The Steamboating Website (seperate from the forum)

[Maltelec]

I've had a thought.

Rather than people donating money to the forum (because I don't like the idea of me running a charity) why not help contribute some of your time to the forum and the website (which I am currently working on).

When I say working on the website, I have just made a blank file called index.html

What I am in short supply of is pictures and images.

For instance:





And other such things.

They all have to be made by either myself or yourselves, mainly due to the copyright laws stating I can't pinch other peoples pictures. I have mouse-drawn these ones using MS Paint.

There are a few pictures I need:

Background image for the new website - if you look at the SBA website, something around those colours and steamboat-related would be ideal. http://www.steamboat.org.uk

Header images - a picture/banner at the top of every web page. Again on the SBA website, they have their classic Steamboat badge. There is no reason why it can't span the whole page, but the idea is to keep images to a low file size.

Sub-header images - a picture at the start of every paragraph type part.

Please feel free to post anything on the forum, or email me, my username @aol.com

But please remember that they must not be copied from any other website.

Website Contents

I was thinking of having pictures of members boats, with as much technical detail as they are willing to give. Also an area specific to the technical data of boilers and engines, and which ones are best matched up. The idea being that anyone new to the field can come along and see what the possibilities are for steamboats, other than simply making a hull shaped hole in the water and filling it with money.

Suggestions for contents is always welcome.

[artemis]

I know that you feel that you don't have the time, but...

If you want to avoid all the errors that others have also encountered, keep your pages clean and informative, set things up in such a way that you'll have time to work on your boat after updating this website, etc., etc. & etc.:

Go to http://www.webstyleguide.com/index.html?/contents.html - this is to website design what Steamboats and Modern Steam Launches is to steamboating; if you read it and use it you don't need anything else. Developed originally by the Yale School of Medicine for intra school websites, it quickly achieved notice for it's simple and comprehensive guidelines. The guidelines are FREE and downloadable from the website. Truly, check them out!

Were I making recommendations based on it's guidelines I'd say - stick with one Banner for the website and allow changes to be easily made to it with simple text. The banner that you're using now is flawless:
1. It's known;
2. It's easy to change the text/titles for various topics;
3. It adapts well to any use on the website.
The use of Elpenor as a logo is "catchy". You might want to "crisp up" and "colorize" the image a bit more. If I know what you're after, I could easily do that. I maintain a number of websites for hobby steamboating including that of the Northwest Steam Society http://www.northweststeamsociety.org and the International Steamboat Society http://www.steamboating.org - but when it comes to the "pages", the purpose is to provide information in a simple, easy to use, easy to read manner... KISS.

Email me if you want to go further with this.

Ron

[PeteThePen1]

Dear Simon and Fellow Steamboaters

A few observations for you.

I am all in favour of increasing the steam boating presence on the web. However, perhaps we/you should ask the question "Why am I creating this website?" I say this as I have already gone down the road of planning to set up my own website and ground to a halt. I quite fancy the idea of honing my HTML skills and all the rest of it, but have realised that I am already stretched rather thin when it comes to time. Is it worth the effort of learning how to create a site from scratch? After all I can report my boat build through the pages of this excellent Forum.

The other point is that I wonder if I would do more for steam boating if I applied my enthusiasm in the IT area to help an existing website (obviously in my position that would be the SBA's site) rather than re-inventing the wheel.

So, would it be better if we were to (say) volunteer to upgrade the SBA site and incorporate some of the ideas you have and I have? I know that the SBA Webmaster is keen to get some help and it is not leaking State Secrets to report that two folks have volunteered so far. However, there is plenty of scope for development and new ideas, not to mention setting up the secure payments sales section (Political IED in that sentence - perhaps it ought to be deleted!)

I would welcome your thoughts.

Another idea I have, and am researching, is the development of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) for steam boat education. Although I have never used it, Moodle is reputed to be robust and readily available, so all one needs to do is concentrate on the educational side. Now that is an area where I do have some skills!

Regards

Pete