Color Theme Successfully Changed to Ubuntu Radiance (Beta Site)
As discussed in the last post, I’m beginning to update my main site’s layout and color theme. Today I was trying to apply the Ubuntu Radiance theme onto the color theme for the site. I’ve mainly focused on the window title bar where most of the colors are there.
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The first draft of the new site layout can be viewed here: beta.robbychen.com
I have just changed color theme of the site based on the Ubuntu Radiance desktop theme. In addition, I have removed calender on the site because  it doesn’t serve much purpose other than displaying it to show this month’s calender. I haven’t change the layout of the site as well as the logo because I decided to change the color theme of the site first to get an idea on how the final results will look like.
Since this is the first draft, I might change color theme of the site to something else. However, I will keep posted on the latest development of the site. You also can checkout beta.robbychen.com to see the latest site development.
First Draft of Ideas for the New Website Topic
I created the first draft for the ideas of the new website redesign. Here is the mind-map version of the ideas:
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Note that this is the first draft, which means that I would remove or add certain titles to the draft in the future. There is a to-do item that I’ve included in the portfolio section. I will add the required items into the section after I researched this topic.
If you have any advice on what should I include or not include on the new site, please leave a comment below. Thank you.
Changing Website Topic
I have not updated my main website robbychen.com since I began to blog more often. Although I got this domain last year, I haven’t used it until this semester. At first, I didn’t have any ideas what to do with this website. I decided to temperately store my class assignments. My goal for this website became more clear after I began this blog. I plan to change robbychen.com topic relevant to the topic of this blog. It will contain video tutorials for GNU/Linux and web development. It will also include all of my web development projects, as well as their source code. But first I will redesign the website to fit the new topic. I plan to complete before this semester ends.
Discovered a Bug in the Web Application
I encountered a small bug in my Computer Concepts web app while I was doing the assignment using the app. It seems to always output a forward slash in front of each single quote on the print layout table. Please refer to the following screenshot if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Forward slash bug. Click the image to enlarge
Thankfully, I found this post in the Dev Shed forum that provide a native PHP function to remove the forward slashes. I applied the function stripslashes($string) to the output value and the forward slashes are now gone.
Here is the updated source code for anyone who downloaded my last source code:
http://www.robbychen.com/cs110/worksheet_sourcecode.zip
If you find more problems while using the app, please leave a comment. I will fix it as soon as possible. Thanks.
Web Application Link added to the Homepage
I have added the link to the web app to the robbychen.com homepage. In addition, I have also enabled the link to the CS 110 Computer Concepts homepage. Right now it only has one item, the assignment aid web application. Since I created this web app, I will make a copy of this application and modify it to connect it to the database to post my future assignments for this course. This weekend I will also enable the links for other courses I’m taking this semester.
Since I believe in open source, here is the source code for the web application (NOTE: The only files that are missing in the source code are jQuery Javascript files, you can find the download links for these scripts in my last post):
http://www.robbychen.com/cs110/worksheet_sourcecode.zip
ColdFusion Site is Up
My ColdFusion course website, CA 288, is up. I borrowed some PHP code from my CA 282 course website and converted it to ColdFusion, mainly the while loop for the menu. Right now the site is NOT database-driven. It doesn’t use any SQL statement. The following are the highlights for this site:
- Whole new layout
- minimalist design
- new header image
- use FileExists function to determine the existence of the project file
- use <cfloop> to display the project number
Please go here to view this new site.
Experiment With JQuery Animation
I was experimenting with jQuery on my beta site navigation. Last night I updated the site navigation with realistic bouncing animation effect using jQuery plugin easing. Right now I’m experimenting with background image animation using jQuery plugin backgroundPosition-Effect that will probably apply to the side navigation. During my research on how to animate the background image with jQuery, I came across an interesting animation completely written in jQuery and JavaScript, no Flash technology used. If you would like to know how to use this plugin, here is a great tutorial.
The layout of the website updated again
The layout of my main website has updated once again. Here are the changes:
- Rewrote page layout CSS to accommodate Internet Explorer
- Horizontal menu now only contains this semester’s courses to accommodate 800×600 screen
As you can see, I also changed background color for each element. I plan to change background images on EACH page in the near future, too.
Redesign of the Site has been finished
New layout for the site robbychen.com has been uploaded. Here is the change log from beta site RSS feed:
- CA 278 (Web Apps using ColdFusion) page removed, planning to redo it using PHP
- CA 272 page layout updated
- Contact Form fixed
- Updated page layout for About Me
- Subscription links added: RSS, Twitter, Facebook, and Identi.ca
- The pages layout updated, now cover all the edges of the page
- Twitter link is now fixed
- Bottom navbar background updated
- The bottom navbar merged with copyright info bar
- Logo updated
- Horizontal navbar added
- The content of horizontal navbar and sidebar is now MySQL database-driven
- Background updated
New Site Launched
My new website is lunched. It’s beta.robbychen.com. On this website, you can find my latest layout design and site features that will be applied to my main site in the near future. The new site will be updated frequently. It will also have a changelog section where all of the changes (little and large) made on the site will be recorded in the section. I will also provide a separate RSS feed for this site.