Home Distiller Parent site update

[Husker]

The update to the Parent site, has been brought up.

Simply go to http://homedistiller.org" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Please post follow ups on things or problems found.

NOTE, there has been limited 'content' changing yet. There WILL be updates to the content that happen over time. First off, this new update to the parent site was needed, to get the parent site working properly with indexing spiders, like google. The facelifted version did not spider at all.

H.

[MuleKicker]

Lets hear it for the man! Thanks H.

[Prairiepiss]

Lets hear it for the man! Thanks H.

+1 I can actually use it now. Woo Hoo.

[Pop Skull]

Just browsed it for a few minutes, but love the new layout.

Calculators galore. Very nice job. I'm sure you guys put a lot of hard work into it.

Well done!

[kiwistiller]

bravo

[Mud Mechanik]

Nice job Husker.

[mtdew_mn]

I like it!

[Odin]

I don't.

Leave that site to Tony Ackland. It is his herritage we all (including this forum) build upon. NO need to "enhance" that. It's like making a new Volkswagen Beetle and saying: "we love the new one better because it's ride is soooooo much more comfy than the old one!"

We stepped on Tony's shoulders. Let's just respect that.

Odin.

[Husker]

Just browsed it for a few minutes, but love the new layout.

Calculators galore. Very nice job. I'm sure you guys put a lot of hard work into it.

Well done!

I tried to build a special menu, just for calcs. I then found all of them around the site, and made copies (or pulled them from the pages, and made a new page).

I also put rads calc page there http://homedistiller.org/calcs/rad14701" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

and put my pot calc (pure php code), that I did for copper alembic.

http://homedistiller.org/calcs/husker_pot_calc_v2.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

That calc is hella good. I also put a pure php calc that does temp / ABV conversions. It is here http://homedistiller.org/calcs/husker_temp_convert.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow


H

[Husker]

NOTE, the site uses cookies and other stuff. So, going from menu to menu (top menu), it may not give the proper url. I 'may' be able to change that some. It was done this way so that browsers (users), would get to the page they were on, on a particular menu, but so that web spiders (google, yahoo, bing, etc), that they would have a simple URL that would always be the same for that link. Now, a browser (that has cookies), will properly fill in the page part, and put you on the right page. HOWEVER, the url that shows up in the address bar of the browser will not be right, it will be the partial URL that is filled in from data that was in the cookie for your browser. So, what this means, is that if you click on the 'top' menu, do not try to use that URL as a direct link. It will only be partial. Click on the right menu once, then back to the page you were at. Then it will have a 100% correct URL to paste onto a page as a link.

The new site should give you 100% linkable URL's. The web spiders have been been hammering the site, fully reindexing. So they 'wanted' to walk the site, but due to it being handled by java script state information before, they simply COULD not walk the site properly. Now, they can and we should have a high SEO google/bing ranking shortly.

Now, we have to fix all the links in the forums, which pointed to older pages, AND try to find sites with external links, and give them the updated links. I think we can make 'apache' forwarding records that will do some of this for us automatically, but getting them pointed to the right pages is MUCH better.

NOTE, there still will be a lot of work to do on the parent site. Very little of the content update has been done, and everyone 'knows' that it is a decade out of date. We are going to get the data updated, so that the parent site once again is the pinnacle of knowledge.

H.

[Husker]

I don't.

Leave that site to Tony Ackland. It is his herritage we all (including this forum) build upon. NO need to "enhance" that. It's like making a new Volkswagen Beetle and saying: "we love the new one better because it's ride is soooooo much more comfy than the old one!"

We stepped on Tony's shoulders. Let's just respect that.

Odin.

Tony has had nothing to do with these forums, sorry. I will provide a link to the 'original' parent site, not the site with the new menus / graphics. They will be available. The parent site to this forum will be the new data. Sorry, but the content contained on Tony's site was a decade out of date, he has not worked on it. there was LOTs of data which was contradictory, and even unsafe. about 50% of the links were dead, and there was many other issues.

I (and the others that manage the site/forums, especially Uncle Jesse), do hear your concerns, and certainly DO NOT plan on having Tony's site expunged. However, it needed maintained, AND needed to have much of the content brought up to date.

H.

[blind drunk]

What's not to like? Heritage is important, but so is modernization. Excellent work Husker.

[Husker]

I do actually plan on resurrecting the 'original' JavaScript menued parent site, built by Tony. That site is still there, but has not been the default one for quite a while (1 or 2 years). I think what Odin listed, is very viable. It is a historic legacy of what Tony built, and we should make SURE that the original site, in the form Tony left it, should be available, for posterity reasons. However, for helping to teach new users the right way, and to help preserve some of the BEST of the BEST, Tony's legacy site, simply is showing it's age, and lack of being maintained.

H.

[blind drunk]

That sounds fair and respectful of the past efforts and accomplishments.

[Large Sarge]

Husker, your head scares me. I read your posts and my brain hurts. Thank god your on our side. The calc links are amazing. I have been playing with the BAC for 30 minutes. Thanks for your time that you put in helping the guys like me.

And tell that eye you use for an avatar to quit looking at me!

[Husker]

Husker, your head scares me. I read your posts and my brain hurts. Thank god your on our side. The calc links are amazing. I have been playing with the BAC for 30 minutes. Thanks for your time that you put in helping the guys like me.

And tell that eye you use for an avatar to quit looking at me!

The majority of the calcs, were built by tony, or collected by tony from other locations. The BAC, actually was from a CNN page. However, that page is gone, years ago, thus unfortunately, the link is gone. Of the calcs on the page, only the ones on the page from rad (which I believe, many of those came from Tony's work), and the 2 PHP calculators I added, are all from the original site. Now, some of them 'were' scattered around. Also, the original menuing did not have calcs on their own menu, but sort of globbed a little into the theory menu, but also in the distill, ferment, .... (i.e. about every menu). Now, the calcs that were in these other menus have been left, since they do have context on those pages also. But I have tried to accumulate ALL of them into one easy to access menu. ........

[Washashore]

Thank you Husker, et al for all of the hard work. The calcs page is brilliant. Kudos.

[Husker]

I have been pushing the site to google, and now the google bot is starting to suck it down. Also, I have added a +1 google+ button to pages. If people feel comfortable enough doing a +1 (and have signed up at google+), then by all means start doing the +1 on the pages you frequent. It helps google rank.

I will be working on bing and yahoo, trying to get high rank in those sites also.

[wildbill]

Excellent work! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

[Barney Fife]

Well done!

I raise a glass of my finest rum to you, Sir!

[Bohunk]

Husker, Once again you have hit a home run!! One can see at a glance you pur a lot of work into this project. One question -- the still on the opening screen looks awfully familar to me ?? Have I ever touched that baby ?? Great job, man.

The Old Bohunk

[Husker]

That's not my still. It's made by the same guy over in Portugal as mine, but mine is the water seal. That one is the round bottom alembic. I think Tony had a little 4L built (donated) for him. there are a couple of pix of it, if you dig into the parent site. I know the pic in the upper left corner is Tony's. I think the big one (if there is no page selected), is simply the same still blown up in size. But that one, 'may' also be a stock graphic from the still manufacture's site.

[Junkaboy]

Nice job.
The new site and layout are looking better.

Thank you for the great contribution.

[Husker]

I have just updated the parent site to what I am calling version 2.02. The changes from v2.01 (which started this thread) are:

a few links fixed.

the URLs are now SEO friendly. What that means, is that search engines like them this way, and rank the pages much higher in ranking. What I have done is to 'hide' the dynamic-ness of the site. It was changed from some java script menu system, to a php menu system, where the php system used a single php file (index.php), and parameters passed in to this php file, to tell the script just 'how' to build the pages (what menu links to use, what data to show in the bottom page, etc).

So, the format of the v2.01 was something like this (this will not be a link, I do not want spiders to continue to search it).

ww w.homedistiller.org/index.php?pg=neutral&mn=flavor&pd=vodka

With the v2.02 change, that exact same URL is now this:

http://homedistiller.org/flavor/neutral/vodka" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Browser search engines rank the 2nd way much higher. Those 2 URL's go to exactly the same page. But it will get higher rankings in the browser engines. Also, ALL links on the home site, will properly be in the v2.02 format. That is so when the search engine spiders are walking the site, they get the right URL's.

There has been almost no changes, other than reworking the code to get the above to work, and modifications to the www server's configuration, so that it properly servers up the requests to the php engine building the parent site pages.

NOTE, I will be 'seeding' some of the URL's, since the google, bing, yahoo spiders are hitting the forums more actively than the parent site right now. Those postings will give the spiders some 'bait'

H.

[Husker]

Hurray. GoogleBot (the site sucking spider for google), is already sucking the new site. Only up 10 minutes, and it is VERY happily pulling it all down.

At the rate it is going, it should have the whole site spidered within half an hour or so. The other index.php?mn=menu .... site did get spidered, but very slowly. Google does not care for parameter php data (such as the forums). It does spider them, but not very well, and not aggressively. This is all good news!

H.

[Large Sarge]

The more I play on the new site the more I like it. There is a lot of info that is well tucked away. Nice and clean, easy to navigate. Great work.

[bentstick]

Super job there fellas,to the powers to be and behind the scene gurus. Thanx

[Husker]

Since the parent site is now a php program, I have started working on a 'user configuration' screen, where the site will allow it to be 'customized' to what the user wants.

Right now, I am working on these things. Actually, only the screen res works (partly). The page is on the 'intro' menu. It can be seen at http://homedistiller.org/intro/user_config.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow (it is the bottom link of the intro menu).

1. Screen res. This will be the width of the screen. Widths: 640 (which is too narrow), 800, 1024 (current default), 1280 and 1600. Currently, 800 and 640 have some issues, where the top menu wrap improperly.

2. skins (colors). There will be several colors to choose from. 'copper' will be the default. This has not been started on yet.

3. eye candy. This will be an on or off. On is the 'default'. Off will provide a menuing system very similar to the current 'static_menu'

The choices are optional. A user does not need to select anything from that page. If they never visit, the site will work properly. All of the defaults are are: eye_candy ON, Skin color Copper, Screen Res 1024. The setup is stored as a site cookie. There also is a site cookie that stores the 'current' page being viewed on each menu of the site, so when you click from menu to menu, the pages should come up where you left off.

There is also a button on the user setup, to delete the HD site cookies (not the HD forum cookies however).

NOTE, due to how browsers cache pages, if you change the screen res or colors, etc (once I get them working), you will likely have to clear your browser's page cache, before all of the pages display in the new format. Otherwise, you can force refresh a page, and it 'will' showup properly.

These changes are still 'very' early in building and design.

Jim.

[NcHooch]

Helluva job yall, Keep up the good work (I know what a PITA php and sql are) .

[Husker]

http://homedistiller.org/intro/user_config.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

I now have all screen width sizes 'working'. The 640 and 800 pix screen widths had to use a smaller 'title graphic' image, AND had to do 2 rows in the top menu, to fit the screen. But that was pretty easy to do, and is working, apparently well. NOTE, at 640 pix, there is NOT much screen real estate for the page. They do display, but often graphics are larger than your screen, and there WILL be other issues. This was simply a best attempt at being graceful, and not forcing scroll bar viewing. If this truncates too many things for your low res screen, then keep it at 1024, and use the scroll bars.

I have also gotten the 'eye candy off' option working. This will provide a 2 pane view that is like the older static_menu parent site. But this one IS being dynamically created, and the page is displayed with the full menu. For people who 'like' the static menu, please give this menu a look, and see if this is something you like.

I have not touched colors yet. The menu options are still disabled, but you can see them. making changes should not be 'too' hard, but tedious.

AGAIN, these config changes are done with cookies, and DO NOT change the site URL's in the least bit. Thus, you may need to empty your browser cache, after making changes, or at least, have to refresh pages you have already viewed. I can make changes (I think), so that the web site will properly expire all of the pages for you make config changes (means it will actually serve up the page, and not send a 304 HTML return code, which tells your client that the page has not changed). However, the server has NO WAY (that I am aware of) to control how your browser internally cache pages. Thus, if your client never asks for a page, because your browser already thinks it has the current version, then it will continue to show the older config 'view' of the page. If this happens, simply refresh the page, OR empty your browser's cache if many pages behave like this.

Usually, however, IF you set something up, you will play with the config a little, until you get what you like, and then stick with it. Once it is set, then the parent will keep showing the pages properly (in the config you have setup). The 'problems' happen, if you have explored around the site some, in one config, and then change, or change several times. However, again, once those old pages 'expire' properly, then things should showup right.

H.