March 23, 2012

The Glue That Binds ......... Is Now In A New Bottle

Dear Old Publicans,

You may recall that I launched the Old Publicans website on July 22, 2008 and over time it has become known as "The Glue That Binds". Now it is time to put this glue into a new bottle. So I am pleased to announce that "The Glue That Binds ......... Is Now In A New Bottle".

In other words, the technology that I originally used to design, develop and implement the website is no longer supported, and it had became necessary to migrate the website to newer technology. However, instead of doing a simple migration, I decided to take this opportunity to completely redesign the website.

While the bottle (website design) has changed, the glue (website content) still remains the same and the Old Publicans website still has information on more than 900 Old Publicans, 19 School Magazines, and hundreds of photographs and other memorabilia.

This news item gives details of the new design. Simply scroll down to read about the changes.

I hope that the Old Publicans website will continue to be the glue that binds all of us together, and I look forward to your continued support, as well as, suggestions for improving this website.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to say Thank You to all of you, as without your support it would not have been possible for me to create, maintain, and operate the Old Publicans website.

With kind regards.

Administrator

Old Publicans

All about the new "Bottle"

The new Home Page

The first thing you will notice about the redesigned website is that the new home page has a fresh new look with a painting of Cantt Public School as we knew it.

You will also notice a ribbon at the top which is the new navigation structure of the website. More on that is given below. For the moment let it suffice that clicking on these buttons will take you to different sections of the website.

By moving your cursor over the image, you will be able to see the description of the various sections of the website.

So enjoy the home page before moving to the rest of the website.

The new Menu structure

Given below is the new Menu structure.

You will notice that the new Menu is ubiquitous. It will always be at the top of each and every page of the website. Not only will it be on the top of the page, but as you scroll down a long page, the menu will scroll with you. So that you can easily go to any section of the website from any page without the need to navigate back and forth.

As you move your cursor on this Menu, you will notice that various sections will open up as drop-down menus. For example when you hover over "Memories" it will show the sections within Memories.

Similarly if you move your cursor to "School Magazines", a new drop-down menu will appear giving the School Magazines available on the website.

The above mentioned drop-down menus are implemented for all section in the website. As such, this new Menu structure will allow you to easily go to any page in the website from any other page without having to go to the home page or any section heading.

The Navigation Buttons

Apart from the Menu structure explained above, you will notice a Back-Arrow, Up-Arrow, and Next-Arrow in the left side of all web pages. These buttons can be used to navigate thru the website in a logical sequence.

Clicking the Next-Arrow will take you to the next page on the same level. For example if you are viewing any news item, clicking the Next-Arrow will take you to the next news item. If you were viewing the profile page of an Old Publican of your class, clicking the Next-Arrow will take you to the profile page of the next Old Publican in the class. Similarly, the Back-Arrow will take you back.

Clicking the Up-Arrow will take you to the higher level section. For example, if you were viewing a particular magazine, clicking on the Up-Arrow will take you to the Magazine page which shows a list of magazines available. Clicking the Up-Arrow again will take you to the Memories page.

Using these Navigation buttons you can logically navigate throughout the website.

The Photograph Albums

There are hundreds of photographs on the Old Publicans website organized in different photograph albums in the Memories section or under the News & Events section.

A new slides show mechanism has been implemented to view these photographs. Simply clicking on the thumbnails will launch the slide show and you will be able to move to the next slide by clicking on the right side of the photograph and move back to the previous slide by clicking on the left side of the photograph.

Pressing the Esc key or on the bottom of the photograph will return you to the thumbnails.

At the bottom of the photograph there will be a description of the photograph contents.

The Magazine Viewer

There is a totally new Magazine Viewer that has been implemented. You will be able to flip the pages like a magazine.

A Magazine Viewer menu bar (shown below) will allow you to navigate thru the magazine as you like.

The above menu buttons are explained below.

button will show the pages in 1:1 or full resolution.

button will fit the magazine pages in the available space in the window.

buttons will zoom in or zoom out as required.

will expand to full screen mode giving better readability.

will take you to the English table of contents or the Urdu table of contents respectively. From there clicking on the name of any article will take you to that article.

Enjoy the redesigned website.