Things we like and dislike about Dabeagle.com & .net & .org

I'll do my best to answer the questions, and thank you for starting the thread. Let me state up front that I'm not a web guru. I have a friend that helps make me templates for things I want to do and, then, I can understand them better and make use of them. Sometimes an element is just adapted from code I see elsewhere - a big example is the Sanitaria Wiki page, that will hopefully be back online soon with the generous help of JohninOhio, as the code under what you see is pretty much what Wikipedia uses.

When these new pages are created, the css sheet tells the html page what to do, how to look and where to put things. It's sort of like the directions for building the page and tells the browser how to load it. I don't make each css from scratch, I just adapt previous ones and sometimes the colors don't get tweaked properly (link, followed link and hover) so if that's an issue somewhere, specific examples would be great. I make mistakes, sometimes, because I try to give each story a unique color palette and that doesn't always work because my sense of what 'goes together' color wise isn't always very good.

With regards to coding, it's largely repetitive and time consuming even with the templates.For instance, I copy/paste each chapter into the program I use for coding and then have to place opening and closing tags on every paragraph (<p> paragraph </p>). There is a lot of repetitive keystrokes in going through each one, and then checking it once it's loaded. Some programs create syntax errors which show up on your screen as diamonds with question marks in them. Sometimes they are special characters and for others it's every damn punctuation mark and I have to find/replace all of them.

If I were smart and efficient, I'd add in the authors to the index pages each time something new populated, but I have never been accused of either. I do try, and if you notice anything, I think I've communicated I'm grateful for having them pointed out. One man show, I screw things up!

As far as the servers, I'm not sure. Registering .com, .org and .net simply means that they all point to the same place. My hosting company, I'm sure, has redundancies in place - in fact they are pretty good, overall. Colin Kelly recommended them and he's a smart cookie.

I spoke to Ronyx once, when we swapped links to each other. I cannot ever recall having a conversation with Timmy. I have spoken with Mir over at GA, we've been acquainted a long time, but his system is far more complex than mine and has positives and negatives. For instance, I like the synopsis for each story and the search ability. I dislike the volume, however, which pushes stories off the main page quickly. I do like their review system and page counters which let folks drop quick pubic notes for specific chapters.

A reader mentioned they might have some time this month to help with some code work but, frankly, when you do it for a living as this person does, you hardly want to do it in your spare time! Another stumbling block to converting the older stories is the errors I find in them. For instance, one of them that I'm working on now has, apparently, edited versions posted that include the mistakes and their corrections. Another chapter had an open tag to center something (<center>) and the close tag for it (/center>) was never inserted so half the chapter is centered and an absolute bugger to read. So even once the technical part is done, I'll have to read through and correct each one.

Please keep the issues and suggestions coming and I'll do my best!

I too like the format of the site. More than that, I like the stories. I don't always say much, but I look forward to the Sanitaria Springs stories. I have no idea how much work it takes to update the site. When I had a chance to learn HTML I pretty much looked the other way. My experience with web pages at the place I work is pasting a schedule of classes and descriptions. All the magic is handled by the editor(?). It has limited editing capability. Less, actually, than the editor I'm using right now to type this post.

Once upon a time I did a lot of 'programming' with dBase III and it's clones. I remember the hours I spent trying to get the code to accomplish what I wanted. So, I can believe it's not easy to do what Dave does. I understand how a small slip up can ruin the function of a page. So, HURRAH for Dave. Thank you for what you do. I look forward to stories and even during the times when the site was often idle I checked here to see if something was being posted. You have some of the best content on the net.

Finally, All you who write stories. Even when I don't say much, I really like the stories. Right now I'm way behind with my reading. Being in the hospital and trying to get caught up with SS has made it hard to keep up with everything else. I'll get there. -- John