New Cartoon Gallery page added

Posted 26 Apr 2012

Just wanted to tell you about a development on the BC website. I’ve spent the last 2 weeks exclusively working on a new Cartoon Gallery page. At the beginning of this website’s development we wanted to create a page that allowed viewers to see a cartoon, & then have “Next” & “Previous” buttons which would allow them to navigate backwards & forwards through the entire collection. It turned out to be quite a problem to create that functionality, so we never did add that ability… until now! As of Friday (27/04/2012) the page went live.

The new Cartoon Gallery page incorporates pictures that are simple grey rectangles with arrows on them pointing back to the previous bible book & forward to the next bible book. We call these “navigation cells” & one appears between the cartoons in one book of the bible & the next. The idea is to let viewers know that they are moving forwards/backwards from one book of the bible to another.

I’ve created some computer code that removes the purchase buttons, if the viewer is looking at one of these “navigation cells” after all, I don’t want anyone trying to buy a “navigation cell”!

Viewers can access the new Cartoon Gallery page in all the ways they used to from locations on the BC website:

1) From the home page, by clicking on the “My latest cartoon” hyperlink.
2) From the home page, by clicking on the “Latest cartoons” in the left hand sidebar.
3) From the “Search by Bible Cartoon” page. After you select which book of the bible you want to see cartoons in, you then click on one of those cartoons & you are taken to the new Cartoon Gallery page.

Features to look out for on the new Cartoon Gallery page:
1) All the cartoon images are larger on the new page, as some people had commented that they appear a bit small.

2) There are 3 columns of hyperlinks to all Bible Books, so viewers can easily jump to any other book of the bible, rather than having to labouriously use the “Next” & “Previous” buttons to individually scroll through the cartoon collection. The hyperlinks are colour coded like they are on the “Search by Bible Book” page, with pale red titles for bible books that I don’t have any cartoons for, & pale green ones (with the bracketed no. following the title with the no. of cartoons in that book) for bible books that have cartoons in them. I’ve made the coloured blocks very pale, as the page is very busy, & overpowering if they are at full strength!

Below the horizontal orange dividing line…

3) “Bible Book:” (e.g. Genesis, Exodus, Romans, Revelation, etc) This tells the viewer which book of the Bible they are currently looking at.

4) “Scene no:” (e.g. 1 of 6) which helps viewers know when they are looking at a single cartoon within a series of cartoons that together make up a complete cartoon story.

5) “Bible Book Code:” (e.g. 4101502101) This is a special 10 digit code we use to uniquely position cartoons within the collection. It is useful to see this when it comes to purchasing cartoons, as the actual files a viewer receives upon purchase only have these codes in the title.

6) “Cartoon Title:” (e.g. Mark 15 – The Crucifixion – Scene 06 – Simon of Cyrene) Simply the cartoon’s title.

7) There are 2 new buttons on display below the large cartoon image in the middle of the screen: the “Next” & “Previous” buttons. You click these to navigate backwards & forwards through the collection.

8) By the side of the “Next” & “Previous” buttons you will see a little thumbnail of the “Next” & “Previous” cartoons, so you know what you will be seeing next!

9) All the purchasing buttons are now positioned on the left of the screen, beneath the Old Testament (OT) hyperlinks.

10 We have the shopping cart on the right, as in the previous cartoon vieweing page.

11) Below that you can see the “Other cartoons in this book of the Bible:” box. Clicking any cartoon that you see in here will immediately jump you forward/backawerds & display that cartoon on screen.

12) My customary scripture reference & all the design notes I produce for each cartoon is on display below the text “Scripture Reference & Cartoon Description”, at the bottom of the page.

Functions to add in the future:
1) Buy all cartoons in a series: A customer wrote to me & said it is difficult to keep track of which cartoons they had/hadn’t purchased, especially when it came to buying all the cartoons in a series (e.g. all 11 cartoons in the “Exodus – Plagues of Egypt” series.) I will be adding 2 new buttons soon which will say “Add ALL 72dpi cartoons in this series” or “Add ALL 150dpi cartoons in this series” allowing the customer to automatically add all the cartoons in a series to their shoppng cart in 1 go – that should make it easier to shop for a series of cartoons. I think that anything that can make purchasing easier is a good thing!

2) I intend to customise each of the “navigation cells” that point to a given book of the Bible. The black background & grey arrows are a bit dull to look at! They serve a purpose, but could be a lot more entertaining! Perhaps I’ll add a landscape onto the background, with characters from that book of the Bible. E.g. I could add Queen Esther, King Xerxes, Queen Vashti, Mordecai & Haman & others to the Esther navigation cell.

Here’s a link to my Contact page

If you get a chance to look over the new page & give me your comments, please do. I’m really pleased with it, but welcome comments on layout & function, from fresh eyes!

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