Blog 13_Project Semester 2

FYP Project                    K00121609                          March 2017

Blog 13:

I have designed a discussion forum for the FYP Project. It was a lot of work but worth it. I think it will add an interesting interactive element to the project which is part of the topic on "Life Management, Media and Society." 

Initially I conducted a google search on the topic of discussion forum methods and its potentials building on the previous proposal and research steps, and decided to go ahead with fulfilling the task. 

Objectives were: user interaction, user contribution, programming work, use of multimedia content. The url domain name of my forum is:

https://designyourday.discussion.community

I found that some forums can be easily created by getting a package, downloading it and linking the forum to the website. As part of this project and learning as much as I can about IT, I selected a website forum site called "Website Toolbox," that involved more complex work than other sources researched. Here, I was able to create the forum I had planned and learned additional CSS skills along the way.

The first step was to select a theme for which I selected "soft-purple theme." Next, the customization step. Here there are 3 options: Basic Editor, Basic CSS Editor and Advanced CSS Editor. I considered and did trial runs using the three options. I found that the Basic Editor does not go into sufficient detail for the design I want to set out. The next two options are equivalent in levels of difficulty and coding results. 

The Advanced CSS Editor is what we use in class every day in our website CSS Local Route Folders. Therefore, I used the Basic CSS Editor as not being familiar with it, I could learned additional codes from the process. I think though from using this CSS procedure that a very good knowledge of HTML and CSS is required to know what exactly it is you are specifying. 

Advantages and disadvantages of this CSS procedure:

I would say that I have learned more about HTML to CSS styling references e.g. of classes and id specifications. In comparison to the CSS styling sheets I normally use, I think this "Website Toolbox" is very good, but not as practical as the styling sheets. My reasoning for this is : in using the styling sheets I can check the styling of the webpage as I go in the Brackets Live Preview. 

Using the CSS Editor means I have to save the CSS coded, go to the end of the document, save, go out of the document, open up the resulting website before I can see the result. This is a good method but is quite time consuming  as I have to go through this entire process every time I want to make a change to the CSS and to view the change.

Nevertheless, I proceeded with the Editor and am satisfied with the resulting discussion forum built. Over the next few days as I'm fine tuning the navigation, I will add the discussion sub-categories to the forum and it will be ready to be embedded in the website.

Here, next are screenshots of zoomed out version of the CSS pages I worked on. They are zoomed out as the document itself vertically scrolls and there is a very large amount of work done in it to be displayed. The following are the initial work done shown in these screen-shots. I have streamlined the colour scheme since, to an overall minimalist lilac theme which is in keeping with the theme selected and design features of my website.

Screen-shots of CSS Editor:

These above are the components of the CSS Editor. In the next blog I will show the resulting website and in the following one, the steps in adding my html page codes as well as many other required settings before embedding the discussion forum in the website.