This layout was one I downloaded from www.oswd.org. Personally, I loved the ANSI look (in fact I still use it for the main menu of my BBS), but apparently some other people are not as nostalgic because quite a few people complained about it.
Part of the reason it only lasted 17 days was because it was not well received, but the main reason was because the HTML was really nasty. It involved a lot of tables to create the shadow effect, and it was just too much to work with.
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This next layout was another one I originally downloaded from www.oswd.org, but a lot of modifications went into it to make it fully XHTML 1.1 and CSS2 compatable. I guess I was on the fence about whether I really liked the layout though. I mean, it wasn't so horrible that I had to change it right away, but I always had my eye open looking for something new to eventually replace it with. The other day I finally found that something to replace it with, and so after 71 days this layout has also been retired.
And just for the record, CSS is truly a great thing. I was able to convert from this old layout to the new one in about half an hour by just modifying the CSS code and a little bit of HTML for the header. On the other hand, converting from Old Layout #1 (which had no CSS) to Old Layout #2 took hours upon hours of rewriting!
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Breaking the pattern of using www.oswd.org layouts, this last one was instead stolen from www.dvddecrypter.com. As you can see I modified it a little by wrapping the blue band across the right side of the screen as well as the left, and the code was also cleaned up to become XHTML 1.1 and CSS 2 compliant. Originally I thought this was a very sharp looking design, but later I found out that it only really appeared that way in IE. Most other browsers rendered it differently, with the links scrolled off screen. Gotta love how even following standards doesn't get you a consistent look and feel!
So in the end, I decided that instead of fixing the broken layout, I would go back to a purely DIV driven page. It worked well for Old Layout #2, so hopefully the one that replaced this will also look great in all browsers.
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This design picked up the tradition of using www.oswd.org layouts. The original design was made only for 800x600, but with cookies and a little PHP, it was customizeable to use the full screen on 1024x768 and 1280x1024 screens. There were also multiple selectable colour schemes, and the user even had the option of creating their own.
It was less than ideal to have the display limited to 3 static display sizes, so I always knew this design wouldn't last long. Like the previous designs, it was both XHTML 1 and CSS 2 compliant, so overall it was a good learning experience working with the code.
You'll notice that this is the first screen-shot making reference to R&M Software instead of MannSoft. This layout was rolled out the same day I made the name switch.
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I honestly can't remember where I got this layout from. I really liked the clean look of the content area, but the navigation bar had always bothered me. It really looks out of place so small and in the corner like that.
You can't tell from the screen shot, but I used JavaScript code to keep the menu visible on screen at all times. I guess I thought that made up for it being so ugly, and maybe that's why this design lasted as long as it did (maybe it was also because I was too lazy to change it!).
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