The Plan:

I’ve been thinking hard about what I can reasonably accomplish in two weeks. Taking into consideration everything I’ve learned, my desire to utilize it and the full scope of the website I want to build, I could set a rather massive goal for myself containing all the pages with all the bells and whistles that would satisfy my sense of completion. However, there is the issue of time, particularly as it relates to my level of experience. I’ve spent at least 10 hours now putting together a very basic homepage (mostly in trying to get the div’s lined up right). A lot of this is learning how to work out problems without any assistance or helpful suggestions, which I see is going to be a time-consuming process of acclimation for each new technology I use and getting over the fear of messing the whole thing up (in this area, I am finding that the comment tags are perhaps the most useful tags in any language, allowing me to test for errors one little line or part of a line or any other segment at a time without erasing anything). Also, I’m finding that I want to get the pages I work on functioning perfectly, that is, I’m being a perfectionist with my design. I think this is ok, but I know I won’t be able to get the whole site up and running in perfect form by the 16th. That’s why I’ve decided to set out a goal for myself of exactly what pages and all I’m going to get done. Below is a list of all the pages I have planned for the site with what I will complete for each (maybe means I will move on to that feature if things are going very smoothly, later means I will tackle that feature after this class project)

main tabs:
HOME – complete
IMAGES – visually complete with functional library navigation for images and IMAGE/VIDEO sub-tab navigation, all available images up and accessible, slideshow capabilities (maybe—functional video viewer, keyword/search navigation)
NEWSLETTER – design structure w/subtabs (NEWS, STORIES, REVIEWS, ABOUT designed but generally empty [unless I get some of this content in on time from my collaborators]) (maybe- an rss feed) (later- searchability, archive)
STORE – empty placeholder page

auxiliary pages:
MEMBERSHIP – visually complete with functional login (w/cookie) and signup forms and working database (maybe- if possible: return-to page clicked from when login is successful)
FORUM – very basic functional bulletin board integrating with database such that login is required to post (maybe- make this look nice) (later- searchability)
QUIZ – (maybe- a few questions with functional scoring mechanism (later this will be a big feature and integrate with the database but it doesn’t seem as important right now as getting the member stuff in order)
CONTACT -- empty
ADVERTISE -- empty

I also want a good web traffic monitor in place sooner rather than later because I will definitely do some search engine optimization later on and go around trying to get linked on people’s blogs, etc. just to see what kind of response it gets.

All of the database-related stuff will obviously utilize php but I’m considering using javascript to navigate between the subtabs in the images and newsletter sections. I haven’t decided if I want to use javascript to do the slideshows or to try to use php and a database. I know how to go about the javascript but I’m generally more comfortable with php, although I really have no idea how to do this with php. This MAY have to wait until later anyway, but I’d like to figure out how to go about it while I have the resources.

I’m really interested in the search features but I’m pretty clueless as to how to set it up, so I will be asking about this in class Saturday and whether or not I tackle this part immediately depends on what I learn from that. If it’s very complex I may section this off as my next project for this site after this class project is complete.

In just this one page of going it alone, though, I am feeling a hundred times more comfortable with html and css, which I had been struggling with from the beginning. I feel like these are much harder to learn conceptually than javascript or php because they are all about the details and can only be really learned by using them extensively. I haven’t started putting together any php or javascript yet, so I may get entirely turned on my head with these, but I feel like I understand how they work so the experience of utilizing them on my own will be a different type of learning curve. I’m still very frustrated that I keep having to look up the tags, etc. to do what I want to do and I’m not always able to find them, but I am very encouraged by the fact that I am able to think up the ways to do these things and eventually figure them out.

For example, I’ve been keeping a running list of questions to ask in class, but I’ve already answered some of them for myself. I figured out how to stop the page from resizing with the window at a certain point (while remaining flexible) by using the min- max- properties in css. I also figured out by experimentation that the % width is the width of the parent element, not necessarily of the whole page, and that padding can interact with this in odd ways...