I tried to have the drop down message happen only once per session, but it comes down everytime you return to the page. It is a dynamicdrive javascript. Could look at my script for the drop down msg box and see why it is not coming down only once per session?
The script is in the "New" section of dynamicdrive towards the bottom of the list. It is called Drop Down Content Box.
I noticed one or two things though. First the scrollbars on the homepage were custom but on the other pages, they were default (i.e. the newsletter page).
Also, I have no idea wahtsoever how to do this, or even if it would work, but you may try looking into cookies and somehow using cookies to tell if a user has already seen your dropdown box and if they have disable it. But like I said before, I have never used cookies and this was probably terrible advice . . . just a thought though!
I would agree with the above post - if you're so inclined, check out a couple of javascript cookies tutorials (cookies in javascript are unnecessarily complicated, but the above average person can comprehend them with a little study).
I would personally prefer using ASP, PHP, or another server side language over a javascript cookie though. (They end up being the same thing to your browser - but they are a lot easier to code using a server-side language.)
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Actually pardicity3 thats exactly what should be done, and it can be done very simply. IF Someone here knows how to work cookies. b/c I sure don't hehehehe
Cookies are kind of a major pain in javascript - this code below doesn't EXACTLY relate to what you want to do... but the notes I made might help!
1. get_cookie.js
Code:
//Get cookie routine by Shelley Powers
function get_cookie(Name) {
var search = Name + "="
var returnvalue = "";
if (document.cookie.length > 0) {
offset = document.cookie.indexOf(search)
// if cookie exists
if (offset != -1) {
offset += search.length
// set index of beginning of value
end = document.cookie.indexOf(";", offset);
// set index of end of cookie value
if (end == -1) end = document.cookie.length;
returnvalue=unescape(document.cookie.substring(offset, end)
)
}
}
return returnvalue;
}
2. get_visit.js
Code:
/******************************************************
This is the code that actually sets your cookie.
I have used the variable "visited" to determine whether
or not the cookie has been set...
I'm looking for the "visitedValue" variable in this
instance (however you can change it if you want-
just remember to change it later on in the code too!).
******************************************************/
function get_visit(){
get_cookie();
var visited=get_cookie("visitedValue");
if (visited){
// do nothing
}
else{
/******************************************************
For the addtime variable below, one month (31 days) of
milliseconds would be calculated like so:
(31 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000) OR 2678400000.
So you can use either:
addtime=(31 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000) // 1 month
OR:
addtime=2678400000 // 1 month
******************************************************/
addtime=(31 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000) // 1 month
/******************************************************
The calculation below gets the current time and adds
on what you calculated for the expiration date...
******************************************************/
expdate = new Date()
expdate.setTime(expdate.getTime() + addtime)
expdate = expdate.toGMTString()
/******************************************************
The part below adds an expiration date to the cookie,
making it "persistent". If you wish for the cookie to
expire as soon as the browser is closed, simply
take out this part:
expires=" + expdate;
and don't forget to replace it with a closing
" (double quote).
Something else useful- if you want to cookie to work
in subdirectories, change the line below to this:
document.cookie="visitedValue=true; expires=" + expdate + "; path=/;";
Also note that here is where the cookie's
"visitedValue" variable is set.
******************************************************/
document.cookie="visitedValue=true; expires=" + expdate;
/******************************************************
The part below determines what you want to do after
you set the cookie (assuming it wasn't already set).
******************************************************/
// do something here- call a function or whatever
}
}
3. delete_cookie.js (optional)
Code:
function delete_cookie(){
if (document.cookie != "") {
thisCookie = document.cookie.split("; ")
expireDate = new Date
expireDate.setDate(expireDate.getDate()-1)
for (i=0; i<thisCookie.length; i++) {
cookieName = thisCookie[i].split("=")[1]
document.cookie = "visitedValue=" + cookieName + ";expires=" + expireDate.toGMTString()
}
}
alert('You are now logged out!')
}
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Former ASP Forum Moderator - I'm back!
If you can teach yourself how to learn, you can learn anything. ;)
The basic layout is clean and appealing; the header graphic is very nice, only a bit of a shame that it inhibits viewing the site correctly at anything less then 800x600, but hey.
I would like to suggest though to create a little more uniformity in your navigation; there are buttons to the left, text links, buttons at the end of the starting page... it would be clearer to stick to one type of appearence, at least for the main navigation.
My suggestion is about changing some of the colours...
All the buttons that have black writing on a red button are really hard on the eyes (hard to read quickly) I know they're the school colours (or at least, that's what it appears to be) but you have to make your site nice to look at..
Try changing the font colour (on the buttons) to white...
Other than that - the site looks pretty good (especially for a frontpage site)
I thinkk the site looks pretty decent. There does seem to be a bit of a problem with the pre-loading of the images for the buttons (Frontpage coding). When you hover over, say, the "Administration" button there is a lag before the mouseover effect is visable. This is most noticable on a dial-up connection. This lag before the mouseover effect appears applies to all of the buttons.
The reason for this is that when you mouseover the button (first time visiting), that is the first call to the server made for the second image. Thus, the mouseover effect isn't visible until the second image is loaded. To get around this you can make a call to the server from the <head> section of your page for the second image. This way all the images are loaded when the page is loaded and the mouseover effect for the buttons is immediate.
One simple way to do this is to add something like the following to the head section of your pages:
Change the bolded part above to the path to your image to be seen when the mouse hovers over your button. You add images to the pre-load by changing both occurances of "image1" above to "image2" and so on. You must also change your path to reflect each image to be pre-loaded.
Aside from that, one final suggestion is that you might want to use CSS to add hover effects to your text links, such as on the left. That's no biggy though, simply a suggestion.
Overall, nice looking site. Are you building it by yourself or do you have students involved? Nice work .
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boxer_1
CodingForums Moderator
"How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?"
I'll address one of the issues you asked me about in your PM here. As I stated in my reply, thesse questions are best addressed in the open forum as opposed to asking questions directly via PMs..
Here's what I was referring to when I mentioned adding CSS to your links. To add the hover effect to all of your textual links, simply add the boleded part below to the <head> section of your pages:
You'll need to change the values (colors, font-size, font-family, etc.) to suit your needs. Just paste it into the head section of one of you pages and preview it so you can see what you need to change. For the colors, you can simply write in the color you'd like as opposed to the way I did it above. For example, you coul just write color: red; as opposed to #ff0000;. You could create an external style sheet and call the style to each page like this:
However, we'll stick with adding the CSS as described above to avoid confusion by trying to do too much too fast .
I will give further explaination about pre-loading later on as I'm short on time right now. Maybe another member can give a clear explaination/example of pre-loading in the meantime. Good luck .
Edit: After further thought, I think we should simplify things to avoid confusion. Although you should define all stated of your links (active, visited, etc.), to achieve the 'Hover' effect (which is essentially what you're after, all you need is this:
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