A few small changes.

[Hawk]

Ah yes! I remember that now. Sorry for misunderstanding you.

[Grandma Ruth]

[Gumboots]

Thinking about getting ready for (yet another) move to a new host. I'm inclined to drop the photos pages, at least temporarily. I hardly ever look at them anyway, and some pages have inaccuracies* and/or poor quality photos. I can keep them all stashed, and could even zip them for anyone who wants them, but there are a lot of pages to rewrite and I'm frankly not sure it is worth the effort at this stage.

*For example, this page - http://hawkdawg.com/photos/rr/rr-steam.htm - has incorrect captions for UK-Planet (it's the "John Bull") and for US-Eight Wheeler (it's actually NSWGR Z12 class No. 1243, a Beyer-Peacock design that was built in Sydney by Atlas Engineering).

[Gumboots]

I've made a few small tweaks here and there on the site pages (not in the forum itself). Looks better to me,

If there are any things that are bugging people, about either the site pages or the forum, feel free to mention them. They're usually not hard to change.

[Gumboots]

Ay up.

I've rearranged things a bit. It's not a hugely active or complex site, and I thought a bit of simplification might be good. The RT3 Poll Hole and the General Discussion > Poll Hole boards weren't being used much, so I've merged them into RT3 General Discussion and The Conference Table.

You can now post polls in both of those boards. I haven't checked permissions on every board yet, but if anyone wants polls in other boards too I'm ok with setting that up.

I've also moved the old General Discussion boards (The Conference Table, Railroad History, and PC Pandomania) into the top category, which has now been renamed to make it more welcoming. I thought things were a bit too serious the way it was.

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Also, the "Change style" drop menu has been revamped a bit. The colour changer for the forum default theme (Hawkdawg Light) is now up in that little drop menu, instead of hiding right down the bottom of the page in the forum footer. I thought this might be a bit more convenient.

[Gumboots]

I'll be making a few more small tweaks to the site soon.

The current log in form is a bit messy, particularly on a phone. I do use the site from my phone sometimes. so I'll be changing the log in form to use a simple pop-up that is consistent on desktop and mobile. This gives a cleaner look and is generally more usable. Clicking the Login link will open the form. Clicking anywhere outside the form (on the darkened background) will close it again, in case you opened it by mistake, or if you just need to get a new password sent to you.

Also note that the existing top/bottom links, currently at the left side of the screen, will be staying the same in windows that are wide enough to accommodate them there. However, they will be moving to the bottom left and right corners on narrower screens. This is a more practical location when screen width is restricted.

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The existing site menu in the top bar is ok on desktop, but on a tablet or phone it's not so good. Even on desktop it's a bit of a nuisance. So, it will be getting changed to a basic slide-out sidebar, with all menu links displayed by default so you can see everything at a glance. The sidebar will be vertically scrollable, to allow all menu links to be accessed on a phone or a small desktop monitor.

Drop menus were trendy for a while but have mostly gone out of fashion, due to them not being as usable as people initially thought they might be. Most people find a basic slide-out sidebar is easier to use and less confusing.

On a wide screen the menu will always slide to just under the Site menu toggle, so it will end up in a location you are already focused on. On narrower screens it will just sit on the left side. Clicking anywhere to the left or right of the menu (on the darkened background) will close it. You will also be able to use the Site menu toggle in the top bar to close the menu, as well as to open it.

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The website itself will be getting the same slide-out sidebar menu as the forum, again replacing its existing drop menu system.

Incidentally, this is still all done with CSS. No javascript is required.

[Gumboots]

So I got sidetracked.

Ended up (finally) getting around to revamping the Trainmaster and RT2 pages. Trainmaster is going to be basically the same as the RT3 pages (with pop-up briefings, etc.) because there are hardly any maps or extras for Trainmaster anyway, so doing them is not a big deal.

The RT2 pages got simplified a bit. All the briefings and readmes are in the zips anyway (I checked) and there's hardly any call for RT2 stuff here, so I stripped the RT2 archives pages down to the minimum. They now just have a thumbnail for a bit of eye candy, the map name and author, any special requirements listed, and the download links for the zips. No pop-up briefings, and no readme links. The RT2 files are generally only a few hundred kB each anyway, so anyone who is curious can just download the zip and take a look.

With all the creaky old javascript being ditched, and a stack of big images being ditched, the RT2 archives will now load like a rocket, even on a phone. The layout is clean and easy to use on a phone too, if anyone wants that (someone is sure to these days). All the code is now valid and to modern standards, and maintenance will be a lot easier now too.

It is going to look like this, once I get it all set up. These are desktop HTML files, but all live code.

Typography may still change slightly, but that is basically how they will be. The colour scheme originated as a mix of the RT2 and RT3 background colours, and I like it so much I will be using it for the RT3 and Trainmaster archives too (saves on code).

[Gumboots]

Nothing has happened with this yet, because I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks. The good news is the holiday involved trains, so I may post some new site content soon.