Need image gallery menu help : a stable replacement for frames?

[zetter]

Hello!


I'm trying to redesign my old website, built with frames since 1997 - the year i started learning some webdesign, and also, the year i stopped doing so. Until now, hopefully.

Having noticed my poor prescence on google images, i decided to look into why, and learning something new again found out that frames are considered notoriously bad, and are the probable cause for google's lack of interest in me.
So I have tried to find out the best alternative, read a few lines about 'ssi', got scared, and decided to try out 'dreamweaver templates'. They seemed like a nice idea, and so i've spent a few days trying to make a frame-free site.
It looked promising for a while.
However, my 'scrolling thumbnail list', in my gallery section, which worked nicely on my framed page, looks a bit clumsy on the new page.

-On the old framed page - you click on a thumbnail in the 'menu frame', and the linked page shown up in the main frame, and the 'menu frame' stays the same, still showing the same thumbnails and so on.

On the new page, Everything looks fine until you click on a thumbnail that you had to 'scroll down' to. Then , when the page reloads, the menu is 'scrolled up' to the top again.

Since there are no frames, and the entire window reloads, the linked page shows up with the 'menu' reset to the beginning of the list and... well....it doesnt look good....

here's what I mean.
This is my old site:
http://zetterstrand.com/

(click on 'work' to get to the image gallery)


This is the same page on site i'm working on:
http://zetterstrand.com/zettertest/work/2007/artistandstillife.html

(never mind the misaligned graphics, corrupt menus and so on, i've just begun, and the place is a mess)
The pages all share the same template, which contains the thumbnail menu, and are thus reloaded with every new page.


Is there any way to have the content of my thumbnail menu stay the same, even though the page reloads?
Since I have quite a long list of images in my thumbnail menu - I don't want it to flip back to the beginning of the list everytime a link is clicked!


Please help the poor noob, and I would be most grateful!

 

[adamblan]

If you're refreshing the entire page, then it will display your thumbnail column from the start each time... Which brings up the AJAX question: Have you tried setting up your gallery with Prototype or Spry?

That would be your best option in terms of usability, and you could also set up a dynamic page to display each link's information to preserve the site's SEO...

 

[zetter]

If you're refreshing the entire page, then it will display your thumbnail column from the start each time... Which brings up the AJAX question: Have you tried setting up your gallery with Prototype or Spry?

That would be your best option in terms of usability, and you could also set up a dynamic page to display each link's information to preserve the site's SEO...

Thank you for your reply
I understand about half of what you are talking about.
I have never heard of prototype or spry. Ajax is something i use to clean the floors. What could it do?
Could a dynamic page show a scrolling menu that does not refresh?
Where do I find beginner's tutorials on how to do that?
What is 'SEO'?

Sorry, I'm no native english speaker, and on top of that, I'm very inexperienced when it comes to coding and webdesign.
I really appreciate your effort to give me a tip.

 

[adamblan]

Hi zetter -
AJAX is a model of exchanging information more efficiently between the client computer and your website. Rather than refreshing each page- reloading navigation, etc. - specific elements are refreshed instead.

By setting up your gallery this way, the browser would replace the image and information displayed while your thumbnail strip remains unchanged. There are several free AJAX galleries out there - my fave is lightbox2 - for you to download - just google it...

With regards to setting up a dynamic page, you'll have to get familiar with some sort of server side scripting - I'd go with php... Of course, you could easily leave this step out, but your site won't be Search Engine Optimized (spiders can't see AJAX...)

Hope this helps -

 

[zetter]

Hi. Thanks!

I have chosen to recode my site with php, and it seems to work fine.
http://zetterstrand.com/zettertest/index.php

But the gallery question is still not solved.
I have not found a script that does the same as my old framed page.
And i would not want to use anything that's not search engine friendly, like AJAX.

So I'm still looking........

 

[adamblan]

Good luck with it Zetter

Keep in mind that while AJAX isn't SEO, neither are frames...

If you were to provide a page on your site that loads the content dynamically on the server side (from either a database or xml) rather than client side technology (like AJAX or iFrames) you would keep the content search engine friendly...

 

[zetter]

Thanks! Via the jQuery site I found Galleria which I have redesigned to fit my needs in CSS.
That, combined with my redesign from frames to PHP, looks pretty good and I hope it will be friendlier to webspiders.

Have a look at my new site HERE

Please tell me what you think.

 

[adamblan]

Looking good Zetter!