Web Things to Do Next

Web Opac things to do:

• Work with opacmenu.html, mainmenu.html
  
• Use opac-gray-map.htm as base
• Add isbn to dropbox
• Check for any other additions to dropbox

• Revise the advanced search kind of pages (Eng, Span)
  
• Advanced Keyword
• Srchmod.html, too
• Remove everything from dropboxes except:
  
  • Any field
    
  • Author
    
  • Title
    
  • General subject
    


• Globally replace the date

Libweb things to do:

• W3 links page (done)
  
• Begin the /help/ pages
• Ask
• Guides
• Finish the FAQs
• Check to see where to put in folder structure
• Check links to reflect

Spanish Opac

After an email exchange with Teresa and Jonathan B, I solicited translations of the English Opac new look page from several people. Although we leaned toward one particular translation, upon the advice of Tina Buck, I asked Susan Thomason to have a final look. She consulted with Richard, who said we ought to wait until the College decides how to handle the Spanish language translation of the ACC Web site.

Since we've had a Spanish Opac for 5 years, I didn't think this would be an optimal solution for us. So, I've changed that part of the Opac page to a list similar to what we now have, thus, cowardly circumventing the problem.

The page can be seen in the staging directory at
http://alicat.austincc.edu:2082/opacmenu_spi.html

Continuing with E-Resources pages conversion

I've modified the extant redesigned pages with the recommendations of the cmte:

• AtoZ list (AtoZ-new.htm)
  
• Browse by Subject (SubGen.htm)
• Research Shortcuts (Shortcuts.htm)

I am continuing to working with the other pages:

• Online E-Books (ebooks-new.htm)
• Recommended Web Pages (w3Links.htm)

It occurs to me that I need to begin a table of old vs new page names for our reference.

We need to begin to think about the template for the Research Shortcut pages. I really hate to abandon the collage graphic on the left of the current pages. I did work hard on those and think they bring something to the page.

I did mock up one Shortcut page, Anthropology/Geography with the graphic and I like it. Maybe others will, too.

PostNote: The individual FAQ pages are coming along nicely now that I have a routine going. But, that is in the HELP section.

Adjusting to the insertion of Know How logo on Guides

After receiving information from Teresa that she had inserted the Know How logo into all of the study guides but hadn't made backup copies, this is what I did/am doing:

• Informed the Web Cmte that I had backup copies.
• Used Bulk Rename to rename all the index.htm and the other copy to
• index-apr06.htm
• filename-apro6.htm
  
• Note: unfortunately, unlike Autoreplace which can replace text within all selected folders, Bulk Rename must work with one folder at a time to replace filenames. However, it was easy to set up what was to be replaced.
• Used suffix replace (which inserts a string as a suffix before the .extension) to insert "-apr06" into the selected files in a folder.
• Then, just opened each folder, selected the index and copy, and clicked Rename. Went very quickly.

However, we now had/have another issue -- the unsophisticated look of the colored former header graphics [maroon #9c3952] [green #006300] next to the inserted Know How graphic with it's own color [#0098d9] which did not harmonize at all.

It seems to me that replacing the old graphic with a black and white graphic could be the solution, so

• I brought a couple of the old graphics into the graphics program I use to see if I could find a close matching font to use.

• After several tries, I found that Futura XBlk BT worked best and toned down the stark black by changing to a font color of #404040.
• There is still the issue of the serif "library.austincc.edu" on top of the Know How graphic which means that we have three separate fonts in a header, but that serif font has always looked odd and no one seems to mind except me.

• I have made two replacements and now need to seek the opinion of the Web Cmte.

FAQ Pages further thoughts

In looking at the FAQ list page, the green box with the header "Categories" seemed superfluous , so I simply deleted it -- rather, I commented it out just in case it is better to have it.

I experimented with putting all of the FAQs for a category on one page, but it really did not work well. So, I guess we will continue to have them one to a page.

I am experimenting with having links to related FAQs at the end of the featured FAQ. Of course, we have always linked to other resources within FAQs.