Site Organization Thoughts

[Gary Lewis]

I've made the changes, so would appreciate your feedback.

Basically, the way to get to any manual or piece of literature is to click on the Manuals & Literature page in the menu, which will open up the Index & Contents table with all of its links to the documents.

This has helped me get my head around this just a bit more.  So let me state what I think the three ways to do this are:

Menu: We could just rely on the menu system of the website and have everything available via it.  But that has the distinct problem of then needing to have every piece of documentation in the Manuals & Literature section, even if it is elsewhere.  For instance the EVTM, as was explained previously, would have to be in M&L as well as Electrical.

Table: This is what we have as of now.  Everything is shown in the table, and there's no harm or foul if something is actually housed in the Electrical section as the link in the table takes you to it, regardless of where it is.  However, there is only one entry for everything, so something big like the FSM will have to have its own menu system, so I'll have to create that using its Book & Section tables and hot links.  But you can see an example of how that works in the 1986 Engine/Emissions Diagnosis manual as it has the hyperlinks on Ford's Contents page.

Both: This is what I was trying to create, but it gets very complex, both for me to orchestrate as well as for the user to navigate given the large number of documents and the depth of the menus that creates.

So please check this out and let me know what problems you see.  

[grumpin]

Gary, this is on my iPad. When I hit the links on the manuals & literature page, or menu page it puts a border on the link, then I hit it again (sometimes twice) and I get the option to open or copy and a drop down arrow, which gives me copy, sort and open hyperlink.

And I can’t make the first option go away unless I choose another link or go back, out of the page, and then come back in.

If this is an iPad thing I can deal with it.

[Gary Lewis]

Dane - You are using Chrome?  I always use Safari on my iPhone, which works fine on that table, but I tried Chrome and it does exactly as you said.  But when I click Open it does open the requested page.  However, as you said, the brackets don't go away unless or until you tap another link.  It is annoying.

[jdavidsmi]

It does the same on my iPad as Dane’s, using either chrome or safari. Also I have to tap it a couple of times for anything other than the two circles, on the top left and bottom right of the box. The lines around the box do go to bold

Once I get the open or copy drop down, it works fine.

[grumpin]

I’m using Safari.

[Gary Lewis]

Sorry, Dane.  I missed this.

Strange that your Safari does that but mine doesn't.  But yours is usable?

[Gary Lewis]

David - Missed your reply as well.  Sorry.  So it is fiddly but works?  Acceptably?

[jdavidsmi]

I like it and it works for me on my iPad, have not tried it on the laptop.

[Gary Lewis]

Thanks, David.

[grumpin]

Gary Lewis wrote

Sorry, Dane.  I missed this.

Strange that your Safari does that but mine doesn't.  But yours is usable?

Yes, used it last night to look at dome lights on the EVTM.

[Machspeed]

I've looked at it with both my Desk top and my Kindle with no problems.

[Gary Lewis]

This post is to wrap up this discussion.  Not "close it down", but give you the answer to which I've come.

After thinking about this at length I believe we should keep the previous format of placing each section of the factory service manual on the page relevant to that topic. For instance, the FSM section on the 300 six will continue to be on the page at Documentation/Engines/300 Six along with everything else we know about that engine including illustrations, part numbers, specifications, information about the carb spacer, and thoughts on compression ratios.  These topic-specific pages will provide users an all-in-one location for each topic so they won't have to go searching for information.

Not only will that be helpful to the user, it will mean a lot less work for me as I won't need to create the index with hot links to all of the sections.  And I won't need to move a whole bunch of things around to accommodate a new format.

So thanks for your help in thinking this through.  I think we've come to the best solution.

[grumpin]

Sounds good!