Wednesday 25th
Today consisted of working on a jQuery search function for the Thriftway site. It features the ability for people to use a calendar view for selecting the date as well as predictive text for choosing flight destinations. The whole thing is checked by jQuery to ensure that valid data is being entered before submitting, ensuring that proper dates have been entered in and that a proper ratio of adults to minors is maintained (1 adult per 2 minors).
Mukesh, Will and Stephen also met with the company that manages the search engine that we use to search for flights. They have, apparently, agreed to give up an increased amount of control over the look and feel of the search engine, allowing us to style the content and, apparently, providing us with FTP access to their servers... at least to a limited extent. This will greatly improve the overall look and feel of the site, bringing it together as a whole.
Mukesh has also brought in a sheet covered in little sketches which have dimensions over them. They are the dimensions of the store's windows. He's looking to get banners displayed along the top windows of the office, to provide passersby something that might catch their eye. I've been given the luxourious task of putting something together for this, which will be interesting. The idea is that it will promote the business and provide the currently available methods for booking travel with them, via phone and online.
It will have to wait until Friday though, as I'm in class tomorrow giving a presentation on Edward de Bono's six thinking hats, and how I used them as part of the Write on Time Project I completed last semester.
Posted by Wulf on March 25, 2009, 5:19 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
Tuesday 24th
Today I had, along with Will, a meeting with my Manager about the Thriftway website, providing us with feedback about what we had done and what he would like to see added to the site. We came away with a list of about 12 points that needed to be addressed, which are sat on my desk in the office.
Spent the rest of the day working on code on my local server for integration with the Thriftway site, most of it based upon things that were mentioned. The Flash banner I mentioned previously in this blog got some minor code reworking on the XML feed it uses to gather data. All that it needs now is some AS3 codeing implemented to provide and Alpha Tansition for the text and images.
The other piece of work I undertook today was beginning to switch the current method of searching (based off of scriptaculous and prototype javascript libraries) over to a jQuery based system, which both Will and I prefer. It's giving me a chance to make use of some rather nice features to enhance the search window. It did provide some problems with providing the correct data for the search results, but some snazzy php coding sorted that out pretty quickly. The only remaining hurdle is providing a validation system that deals with some of the other fields. I'll be looking into that tomorrow.
Posted by Wulf on March 24, 2009, 7:11 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
Monday 23rd
I've spent today tweaking minor parts of the Thriftway site code. Mainly tweaking the implementation of the search boxes on individual flight deals and the Book Online page.
Also spent some time working on the ArtsEtka site, working on integrating their Flickr feed in a better manner using a combination of jQuery and Shadowbox. Oh, and asp.net. As a PHP coder, this isn't exactly something I'm faring overly well with.
Tomorrow I should be, along with Will McNeilly, be showing off the Thriftway site to our manager and getting feedback on things.
Posted by Wulf on March 23, 2009, 4:28 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
Placement to date.
I've been on placement now for almost 7 weeks now. In this time I have worked on many different bits and pieces with regards to media, mainly web based. The following is a list of all the things I have worked on so far. In the future I hope to add screenshots highlighting what I have done, primarily to show off pieces that are interesting to me.
- Broken down the theory behind the Hotel Connect XML feeds for possible use in Thriftway site
- Helped transfer data from a local MySQL Database to a remote one, for use in Thriftway site
- Produced a dynamic Flash advert rotator, that pulls and displays data from an XML feed
- Acquired and produced Airline Logos for inclusion in Thriftway site, as well as use in printed media
- Gathered information on Airlines for use in Thriftway site
- Produced a simple Admin Panel for FlyRightThere
- Created Flickr Account for Thriftway Travel, allowing staff to show off photos
- Helped provide cross-browser-compatibility for FlyRightThere
- Helped develop Thriftway Site:
- Cross Browser Compatibility
- User Friendly
- Usabilty
- Functionality
- Content Management
- Site Validation (in progress)
- Adding functionality to Wordpress
- Provided a new method to display search results to both Thriftway and BelfasttoNewYork websites.
Posted by Wulf on March 20, 2009, 9:52 am with 0 comments - Permalink
Work Based Learning
I've been working on a redesign of my web site for a while, but I've not had quite as much time as before for various reasons. It used to be coursework. Now it's more that I'm on my Work Based Learning Placement most of the week. With the launch of the new site I've taken the opportunity to put together a section to track what I've been up to on my placement.
Posted by Wulf on March 11, 2009, 2:59 pm with 0 comments - Permalink
