Site Overview

This document lays out the overall site structure and navigational aids and other helps. Some of these aids are for my use and will have little utility to other readers.

Afternoon Light: The same Pioneer Basin view, looking toward 3^rd & 4^th Recess, later in the day. Photo by Brian Ernst

Afternoon Light: The same Pioneer Basin view, looking toward 3^rd & 4^th Recess, later in the day. Photo by Brian Ernst

Site Structure

Figure 1Part of a typical index page

Families

ODT

These are the Outline Descent Trees by subfamilies.

Sources

A bibliographic summary of the sources used in researching each family. The index for this collection also lists a few additional (non-specific) sources that I have developed myself.

Pedigrees

A pedigree listing for each ancestral family.

Celebs

Here are collected individual relations of repute -- whether good or ill. The other pages are of four types:

Alphabetic indices

There is one page for each letter of the alphabet. Each index page lists briefly the individuals and families with names beginning with that letter.

Family indices

Selected well-represented families have their own index page, lising their individual celebrities.

Individual pages

Individuals for whom there is sufficient content have their own page.

A letter selection NavBar appears on every page in the Celebs section. Several kinds of entries appear on the indices:

• Cross references
• Families
• Individuals

Annex

Figure 2Annex home page, index to family files

The Annex is a separate repository (GenCircles: Figure 2) wherein I have stored my data, one family per file. GenCircles uses a different presentation format, being more like a collection of linked FGS, and may be easier for some to follow than the ODT pages listed above. The Annex contains everything seen in the ODT pages, with additional individuals perhaps not related to me. Individual notes and source citations are presented in the Annex.

Miscellany

This is a collection of other pages (like this one), topped by an index page.

Navigation Aids

General Helps

Abbreviations and acronyms

A special sort of popup, these will provide a definition for most abbreviations and acronyms found throughout the site. They may be recognized by the dotted underline, like this: ABCFM. Your mouse pointer should also change to the query pointer as you roll by.

Popup tooltips

Many of the features make use of the title= property to pop up short descriptions for selected page elements. These operate when you hover your mouse cursor over an element that has this property. Here is an example: Hold your mouse cursor over this word: "test". If your browser doesn't display this: "popup tooltip", perhaps after a short rest, you should probably get a better browser. This facility is standard, and has been available on conforming browsers for several years.

If your browser doesn't support this, the page will work, but navigation may be more difficult and you will be missing many help opportunities.

Searching

Figure 3The search box, SW corner of page.

Most browsers provide a find function to locate text on the current page. To search over my collection of pages I have provided a link to a search client from the trailer part of each page. (Figure 3) The search from the Celeb pages is presently under construction.

SiteNavigation

Figure 4The Firefox SiteNavigation bar, on the Alcock ODT page.

I have included Link tags so that browsers that support it will display what is called a SiteNavigation Toolbar. This is a toolbar in the browser header with links to related pages on my site. Browsers that support these are:

• Opera: View > Toolbars > Navigation Bar
• FireFox: An extension, cmSiteNavigation toolbar, that must be installed. (example: Figure 4)

Vertical Page Navigators

Figure 5

Vertical Page Navigators

These three buttons (Figure 5) are supplied on certain pages, and are fixed to the right edge at the middle of the window. (Opera insists on placing them at the top of the window.) The three buttons are links, from top to bottom, to

1. To the TOP of the page
2. To the TOC of the page
3. To the BOTtom of the page

Specific Pages

Annex

Figure 6The top of a File Home page on GenCircles

The GenCircles presentation format is fixed, but does allow a pedigree view for individuals.

1. The only control that I have is over the File Home Page for each file, to which I have added the Genealogy, et Cetera logo and URL. (Figure 6)
    
2. Figure 7A portion of an individual Annex page, showing the link.
   I have also, by trickery, made the rendering of the individual reference numbers be links back to that individual on the appropriate ODT page. (Figure 7)

Celeb indices

There are two sorts of index here: 1) Alpha, and 2) Family, depending on the scope of the index, but they both have these aids:

Celeb individual

ODT index

ODT

Source (bibliographies)

Other Aids

Printing

Pages automatically adjust for optimal printing and economy of ink.

• Non-essential objects are dropped
• Backgrounds are made white.
• Lettering previously white on dark background is made black.

Contact, email, monitoring

Figure 8A portion of the trailer

• I am clearly identified as the owner on each page.
• My mailing address is in the trailer of every page.
• My email address is also in the trailer of each page, and is formatted so that most email clients will fill in the subject line of the email with the name of the page where the user clicked the link. This is important to me; With over 2000 pages, it is a big help if I know which page the sender has reference to. It was surprising to me how many users neglected this important information in their emails!

You can monitor specific pages and be notified by email when they change by using the link in the trailer.

Page Styling

I have tried to keep a consistent style for all my pages, exemplified by this page. Browsers that fully support CSS are required to see many of the benefits, however. Up-to-date versions of FireFox, Opera, and MSIE have the requisite support. Salient characteristics:

• A header at the top of the page
• A body with the content on an off-white background of fixed width.
• A fixed background of darker color. The fixed character is only apparent if the background is an image, as on this page. Very few of my pages use a background image.
• A trailer at the bottom of the page.
• Space below the trailer so the browser may be positioned at elements in the trailer. Most browsers won't position beyond the point where the bottom of the defined page is at the bottom of the window.
• Complex pages, or pages with several distinct parts will have a table of contents with links to the various parts -- as this page has.
• A common style for such things as:

  Content		Emphasis levels
  Ordinary text Book titles Sample output Code Variables		(001) Emphasis (010) Emphasis (011) Emphasis (100) Emphasis (101) Emphasis (110) Emphasis (111) Emphasis

Accessability

These considerations are intended to make these pages usable to as wide an audience as possible:

• No reliance on JavaScript. The little use of Javascript is inconsequential.
• No use of proprietary browser features. Even users with text-only browsers should be able to use these pages.
• Little use of fixed font sizes, allowing user agents to increase the size if desired.
• No gratuitous use of images or the dreaded background music.
• Images have alt= attributes. Most browsers will render these text fields in place of images that cannot be displayed for one reason or another.
• Content background is a consistent off-white, with black text and fonts chosen for easy online reading.