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"Machie would like a php poll please"

I'm back! I hope you're all doing well. =)

It's time I finished my website! So if it's okay I'd like to post some questions in this thread and as always would greatly appreciate any help/input. ^^

To keep Hmmm happy and to not waste valuable knowledge, I'd like to repost any information that would be useful to other webmasters on Freeola.

I can't guarantee anything, but any help deemed extremely useful might win you a GAD. ;)

Completed Questions

none :(

New Questions

1) Using TITLE for links
We've all used ALT before for images but I've never used TITLE before for links. Should I be using them? I heard it helps search engines but you shouldn't really use it on every link. I notice Freeola doesn't use them.

2) Linking your own pages
I read on Digg the other day that search engines were going to get tough on duplicate content. It talked about how you do links on your sites and that search engines would see these URLs (see below) as different sites when obviously they are the same page.

http://www.freeola.com/chat/index.html
http://www.freeola.com/chat/
http://freeola.com/chat/

I noticed I've been doing this on my site. So how should I be doing my links? Also for my navigation I just use the even more simple URL.. "/chat/", "/forum/" etc, should I change them and use the full URL instead?

3) Switching to em
I decided to switch to em after all. Something about IE not letting pixel sizes resize which I suppose is a bit unfair to the user who'd like some control. I brought this up before but it seemed complicated.

At the moment I have font-size: 62.5%; for the body tag. Which is about 10px? So 1em is 10px and 1.2em is 12px. As 10px is too small I have to change the size in the other tags (h1, h2, p etc). So am I doing it right? Also I don't understand this bit about the heading tags wanting to be 12px. So 2em is 24px.

Another thing, the website said browser default text size is 12px (or was it 14? I forget) but for my FireFox it seems to be 16 (and normal size to me). So I'm a little worried using em and having less control might make my text look smaller on other peoples machines.

And finally if I use em, do I have to stop using px when I set margin and padding values? I notice some people use em to do this.

4) Keeping your CSS clean
I've been cleaning my CSS file lately and it looks less cluttered and easily manageable. My site is made up of several different areas and each one has many different css elements.

Obviously I don't want to put all of them into one CSS file so what would you suggest? I suppose I could have a different CSS file for each area of my site (content-area1.css, content-area2.css), or I could have a CSS file that imports the global setting CSS file and either of the area CSS files. How would I make one? Is it as simple as..

@import url('global-settings.css');
@import url('area1.css');

Actually, ignore the first option, it would involve me having to edit all CSS files just to change one global setting.

Machie wrote:
> Wow that's pretty good Hmmm, I have a few questions...


Hi Machie,
The script is from these people: CJ-Design.com

I hadn't used it before I threw that page together for you, but it seems like you can do everything you are looking for.

There is a proper demo etc. with the admin system for you to try over at the CJ Design site.

These chaps provide a collection of free and pro scripts - the version I setup for you is the free one. They 'like' a link back but don't insist on it!

I've used one of their other scripts and it seems to work quite well.
Hope it's useful for you...


Search Freeola Chat

Machie wrote:
> Why's that Garin?

Apparently when you use his website, its ok to report back that usage on public forums. Where as its entirely harmless in this case its still dubious behaviour in my opinion.

> Here's another question for any developers online tonight. Is it
> okay to use hex colours like #FFF instead of #FFFFFF etc? Is
> there any other advantage other than a few less characters to
> write? Will all browsers recognise it correctly?

No real advantage other than what you've said. And I doubt theres a browser still in widespread use that doesnt recognize the shorthand by now.

Why's that Garin?

Here's another question for any developers online tonight. Is it okay to use hex colours like #FFF instead of #FFFFFF etc? Is there any other advantage other than a few less characters to write? Will all browsers recognise it correctly?

Thanks guys.

Machie wrote:
> What do you think Garin?

I think I'm not clicking on any link hosted on Hmmm...'s sites anymore. :-)

I think everyone at one time or another has told me to start small, it just took me a few years to put it into practice =) better late than never I suppose ;)

Wow that's pretty good Hmmm, I have a few questions, is it possible to add a "view results" link and do the results have bar graphs, I think they do but I couldn't get them to show on my screen.

Also is there a limit on the number of polls I can have on my site? I'd like quite a few (one for each area of my site I mentioned).

Looks very encouraging I must say, all I wanted was something this simple, a results page, a "you've voted before" page and to be able to block repeat votes. =D Though of course style it up so it looks good.

What do you think Garin?

Back on topic:

"Machie would like a php poll please"

Is this 'free' PHP script any good for you?

There are more advanced options available but I've stripped things out.

Let me know if it's any good and I'll tell you where I found it :¬)

Garin wrote:
> Hmmm.... the search voyeur. ;)

"Visitor statistics contain no personal information and are only used to develop and improve the site!"


;¬)

Hmmm.... the search voyeur. ;)

I was looking for an earlier thread actually but I got bored of looking in the end because the results are unordered.

Maybe I'll set up a spyware free version of the freeola search. :P

:¬P

Garin I think you were looking for this thread where you wrote: Hmmm... is totally correct



NB. I've noticed that the use of "s in Google CSE's to find an exact phrase isn't very reliable compared with normal Google searching.

I gave Machie the exact same advice when he first started on his websites, maybe 20 years ago. I'm not going to be smug and say I told you so like Hmmm... though. :P