This Year's Model
The new look Stuart Vallantine Web Experience
Friday 19th February 2010
The Stuart Vallantine Web Experience has been given a radical makeover with a more contemporary yet minimalistic design.
The new version improves on its previous versions by being more friendly to mobile phones and printers. Articles have been split into bite size chunks, which makes things better for mobile phone browsers - especially so given the rise of the iPhone.
The new design has been created with expansion in mind. In the pipeline are plans to introduce podcasts. Plans are being made to offer audio versions of transport based articles.
Stay tuned for further improvements along the way.
Autumn Engineering Works
Improvements to the SV Web Experience
Friday 25th September 2009
The autumnal period is a most popular time of the year for engineering works, especially those of a railway nature. The Stuart Vallantine Web Experience is no different, apart from the absence of rail replacement buses (or site replacement holding pages).
Most of the changes have been made within the Poetry section. A further menu has been placed within the subsection menus, allowing visitors quick access to each piece. With the number of poems set to increase, I realised the need for Good Old Fashioned Anchor Links to each entry.
With continuity in mind, I have decided to retain the A - C, D - J etc categories. Also restructured for ease of use is the Articles section. Each one is separated into different categories. For example, 'The Travelling Poet' Writ Large refers to my exploits on public transport.
This autumn's raft of changes have been prompted by continued expansion of the website and a need to make the Stuart Vallantine Web Experience even easier for its users.
Introducing the Stuart Vallantine Retail Experience
Ground floor: T-Shirts, stationery and mega mugs...
Friday 10th April 2009
As a spin-off from this section of hallowed server space, comes another development.
In a bid to raise awareness of the website (and of course the artworks), is a new online shopping section. Entitled 'The Stuart Vallantine Retail Experience', its aim is to sell T-Shirts, mouse mats and other spin-offs featuring examples of photography and drawings by the man himself.
This page has a link to the Cafepress.co.uk website, where the T-Shirts are sold from, and a downloads section. The latter section is an access point for downloadable pamphlets and articles, mainly in Adobe PDF file format.
Just click on the 'Souvenir Shop' link on the right side of the main navigation menu. Alternatively, you may wish to click this link to go straight to my Cafepress store.
A Spring Clean
News on the latest engineering works
Thursday 1st April 2009
Nothing stands still in cyberspace, and the Stuart Vallantine Web Experience is no exception.
Firstly, the horizontal resolution has changed to one more in line with modern web browsing trends. As the most common resolution in use is now 1024x768, the changes mirror this. Some spelling and grammatical errors have been corrected (my thanks to one eagle eyed reader). More visibly, the panoramic view has changed.
From June 2007 to now, the panorama was a view of Stalybridge and Ashton from Hough Hill in Dukinfield. The new view is Mossley from Luzley, from Broadcarr Lane (leading to Hartshead Pike) to Micklehurst - covering in most part the 343 route to Oldham and Hyde.
New Year, New Look Website
Into 2009 with a new look website
Thursday 1st January 2009
18 months since the last major revamp, the Stuart Vallantine Web Experience has had another one.
For ease of use, all the main navigation is placed horizontally with secondary links placed vertically on the right hand side. As with the previous designs, the Greater Manchester Transport colour scheme has been retained.
The most radical change has been made in the visual department. Individual pages for each drawing have been scrapped in favour of lightbox effects. This has also been extended to some photographic images. Extra images have also been added.
As with the previous version, the new look site has been designed for use on mobile phones and PDAs as well as PCs. There is increased compatibility with print media.
As per usual, any comments on the new look website are welcome.
Postscript (28th January 2009)
Since 'the Big Bang Revamp', any persons wondering what happened to the PECS graphics since New Year's Day 2009. The good news is that they are back, and placed in a more useful position.
In some cases, the images themselves have changed. Rather than being placed on the top masthead, or a side column, they are placed on the left hand side of the main titles using CSS sprites.
Some articles have also been accompanied with images appropriate to the subject matter. For example, the article on the 343 bus route has been augmented with a picture of one of Speedwell Bus' Optare Solo minibuses. Speaking of buses, you will also find that the W3C XHTML/CSS compliance graphics have been specially designed to blend in with the GMT colour scheme.
The Future's... the Mobile Stuart Vallantine Web Experience
Gr8 news 4 mobile web browsers :)
Tuesday 11th September 2007
This summer's wet weather may have been a cause for complaint for UK sun seekers, braving the floods and torrential rain. However, in spite of this pain, I had been coding again.
The SV Web Experience has been optimised further to accommodate persons viewing the site on PDAs, Blackberry devices and mobile phones. At present, CSS code has been tweaked to accommodate this, so as to allow for the reduced screen display. Future revisions may involve the possible pagination of longer articles.
Hopefully, the (mobile friendly) SVWE should look well on 'Blazer' (bundled with Palm PDAs) as well as Firefox, IE7, Opera, et al.