script.aculo.us Slide Show

My client, Terra Nova Pools, wanted to add a new page to their site that would display a looping slide show of before and after pictures of their clients’ pools. I decided to implement this page using this solution that relies on the script.aculo.us javascript library to fade a series of div tags in and out sequentially. The solution worked well with the exception of one small glitch – the screen seemed to jump between slides in FireFox (see comments on page above). I solved this by setting the position attribute for all slide divs to absolute with the following line of css:

div.slide { position: absolute; }

You can see the results at: http://www.terranovapools.com/clients/before-and-after/

I chose this solution because I knew I could rely on the script.aculo.us library to support a wide array of browsers as well as allow me to use web standards to ensure that the page would degrade nicely for users on mobile devices or older browsers. I had previously used Dynamic Drive’s ultimate fade in javascript slide show for the site’s home page, but that did not work at all in Safari and required defensive coding to be able to degrade nicely.

Terra Nova Pools Site Launched!

My most recent project has been to create the first web site for Terra Nova Pools

My most recent project has been to create the first web site for Terra Nova Pools, a swimming pool design and construction company based in Orange County (CA). I launched the site a few days before the client’s deadline of Oct 1st, 2006.

I’ve been really excited about this project for a lot of reasons. Firstly, it’s the only project outside of this site that I have done without partnering with a design team (“Damn it Jim, I’m a programmer not a designer”). It’s also the first time that I’ve been responsible for the search engine optimization, and the result is that it is some of the cleanest XHTML and CSS code I’ve ever written. I’ll add the site to my portfolio soon and include details about the technologies I chose while implenting the site.

CSS Tabs Made Easy

There’s a lot of web standards-based css tab menus out there, but I have to say I’m pleased with this one by Ian Andolina because it dropped into my application and worked right away. It took me just a couple of minutes to change the font and coloring, but other than that, it was a breeze.

Though I had a little trouble with Adam Kalsey’s own tabbed menu, his page lists several alternatives (which is where I found Ian’s above).