austraLasia
1373
2006: Happy
New Year - visit the new Bosconet.
ROME:
1st January 2006 -- What has begun on Sunday, in the Gregorian
Calendar, 1st January 2006 is also known as the years 5766-67 in the Hebrew
calendar, 1426-27 in the Islamic calendar. On 14th January it will be
Mahayana, the Buddhist New Year, and on January 29th, the Chinese 'Year of the
Dog' commences. This year has been designated as the International Year of
Deserts and Desertification, and is also known as the Rembrandt (400th
anniversary) and Mozart (250th) year. But for a certain 'Julian' calendar
it is austraLasia 1373 and the beginning of the new Bosconet. Happy New
Year!
Bosconet, the website of the East Asia Oceania
region, is undergoing a complete overhaul to bring it into line with current web
standards and to ensure its efficiency. You may see the first phase now on
www.bosconet.aust.com. A word or two on what is happening and where the process
is going.
Contemporary web standards recommend an almost
complete separation of content from presentation. What this means,
effectively, is that if you look at the source code of any of the overhauled
pages in Bosconet, you will see only a minimum of html code - the rest is
content. What you don't see is the file containing all the presentation
code (called a style sheet). The advantage of this is significant: Pages
are lighter, there is no repetition of formatting details on each page.
These are held in a single file. With a minor change to that file, the
'look' of Bosconet can change entirely. By the time the overhaul is
complete, you may even be able to make your own choice of presentation from
several on offer. There is more consistency throughout for pages linked to
the style sheet.
I did not know this until I started, but
I know it now - there are in excess of 1,000 pages in Bosconet! I have so
converted around 20 of them! However, the process now of converting the
remaining pages is much quicker, and certainly you could expect that around 10 a
day will switch over from now on.
The pages that have been
converted are the main 'top level' pages on the Bosconet site 'tree': this means
the home page, obviously, and the main Salesian sector pages - formation, youth
ministry, communications, and so on. I have included the EAO central page
amongst the top pages and two sub pages to this, the Brothers 2006 Assembly and
the Youth Ministry 2006 meeting. What this means in practical terms is
that if you click on the brown links on the home page navigation bar you reach
converted pages. Blue links will take you to unconverted pages. All
converted pages will have their own common navigation bar, usually on the left
hand side of the page other than the home page and the austraLasia
pages.
The theme was inspired by a characteristic
geographical feature of our region....ocean and sandy beaches. It also
fits in with the deserts and desertification international theme. I could
hardly claim to have achieved any Rembrandt dimensions with the featured 'gif'
on each page. Any artists out there with suggestions for other
themes? Practical suggestions by way of useful
images?
You may need to reload on first visiting, if you
still get the 'old' Bosconet on your screen. Oh, and by the way, it has
been built to handle as many browsers as I could think of, including varying
screen resolutions. It has also been constructed in such a way that a
'sight challenged' individual could 'read' it using acoustic software. You
could technically receive it on a PDA and still be able to read it, or on a
screen reader. That's the sort of thing that current web standards are all
about. Access for all. If any of these features fail, please let me
know. I would appreciate knowing of failed links, too - with 1,000 pages
to think of there just have to be failed links. You can help me fix them
up. I just need to know what link didn't work on what page. Happy
viewing/reading/listening!
_______________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of
Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome.
For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/rssala.xml