Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 16:37:21 -0700
Reply-To: Lee Roesner <paradigm@ALLEGRAPRINTING.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Lee Roesner <paradigm@ALLEGRAPRINTING.COM>
Organization: PARADIGM GRAPHIC DESIGN
Subject: Re: Organizing Vanagon Maintenance Information
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Tom, your right - dynamic is the only way to go...
I would offer my design/webpage and visual org skills but it would only
be worth it if it was 98% dynamic and I do not have the knowledge to do
that part. The question would then be how much structure vs freeform
info. For instance when submitting:
Choose a category from a drop down menu (engine)..and then subcatagory
(fuel injection) even "add catagory"...until you get to or create the
appropriate "place" so we can accurately find this info fast when you
need it. A Bentley outline would do it too.
Then to submit your info you would have a simple form to fill out such
as: Title, Subtitle, Short Overview. Then Picture 1, associated text,
Picture 2, associated text and so on...
Then, finding and viewing this info can be adjusted, perfected and
redesigned as often as necessary, but the content needs to be associated
with fields in a database or it will grow into an uncontrolled monster
with heavy maintenance.
Anyone out there with database skills?
Lee
--
Lee Roesner
Paradigm Graphic Design & Web Development
710-B Landwehr Road
Northbrook, IL 60062
Phone 847-509-8704
Fax 847-480-5701
PORTFOLIO: http://www.roesner.net
THE B WORD: http://www.thebword.com
Date: Thu, 22 May 2003 13:46:35 -0400
From: "Forhan, Thomas" <Thomas.Forhan@MAIL.HOUSE.GOV>
Subject: Re: Organizing Vanagon Maintenance Information
Steve,
Thanks for your offer. I could do the outline, but I have to admit I am
really worried about the bigger question: maintenance of a site like this,
and would think we would be better off if we could get some buyin from more
people on the various lists.
One thought is - for intial setup- to seek volunteers, i.e., somebody agrees
to look for BTDT on "power windows" for instance, maybe adds their own
experience, and puts together a starter page of posts on that item in the
Bentley index. Once that is established, it can go dynamic: if you look at
the bottom of the pages on Audi maintenance that I cited, people can
dynamically add things to the page. See http://greenspun.com/com/tricks.html
. They actually could post directly into the bottom of the relevant page.
For long term maintenance, there would be three tasks: removing
inappropriate posts, moving new posts from the bottom and up into the right
place on the specific page, and maybe linking how to photos into text when
the writer has supplied them.
What do people think? Would this work?
Tom F.
