Web For Dummies Discussion Thread

For those who attended Web For Dummies today, we want to hear your feedback, questions, or ideas about what you heard today, as well as any information you might want to share that would be helpful to others. Please do so in the comments section of this post below, and we’ll do our best to answer any questions you may have. Also, if this is your first visit to WebTide, please bookmark this page or subscribe to the RSS feed, and participate in UA’s web community.

More Information:

• Web For Dummies Resources
• UA Web Guide

Crash Course in Web Series:

• Organization and Introduction (CCW Part 1)
• HTML & CSS (CCW Part 2)
• WordPress & PHP (CCW Part 3)
• Javascript Libraries – jQuery (CCW Part 4)

Learn from the pros at UA’s ‘Web for Dummies’ class

There’s still time to register for our upcoming “Web For Dummies” class, scheduled for Tuesday, February 22nd at 8:30 a.m.  Learn from a group of UA’s own web experts about how to construct, maintain, and promote a website. The class will cover how to set up your site with OIT, planning your site, customizing UA’s HTML Templates, working with UA’s WordPress Theme, and using social media to broadcast information. During and after the lecture Q&A sessions will be held where you will have the opportunity to ask a good selection of UA’s web community questions.

The class will be held in the Capstone College of Nursing Building, room 1012 on February 22nd from 8:30am to 1:00pm with individual sessions starting at different times during that period. Registration is required for the class because of limited seating. For more information on times, sessions, and registration, please refer to the PSA website at http://psa.ua.edu/?page_id=531.

Welcoming our newest team member

Rachel Carden officially joins the Web Communications team today, and we’re excited to have her on board.  She is a talented designer and developer who comes to us from Samford University, and is a UA graduate who is excited about being back at the Capstone.  She’s a great addition to our web community at UA, and we’re looking forward to seeing her contributions!

WordPress University webinar on Higher Ed Experts

Just a quick announcement about a unique professional development opportunity in the new year…

It’s no secret that we in Web Communications are big fans of WordPress, and we’ve addressed our use of WordPress as a content management system for institutional sites here plenty in the past.  Now we’re partnering with Higher Ed Experts to conduct a webinar on using WordPress in higher education.  The WordPress University webinar is set for March 22, 23 & 24, 2011, and our WordPress guru and developer Matthew Muro will be delivering the second panel, titled “How to create a branded WordPress theme for your decentralized units.”  Other participants include Mike Richwalsky from John Carroll University and Stephanie Leary from Texas A&M University.

If you’re interested in exploring the use of and application of WordPress in greater depth and getting hands-on with using WordPress to manage your college/division/department web site, I’d encourage you to sign up for the webinar – it’s going to be a great class.  If there is interest from multiple areas, we can possibly organize a group session on campus – just let me know in the comments section or shoot me a message.

WordPress University:
Strategies, tools and shortcuts for WordPress-based higher ed websites
March 22, 23 & 24, 2011 – 1PM-2PM ET
More Information and Registration

UA WordPress Theme project featured on CollegeWebEditor.com

Our UA WordPress Theme project is featured today on CollegeWebEditor.com, an industry-leading blog on higher education web, marketing and PR.  Thanks to Karine Joly for the opportunity to share our experience on this project with her audience.

• A WordPress 3.0 theme to do more with less at The University of Alabama

Job Opening: Web Communications Specialist

WebComm has a Web Communications Specialist job now open at http://jobs.ua.edu.  The basics:

Job Summary:

This position will assume overall responsibility for designing and developing the website(s) of a specific college(s) or division. This position is responsible for all development, implementation, training and support for the college(s) or division web site(s).  

Requirements:

A minimum of a bachelor’s degree in communications, marketing, public relations, or a related technical field and at least two years experience in web communications, marketing, public relations or related experience OR a bachelor’s degree in an unrelated field and at least three years experience in web communications, marketing, public relations, or related experience. Working knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, Javascript, Microsoft Office products, and image editing software. Demonstrated expertise in building and maintaining websites, including thorough knowledge of valid HTML, CSS, Javascript and web page editors. Basic understanding of the technology that supports Internet communication. Strong graphic design skills. Ability to clearly convey messages through writing. Superior file management and organizational skills. Ability to self-start with little supervision. Strong project management skills. Good interpersonal skills to include strong oral and written communications skills. Ability to think and plan strategically as part of a team. 

Experience using open source content management systems (such as WordPress) to build dynamic web sites is preferred.  

If you know of someone who might have interest in working with us, please encourage them to apply at http://jobs.ua.edu. 

Introducing the new UA WordPress Theme

Exactly two months ago, we launched the first versions of our UA WordPress Themes. These themes provided web designers and developers with easy way to implement our web templates into a CMS.

However, in that time since launch, there have been great advances in functionality for WordPress, namely WordPress 3.0. In anticipation of this launch, Web Communications have been developing a newly unified and dynamic theme to take advantage of some of these features.

The first thing you will notice is that we have managed to reduce the number of themes or folders from 12 to 1. This is a huge step in improving the simplicity of using WordPress for a UA site and installing/choosing a theme.

What’s New

• UA Theme Options panel
• Dynamically generated navigation theme
• Navigation menu creation directly within WordPress
• Widget capable sidebars
• Selectable content layout within WordPress

UA Theme Options panel

Probably one of the most noticeable differences with this theme is the addition of a UA Theme Options panel. Thanks to an open source framework for creating theme options WordPress users with admin rights will be able to control major design aspects of their theme without ever touching the code. Such theme options include:

• Search box in header: select whether or not to include the search box in the header
• Navigation type: controls the type of horizontal navigation you want (one level, two level, or none)
• Content layout: controls the layout of your content and sidebar locationBy configuring these options, you will be able to create all the variations of our original UA Web Templates. Once you save these options, you will be able to instantly preview the live site and view the changes.

Menus

With WordPress 3.0, we were able to include the new Menus feature into our theme. You are now able to create and manage your primary, secondary, sidebar, and footer navigation all within the WordPress admin.

Widgets

The UA WordPress Theme now supports widgets in the sidebar. Each UA “linksbox” style is included to give you the greatest number of options to uniquely style your site.

I believe that this theme will allow the average user to easily make their site unique while still conforming to the UA look and feel. In some respects, we are taking the “design” out of the hands of the coder and into the hands of the user. Needless to say, I think this is a huge step forward. Detailed tutorials on many of the new features of the UA WordPress Theme will follow in the coming weeks.

For more detailed information on the UA WordPress Theme, please read our WordPress guide on WebGuide.

Download

Go here to download the new UA WordPress Theme.

As always, comments and feedback are welcome.

UA WordPress Themes are now available

The Office of Web Communications now offers UA web developers a collection of easy-to-implement WordPress themes based on the look and feel of the UA Web Templates.  Now users can edit and update their website with a simple CMS (Content Management System) interface while taking advantage of the clean, professional look and feel of the UA Web Templates.

Design Themes

All three UA Web Templates are now available in WordPress format, and for each template there are four theme variations to provide design options and maximum flexibility in creating a web site.  For more on these variations, please refer to the UA Web Templates page.

• The standard theme is a straightforward site design which should meet the majority of user needs.
• The search theme places a search bar in the header for sites with a larger content base which need to find information via keyword.
• The functional footer theme allows for a selection of links to be placed within the footer to provide extra navigation.
• The fourth theme contains both the search in the header and the functional footer.

Click here to download the UA WordPress Themes

Options

In addition to the traditional static site, the themes also offer the option of a blog-style site or a combination of the two. Blog posts and comments have been formatted to fit with the UA style and allow for a more interactive environment.

The WordPress themes draw from the same CSS and HTML as the UA Web Templates. Dreamweaver will still be needed to edit main navigation in the themes, but most content can be created and edited within the WordPress system.

WordPress Guide

To further assist users with these themes, a short ‘how to’ has been written within the UA Web Guide. The documentation provides helpful instructions for choosing a theme, implementing the chosen theme, setting up a site style, and customizing the site.  It also contains a list of recommended plug-ins.

For an example of our UA WordPress Themes in use please visit the Editorial Style Manual.

Updates

Those familiar with WordPress will know that it is a powerful and constantly evolving platform.  As WordPress evolves and grows in functionality, so too will the UA WordPress Themes. Stay tuned to WebTide and WebGuide for future versions of our themes. 

Usage

Taking a shot at building a web site using these themes?  Shoot us an e-mail and let us know about it – we’d love to hear about your project.  Thanks!

UA Mobile Web 2.0

The Office of Web Communications is pleased to announce the next iteration of UA Mobile Web. The newest version offers several improvements in speed, function, and design.

Speed

Significant improvements to load times have been made with the iPhone and Android versions.  I have exchanged 90% of the images with CSS3 gradients and border radius.  File sizes for the CSS and JavaScript files have also been pared down and minified to save as much space as possible.  For some pages, loading times have been decreased by 40%.

Function

In addition to quicker load times, the new version adds the following features:

• News is now more fully integrated into UA Mobile Web.  You may now browse UA News, Dialog, and Research stories before leaving the site.
• Video adds an instant streaming option.  Using the HTML5 <video> tag, all UA News videos will play seamlessly in the browser (currently iPhone only).
• Social Media is a new section that brings our official Facebook and Twitter status updates to your browser.

Design

Users of UA Mobile Web on the iPhone and Android will now notice a crimson header bar with The University of Alabama nameplate.  This bar is on every page and further brands this site as part of the UA Home Page.

Also, a few of the home screen icons have been updated to give greater separation between services.  iPhone and Android users will also notice a new “action” symbol for items:  the external link.  As arrows have symbolized going to the next page within UA Mobile Web and phones have symbolized a phone number, the external link symbol is a visual cue that the item you are about to touch will load a page outside of UA Mobile Web.

I hope all of these additions and changes make for a better experience with UA Mobile Web.  If you have any feedback or discover a bug I didn’t catch, please let me know!

Improvements to Mobile Events Calendar

Yesterday, a major update to the UAMobileWeb Events Calendar was made.  This update is significant in that there is not only an update functionally, but visually as well.

The previous version of the mobile Events Calendar only allowed browsing by Day and Month views.  The new version adds a Week view, Category and Calendar Type browsing.  Also, there are even more details available: descriptions, contact information, links to categories and calendar types, and additional information (if available).

In addition to the new views and details, a visual upgrade has been pushed out to the browsing views for the iPhone and Android themes.  The older version used a layout akin to the iPhone’s Calendar app where the times were listed on the left side and the events were in colored blocks to the right.  This looks fine for one or two events but can start to get messy with many events and time slots.  Now, you will see a nice, colored separator with either the time or date inserted, depending on the view you have selected.

Hopefully, the UA mobile community will find these upgrades useful.  The UAMobileWeb Events Calendar should now be faster, more functional, and easier to browse.  Please let me know what you think or if you discover any bugs/problems that need to be addressed.