The menu to the left allows you to select the page design you want to use for this site page. If you make a change it is remembered using a cookie, this cookie is only remembered until you exit the browser.

This page on its first opening uses the "Simple Background" but once you have selected a design the whole site including this page used to use will use that design. Simply click on the links until you find a design you like and then return to the main site by using the last link. Your selection will be remembered in a cookie so you will always see the same design.

Sadly, despite everything the browsers all seem to render the pages very slightly differently. Internet Explorer seems to be the worst with differences in the font size rendering causing me the most heartache. The other thing that seems to cause problems is the page scaling functions. In both cases the problems are trivial but annoying.

For those of you interested JavaScript and CSS the page design is achieved by the use of CSS and does not require JavaScript. However, without JavaScript your selection would be lost on each page reload. My interest in the use of CSS to control the design aspects of html pages was triggered by Zen Garden and I regularly use information from W3 School and HTML Code Tutorial to help me get the finer details of my page designs correct.

Some of the pages on this site use a tabbed system to provide a selection of sub-pages and this system is implemented using the JQuery library and JavaScript.

I have included the following paragraphs to give some idea of how each page has come to exist so if you are interested please feel free to read on.

PCB Backgrounds

These backgrounds are a result of me trying to document a circuit design and PCB layout I did for a small company. This particular style of page seems to work best with a very bold simple background image such as the Orchid as used in another design. However, it can work quite well with a very busy picture but great care is required not to blind the reader.

Some people find the second modified version easier to read and it looks considerably different. However, the css changes are quite small and for this reason if no other css must be approached with care.

Orchid Background

The picture of the Orchid was taken in our back living room after my wife received a bunch of them as a present and wanted to have some pictures. The big bold simplicity of the resulting picture struck me as a useful background and so the design was conceived. The css style sheet for this page is almost identical to that for the PCB background.

Simple Background

No pictures this time just a very simple monochrome background. This is very lightweight and fast because there are no images. This page comes from the simple desire to make it possible for people with restricted eyesight to be able to read the site as easily as possible and through the use of the browser magnify feature <cntl>+, <cntl>- and <cntl>0 the size can be easily adjusted.

Bee and Flowers

This design is a result of opening my big mouth during a discussion with our children where I said that almost any decent picture could be used as a basis for a page design. This was a seriously difficult problem I tried all sorts of variations with this and one with just the bee fully visible were the best of the bunch. I preferred the bee on it's own but I was overruled by the judges.

A4

This very simple and minimalistic style looks a little like a printed page and give a quite comforting familiar way to read the content. Again because of the high contrast the page should be very easy to read for those of us with less than perfect eyesight.

Photocopy Background

This was inspired by a font a friend acquired during a rework of his site. We both liked the font but it just did not work well, however the poor quality photocopy type background stayed with me and here is the result.

Discussion

During the process that resulted in these designs I have been very strongly reminded that good design is as much about taste, i.e. the customers perception, as it is about getting the page layout and font right. I will probably add new designs to the site periodical but as I want to use the same html pages the basic page structure, particularly the main menu, will remain very similar.

Frank