these image types generally accepted?
[attachmentid=3448]

I find that the *.png format is accepted almost anywhere, and can be viewed with almost any browser.

The png format is accepted here and on other forums I frequent. I find that the quality of the png is much better than jpeg's.

BTW, png stands for portable network graphics, you can find out more about them here: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/

Some people though the bright red was too much and that I should tone it down. The logo color doesn't quite match but it will once I decide on a color. Also the TW Controls Inc. banner is blue in all of them but it will match the color of the one picked. I have came up with three options

Blue - http://www.twcontrols.com/index.php?option...ge&Itemid=1

Green - http://www.twcontrols.com/index.php?option...=1&Itemid=2

Red - http://www.twcontrols.com/index.php?option...ch&Itemid=5

What do you guys think?

Thanks
TW

TW I'll be as polite as I can see this link for more info.

Why not try a more neutral color for the banner and use the pastel for the icon and company header name. Maybe use the blue TW Controls and TWC but a biege header background.

Don't be polite, just come out and say it. I'm new at this and am happy with any advice

I would try BobLfoot's advice, I was distracted by the banner, and didn't pay much attention to the "meat" of the page.

Ok, I calmed the header down and took the top menu out since it was the same as the side menu. Besides the red logo and banner what do you think now?

I'm not sure how to incorporate the logo and banner yet

How about the search box at the top? Do you think it should stay or go?

Blue - http://www.twcontrols.com/index.php?option...ge&Itemid=1

Green - http://www.twcontrols.com/index.php?option...=1&Itemid=2

Red - http://www.twcontrols.com/index.php?option...ch&Itemid=5

Thanks
TW

I think I prefer the blue version.

Ok I'm switching it all to blue.

Is anyone using IE6 also seeing the newflash and poll on the right side shoved to the bottom?

Never mind on the IE6 question. This is a fixed width template and it was too wide for IE6. It is designed specifically for 1024. I am wondering if that is going to cause me trouble. Anyone still using an 800 x 600 display?

Ok got the site completely switched to blue and removed the banner completely in favor of a simple text display of the name of the company.

www.twcontrols.com

Any opinions?

Yep, quite a few actually. See for example the stats at http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Edit: about image formats:

JPEG is a lossy format great for photos where slight distortion is okay if it means a lot of saved storage space, and there aren't any sharp edges.
PNG for computer generated graphics, as it lossless and thus retains the exact color of all pixels and all sharp edges.
GIF is an older format, and it has only two ways in which it still shines: 1) support for animations, 2) backward compability
SVG is an interesting forthcoming open format for vector graphics (all the above mentioned are for bitmaps), but the support for it this far is negligible...

That's a good link. Thanks

Ultimate Web Site design:

http://www.toyota.com/vehicles/minisite/la...iser/index.html

Wow, that is a little beyond my capabilities

Hope you had the sound turned up.

Looking better TW, but still "feels" a little bland. Nothing just grabs me and make me want to dig further into the site from the home page. Maybe add some images from your place and your work for link anchors.

Yes I desperately need images on it. Trying to figure out if they should be equipment images or have people in them. I think people images would give it a warm feeling but most of the time you just see equipment. I have no digital images so need to scan images in, that is why there is only the windows image. It is going to be something else, but is just a place marker for now.

Any suggestions about what type?

Thanks for the input
TW

I've always used gif files since they scale well.

By type I meant should they be equipment with white backgrounds, equipment in plants, people?

This is proving to be much harder than designing an HMI. The operators paycheck is all that is needed to grab attention

I think a mix of machines doing as designed and some with people would be good. Might even want a landscape or two from that view you call a front porch.

Ok thanks for the input

As for the front porch some of my hunting buddies prefer to call it a tree stand

I think some neat control panels and some wired PLCs look nice too, perhaps some pneumatics.

Photo's or screencopy's from HMI or SCADA systems will look nice too I think but I don't know if you can publish them.

I liked the menu on this site:

http://www.welday.com

Look around at some other sites that are in the same business and find things that catch your eye.

This site always seems kind of dul, but might give you and idea.

I caution you on pictures of machines...There are TONS of stuff I wish I could post on MrPLC and share with all of you, however some of the stuff I work on is closely guarded. Your customers may not want pictures of their machines on your website. The first thing I do is remove the customer parts from the pictures. Only take pictures of the machine. Do not take pictures of the machine with your customers product running on the machine.

If you want to use a media clip or picture WITH your customer product on the machine, ALWAYS, ALWAYS seek a media release form from them FIRST....I recently had to remove an article, then get some new pictures then re-publish an article. I didn't have the customer parts in the photo, but our machine intergrated with their machine, and you could see a picture of their machine in the background and they wanted me to remove the picture. I did so immediatly, then got some new pictures. I also had some screen shots of an HMI and had to remove that as well...So I've been treading on some thin ice myself. In most cases, I have asked and I have to be careful what I publish.

I want to start some kind of a blog, but I would struggle without being able to post a picture of what I am talking about. That's why writting articles are getting harder and harder for me. I have to becareful the pictures I use. I also have to becareful what I say and not give away a process. I might explain something I've done, but it's something that I know has been done a zillion times by one of you guys anyway so in my opinion it's not a secret even though the customer has never seen it before...for example vision guided robotics....

Anyway, my two cents for the day.

Chako makes excellent points I learned in Photography class. Always , always, always get a release if possible. Pictures taken from public property of newsworthy activity might be the one exception to this.

Yes, very good point. I hadn't thought about that part yet