For this task I wrote an about me page and a blog post.

Site

Broadcast tools allow you to speak to a community. Community tools allow users to respond in some way.

Paul discusses blogs, podcasts, and email newsletters. Blogs just publish content to users but can allow feedback through comments. Podcasts create a more personal connection between the host and the user and are somewhat portable as they can be downloaded onto mp3 players. Email newsletters get content to users without them having to check on a site, and often they cause a user to visit a site.

Paul discusses forms of feedback such as ratings, reviews, and comments.  Mailing lists, forums, and chat rooms allow users to interact with each other. He recommends different tools for different sizes of communities because it takes a certain size community for some tools to be successful. A successful community needs dedicated members and needs to be active enough to attract new members. Paul suggests starting a community by adding ratings then adding other tools as a community grows.

I think both community and broadcast tools can be difficult to run. Broadcast tools require content to be created and careful wording to keep a consistent tone over time. Community tools allow users to create some of the content, but often require a lot of moderation.

I recieve email newsletters from several companies. I like them because I can quickly see site updates without having to check the site regularly. The company probably hopes I will visit their site/store based on the information in their newsletters.

I also participate in online communities (mailing lists, forums, and chatrooms). They make it easy to discuss a specific topic and get information from more experienced/knowledgeable members. Most of the communities I’m a part of are to discuss a specific topic. I think they were probably created by people who wanted to discuss a topic and wanted to fill a void by creating a place to do it. Sometimes people create new communities because an existing community excludes them. I think people who run communities probably feel they benefit from the community or feel they need to do it for the good of the community.

I knew originally I wanted to make a personal site to display doll related stuff. In the end, I decided to include a section for artwork too since I would be including the doll project I’m working on (though I don’t have anything about this up on my site atm). I want my site to be a place where my friends can keep up with what I’m working on and make comments.
I found WordPress really easy to install and use, especially since we were already using it to write in our blogs before working on our own sites. I chose to use PageLines for my theme because it was really basic but easily customizable since it’s a drag and drop theme.
The most important plugin I used was NextGEN Gallery. It made it easy to upload large numbers of photos and sort them into albums. Some plugins I wanted to use and a PageLines section used NextGEN as a source of images.
I modified some PHP and CSS but didn’t make my own from scratch. I used CSS to make minor changes like color and changing margins and padding. I used PHP to change what information was displayed. I mostly found plugins that had code which did what I wanted and got them to fit in with my site or modified parts of my site to work that way. I made some page templates, but just created a basic template with code, which would then be customized with PageLines template editor in the WordPress interface. This made it harder to include some plugins in pages, but I wanted all of my pages to match.
I definitely plan to keep running the site after this class is over. I think mostly I will just keep the blog up to date with projects I work on (which I will hopefully have more time for during the summer). I also would like to make my own theme sometimes, just to have cleaner and more familiar code, since I feel I don’t need all the options provided by my theme.

For this task, I worked on making my home page display some welcome text and recent posts. Since I’m using a theme that customizes my templates, I couldn’t just make a custom template to display the post loop. I found a plugin called Mini Loops that allows me to insert post loops using shortcodes. Then I customized it to match the format of  my blog page.

For this task I worked on my logo and made some css changes. I changed the colors of site elements from greys to pinks and reds. I changed the color of titles and added a border under them. I also modified the css of the navigation so that the current page is a different color (before it was the same as the hover color).  Try visiting a subpage in the navigation to see how the color changes.

http://shuichon.com/

My second task was to add some image galleries.

I uploaded images with NextGEN gallery and sorted them into albums which can be seen here (album with sub-albums) and here (album of galleries). The individual gallery pages (such as this one) display the images using NextGEN Scroll Gallery. This was the best looking slider plugin that used NextGEN, but it isn’t responsive (the rest of my site is). Eventually, I would like to modify this plugin to use NextGEN (and maybe have a carousel of thumbnails), but I probably will wait to do it in the summer.

Mythology page

I was really excited to start working on my site, and installed WordPress several weeks ago to try out themes. I’ve picked a theme but haven’t finished setting up my site or customising colors. Instead I focused on my last task: creating a profile section for my dolls.

You can see the page here.

I have decided on the PageLines framework for my blog, which has some custom post types/taxonomies set up. One of these is called boxes and is what I’ve used on this page. I created two box sets, one called My Dolls and one called Visiting Dolls (for my sister’s dolls). I had to edit the php code which displays boxes so that it will display the title of the sets. I added dolls to the appropriate set and included the photo to use, the text to display, and the page to link to.  I added a css class to the boxes on this page so that I could center the text under them. I also had to install the plugin Post Types Order to reorder the boxes.

I also created the individual profile pages that are linked to.

The content portion of the page is just written in the WP page editor. The photos are the same as used in the boxes for the Profiles page.

I wanted to have a way to navigate between doll’s profiles. PageLines came with a carousel section that uses NextGen Gallery images as a source, but it only linked images to the fullsize image. I copied and renamed the carousel code to create a new section. I changed the php code that generated the list of images, so now they can link to pages using the method described here (I haven’t added error catching yet). I also added names (description text) under each image,  rounded the images with CSS, and changed the CSS to display the images even if javascript is disabled. I still could edit the css to make the names display differently when the screen is resized, as right now they overlap.

I also wanted each of the profile pages to have a gallery of all tagged images of the doll. I didn’t like how NextGen default template looked, so I created my own. I decided to use PageLine’s carousel as a base again and edited the php file to create a gallery using tags entered in the section’s settings. This time the images link to the fullsize image.

I still have 14 dolls not added because I need to find/take decent photos of them, but I thought this section looks complete enough to display, even if it is missing some content.

I hadn’t used a content management system before this class, but since I’ve used MediaWiki and WordPress (obviously..). I know wordpress.com hosts blogs, and wordpress.org distributes and supports the wordpress software. I think the WordPress Foundation is just a group that promotes the WordPress software?

Open source means that when a software is released, the source code is also provided. It doesn’t mean free software. WordPress was released under GPLv2. Basically, the code includes the liscense, and any derivations of it that are released must also include the liscense. The liscense doesn’t mean that code has to be provided to everyone, just the people that the work is distributed to. That’s why commercial themes and plugins can exist.

I’ve never heard the term ‘field of usability’, but usability is how easily/efficiently users can use something. User feedback/surveys help determine usability. Usability can also be tested by having users perform tasks on a site. It can be measured through the time/clicks it takes to complete a task and how easily the interface can be remembered/learned.

Created using Color Palette Picker

I think colors and textures can be used to draw attention or blend in an element of a website. On my site, I want to use colors close to #cc3366. It’s not my favorite color, but I’ve always thought it looked nice. I want my site to look polished and clean, but also seem warm. I want it to have a clean white background with some colored areas, like links, the backgrounds of elements, and the footer.

Elements of the home page (15 points):

• Logo 2
• Navigation 3
• Search 1
• Blog – Latest posts 5
• Contact Info 1
• Subscribe buttons 3

I’m not sure if this will be everything on the homepage or not. Some parts might end up inside another part like if I make a contact page and link to it in the navigation menu. I’m not sure how I would pick a theme to give attention to certain areas besides just making them larger or in a certain location.

I want a theme that is very simple without a lot of colors and textures. I know what I want certain elements of my site to look like, and it’s hard to find a theme that will match everything exactly.  I think if I use a more customizable theme, I can match more features that I want with less coding. From WooThemes, I liked the Canvas theme because it was very basic but customizable. I tried it out in WooTheme’s Playground, but found it was difficult to use their portfolio/gallery features. I installed a similar looking theme called Platform which I haven’t had problems with so far, but I haven’t customized it as much as I want to yet, or tried out all the features I might use. I’m not sure if it’s what I’ll use in the end, but it seems promising so far.