RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted January 28, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 28, 2019 The desktop monitor for my very ordinary PC is 1280x1024 and the site truncates on that. I can't remember when I last came across a site that fails to display properly at the resolution. I can get it to fit by zooming out (ctrl minus) but to zoom out far enough for the whole page to appear makes the text very small. Oh dear!! Instead of zooming, scroll across on the bottom scroll bar. Martin. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grovenor Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 I can scroll right to get to the right hand edge but the scroll left cannot get to the lefthand edge. And having to scroll left and right when the page is open at full screen is a really poor design, after all html is meant to resize itself to fit the window. I would expect a developer to check this sort of thing before going live. Regards Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted January 28, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted January 28, 2019 I can scroll right to get to the right hand edge but the scroll left cannot get to the lefthand edge. And having to scroll left and right when the page is open at full screen is a really poor design, after all html is meant to resize itself to fit the window. I would expect a developer to check this sort of thing before going live. The site appears to be hosted by a local computer shop, whose own website doesn't resize properly either: https://www.tecres.co.uk Martin. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Ian J. Posted January 28, 2019 RMweb Premium Share Posted January 28, 2019 The new site definitely seems to have been written for a 1920x1080 resolution. In general, when I design a site (or any interface) I consider a resolution of 1024 in width, and use either adaptive or responsive techniques to account for smaller sizes, and ignore the spare space on either side on larger screens. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nimbus Posted January 28, 2019 Share Posted January 28, 2019 The site appears to be hosted by a local computer shop, *sigh* The Nim. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lacathedrale Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 It boggles the mind- you can put together a shop front hosted on Wordpress with integrated shopping cart, members-only sections, paypal and credit card integration, etc. in about 2 hours. It's responsive to mobile/tablet/laptop screen sizes, is accessibility rated and doesn't have any administrative overhead other than adding/removing new products and stock levels. I know, because I did it a few months ago as a demo for the 2mm association shop owner. There are youtube tutorials which guide you step by step through the whole process - and the whole lot can be done for free! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted January 29, 2019 Share Posted January 29, 2019 William There are many of us who are for what ever reasons only able to operate computers and do not either have the time/ability etc to get to grips how systems work. Like many others my son in law is self taught and last year received recognition rewards from two separate bodies in the industry he works in. But this is beyond most of us Phil is in the hands of those he chose to do the work. Many on here have been clamouring for a new website, its here. Hopefully resolving the previous issues Phil also has a business to run and hopefully it will allow it to run more smoothly and help resolve those issues which may be outstanding Another good reason to delegate this function is to continue to develop existing and new products, three of these are on the website, and I know work is progressing with track gauges I recently spoke with one of the contributors on RMweb who designs his own kits/parts, some of the remarks on this thread clearly illustrate his reasons for not making these available to others By all means comment constructively that is the way things develop and improve, and I am certain Phil welcomes all constructive suggestions and ideas to improve his products and customer service Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold chris p bacon Posted February 2, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 2, 2019 On 1/29/2019 at 7:38 AM, Lacathedrale said: It boggles the mind- you can put together a shop front hosted on Wordpress with integrated shopping cart, members-only sections, paypal and credit card integration, etc. in about 2 hours. It's responsive to mobile/tablet/laptop screen sizes, is accessibility rated and doesn't have any administrative overhead other than adding/removing new products and stock levels. I know, because I did it a few months ago as a demo for the 2mm association shop owner. There are youtube tutorials which guide you step by step through the whole process - and the whole lot can be done for free! That has to be the funniest thing I've read for ages, having very recently been part of the testing for a site which has those features, I can say that it certainly isn't a 2 hour process. The bulk of the work was carried out by a professional (his day to day job) and it went smoothly and without a hitch, but it was a lot of work. 1 1 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 With RMweb being off site and me not quite up to finding earlier posts yet, I failed to update this thread since speaking with Phil (I think Wednesday) Well the issues with accessing the site using either phones or tablets was resolved quickly, which hopefully bodes well for the future, still quite a few outstanding items to do (photos etc) but Phil now has a functioning site which will save him and his customers lots of time, hopefully getting rid of the problems the old site was causing Phil asked me to ask anyone who is still waiting for orders placed a while ago to contact him by phone or email, he still has a number of orders where he cannot contact the buyers, I have suggested one laborious way of possibly achieving this, but a quick call or email may resolve matters far quicker 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharris Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 4 hours ago, hayfield said: Well the issues with accessing the site using either phones or tablets was resolved quickly It certainly works a lot better now on my antique (in phone years) iPhone 5. No more disappearing off the edges. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 I don't know the exact fix Ian J in an earlier reply mentioned something about a resolution size, as it was fixed quite quickly I guess it was just a quick tweak that was needed As for iPhone 5's only updated mine to a seven last year, first time for years I had to pay an initial premium payment (£10 ish) as I normally go for free upgrades. My wife still has her iPhone 5 which works very well and now pays for a sim only deal Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold JCL Posted February 3, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 3, 2019 (edited) On 1/28/2019 at 11:38 PM, Lacathedrale said: It boggles the mind- you can put together a shop front hosted on Wordpress with integrated shopping cart, members-only sections, paypal and credit card integration, etc. in about 2 hours. It's responsive to mobile/tablet/laptop screen sizes, is accessibility rated and doesn't have any administrative overhead other than adding/removing new products and stock levels. I know, because I did it a few months ago as a demo for the 2mm association shop owner. There are youtube tutorials which guide you step by step through the whole process - and the whole lot can be done for free! I've been building e-commerce sites with Woocommerce on Wordpress for years, and more recently with a page builder called Elementor, and I would tread carefully around people saying they could create a site for you in 2 hours - unless what they mean is they can install and configure a site in 2 hours. There's a whole lot more to building an online store than simply installing and configuring software. E-commerce is complicated, and often it's a whole new world to the business owner - especially a small business owner. By taking on someone to do their online store, a business owner is often not only looking for a technician, but someone who can hold their hand through the process. This should be a partnership. I always make sure that I understand the business before I install the first piece of software. There are lots of questions like, what will an online store mean to the business? What are the benefits the owner should expect? What are the pitfalls? How will the business owner keep it running efficiently? What happens if it goes wrong? What changes, if any, will they have to make to their business processes to make the business work with the website and vice versa? What sort of e-commerce should they use - Wordpress, Etsy, Amazon, Ebay, Shopify, etc? (I've even recommended people don't go with me because they would be better off on a different platform). Sometimes even simple things like 'What shall I do about setting up postage an packing?' needs to be nailed down - with an online store your customers could be anywhere in the world. Are you going to service all of these people, or block certain or all foreign countries? Taking all of that into account, I'll have spent more than 2 hours going through and understanding the business before I start creating the website. Here's the thing, a business owner with some technical expertise could spend 2 hours looking at a video and following the instructions and have a website. If you want a *successful* site, then they will have to do a lot more work to get up to speed and to understand and avoid the problems that may turn up along the way. There are a lot of failed and failing ecommerce sites out there because the owner didn't know what they were getting into before they started. I'm reworking an online store at the moment. They have a great product that is selling well everywhere it's seen, and they have it selling well in a major department store but they can't get sales on their website. The site isn't pretty, it makes it difficult to understand what they are selling, the products are hidden in menus, and it can sometimes take a minute before the home page loads because the person who wrote it didn't know what they were doing. Just as bad, the admin is so bad that they are spending extra time on the site that should be spent making the product. If you are after an online store, don't look at people showing demos unless they can also refer you to previous websites that they have created that have the look, feel and functionality that you are after, that owner loves and that is successfully bringing in business. Phil is using Wix for his website, which is a website builder for people that don't have a technical background. I helped a friend with a B&B with a Wix site out last autumn, and to be honest, I'll not do that again - it's not a great platform and caused me to spend hours on the phone with Wix and 3rd party services attempting to connect their B&B to booking.com. It's such a shame that the expert has messed up the non-shop pages so much. Wix comes with a lot of templates that could have been used for the non-shop pages that would have been so much better, and would have been responsive. Phil can still turn this around, but I think needs to go back to the IT person and have a long conversation with him/her that results in scrapping the pages done and redoing them properly from scratch. I hope it all works out for him. Edited February 3, 2019 by JCL better examples 1 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmcc3 Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 (edited) Before I start, the important thing is that Phil's new website should enable him to provide the level of service he has struggled to achieve with the old site after it was hacked. He's never going to be as swift as Amazon, and purchasers should take into account that he's a one-man-band doing his very best. I'm with IanJ and JCL about the site ... You can't design a site for a fixed large screen size (1257 pixels) and expect it to work on smaller ones. If you look at global stats on screen sizes, there are a significant proportion of people using smaller screens. Too wide a layout also brings problems with readability, when lines of text get too long. Typography is a whole subject in itselft which too few website builders consider (or even know about). Phil's choice of website builder was based on locality, not track record. I mentioned the issue to him with the front page in November when I first saw it. He said it would be fixed before the site went live. Most modern website building tools all provide screen size responsiveness out of the box (it's actually difficult to 'turn it off'). The site has been build on Wix, a commercial online platform, and I'm truely surprised it was possible to build a front page that doesn't re-size! It's a tool which enables people to build truely awfull websites for themselves. As for the 2-hour website build ... JCL is correct on every point. The quickest we've ever built a site and made it live was one day - that was two of us building, configuring, tweaking, writing the content, loading the words, plus finding and loading images ... about 8 hours each. It IS possible to build something in 2 hours, but it would only just qualify as a website. We probably spend two man-weeks on a 5-6 page site, taking into account conversations with clients, constant tweaking they ask for and so on - they end up with a good looking, functional website that perfroms well. JCL mentions postage tables ... the original poster has obviosly never built a postage table which has to take into account the size and weights of all the items, and then fit that into Royal Mail's pricing scheme. The time with an eCommerce site is loading all the products. We've done that a few times (outsouced mostly). Having said that, it's taken his chosen company far too long to build the site ... months and months. It's a pity Phil didn't ask around ... there are plenty of people in the railway community who could have given him a steer. It's also a pity tecres didn't recongise they were getting away from their core expertise. Like JCL, we advise some clients to go elsewhere when we know we're not the best fit. On that note, if anyone wants advice, you can message me off the forum ... advice is always freely given, especially to the railway and modelling community. PS. I'm not touting for business, just want to help people avoid terrible websites and wasted time and money. Edited February 4, 2019 by davidmcc3 Adding PS 3 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Freeman Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 There are a couple of things not mentioned thus far: 1) There are still things wrong such as pages being entirely unrelated to what you'd expect when you click on a link 2) I know for a fact that he is missing out on business via the website due to no facility for card/paypal payment, especially for overseas clients Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharris Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 On 02/02/2019 at 16:26, sharris said: It certainly works a lot better now on my antique (in phone years) iPhone 5. No more disappearing off the edges. I spoke a bit too soon - the front page is fine on my phone, but still disappears off the sides on my desktop - I had assumed that when the phone version had been fixed, the desktop version would have worked at the same time! It seems to be reactive to device type, not to window size. I just did a 'view page source' to see if there was an obvious place where it was fixed, and wish I hadn't - note to self: don't use Wix to build a website! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 The home page opens up correctly on my desk top and always has Whenever any format changes you will get those who like it and those who don't, I am still struggling with RMweb showing far more things than I want and more than it used to, but on the whole I like both upgrades I find the C&L site far easier than some other new/upgrade ones to move around and find things, certainly better than how its predecessors evolved/developed The other thing to take into consideration is businesses like these work on a shoestring and there are those of us who have a mental block on the technicalities of computer programs Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigelcliffe Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 On 29/01/2019 at 07:38, Lacathedrale said: It boggles the mind- you can put together a shop front hosted on Wordpress with integrated shopping cart, members-only sections, paypal and credit card integration, etc. in about 2 hours. It's responsive to mobile/tablet/laptop screen sizes, is accessibility rated and doesn't have any administrative overhead other than adding/removing new products and stock levels. I know, because I did it a few months ago as a demo for the 2mm association shop owner. There are youtube tutorials which guide you step by step through the whole process - and the whole lot can be done for free! On 02/02/2019 at 11:15, chris p bacon said: That has to be the funniest thing I've read for ages, having very recently been part of the testing for a site which has those features, I can say that it certainly isn't a 2 hour process. The bulk of the work was carried out by a professional (his day to day job) and it went smoothly and without a hitch, but it was a lot of work. On 03/02/2019 at 02:11, JCL said: I've been building e-commerce sites with Woocommerce on Wordpress for years, and more recently with a page builder called Elementor, and I would tread carefully around people saying they could create a site for you in 2 hours - unless what they mean is they can install and configure a site in 2 hours. There's a whole lot more to building an online store than simply installing and configuring software. I'm the 2mm Scale Association webmaster. I could deploy wordpress, shopping cart, etc.. in a few hours - most of it is "click, wait, use" on our hosting provider. Then the hard work starts. Moving the product descriptions, photographs of products, instruction sheets, and pricing to the new system. There are only a thousand products or so, a fair few of which are cross-referenced (eg. parts XYZ needed to complete). Plus training up all the human bits (who processes what, when, in response to what). Pressing "click-deploy" is the easy part of any website. As for the 2mm shop system, its an evolving very simple script dating back well over a dozen years. Intended to fit with the work-flow of volunteers running the shops. Several people over the years, have said they'll come up with a replacement, and so far all haven't progressed very far. Problems with the new idea are often over a process to load all the data into the new, in a way which doesn't loose all the useful cross-references, etc.. yet is still maintainable. Plus failing to have any link back to the stock-control systems used (or offering a low-hassle way of replacing the existing stock-control). Plus failing to describe a human work-flow which will fit with the way the human's running the shop systems might wish to conduct their work. So, the evolving hacked "old shop" continues. The software can't be that bad, as a couple of other model rail hobby societies have used the same software for their internal member shops, and one is still using it. I wouldn't use Wix, its far to proprietary in the way it locks users into doing more stuff on Wix without an escape route. - Nigel 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidmcc3 Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 16 hours ago, Nigelcliffe said: I'm the 2mm Scale Association webmaster. I could deploy wordpress, shopping cart, etc.. in a few hours - most of it is "click, wait, use" on our hosting provider. Then the hard work starts. Moving the product descriptions, photographs of products, instruction sheets, and pricing to the new system. There are only a thousand products or so, a fair few of which are cross-referenced (eg. parts XYZ needed to complete). Plus training up all the human bits (who processes what, when, in response to what). Pressing "click-deploy" is the easy part of any website. As for the 2mm shop system, its an evolving very simple script dating back well over a dozen years. Intended to fit with the work-flow of volunteers running the shops. Several people over the years, have said they'll come up with a replacement, and so far all haven't progressed very far. Problems with the new idea are often over a process to load all the data into the new, in a way which doesn't loose all the useful cross-references, etc.. yet is still maintainable. Plus failing to have any link back to the stock-control systems used (or offering a low-hassle way of replacing the existing stock-control). Plus failing to describe a human work-flow which will fit with the way the human's running the shop systems might wish to conduct their work. So, the evolving hacked "old shop" continues. The software can't be that bad, as a couple of other model rail hobby societies have used the same software for their internal member shops, and one is still using it. I wouldn't use Wix, its far to proprietary in the way it locks users into doing more stuff on Wix without an escape route. - Nigel Nigel You've hit (one of) the nail on the head ... most packaged eCommerce systems require your processes to work their way. For a new business or a single person, it isn't so difficult to change, but where it ties in with stock and multiple users, they are hopeless. Keeping with your evolved system (I noticed the .dwt template) has its drawbacks, but the pain of changing would be too much for a volunteer workforce. Some of the other online systems are better than Wix, but you are still tied in - there's no way to move your website elsewhere. But they are like all tools, if you don't know how to use them, or understand the principles for effective websites, you won't end up with a good site. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
meil Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Where on earth has he come-up with track gauges of 32.95mm? Scale 7 is 33mm (that's the standard). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sharris Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 4 hours ago, meil said: Where on earth has he come-up with track gauges of 32.95mm? Scale 7 is 33mm (that's the standard). Is that your measurement of a gauge, or did he put that somewhere on the site? In the information section he says 33mm is the standard. https://www.clfinescale.co.uk/examiningproductrange (if you were going to go for exactly scaling track down to 7mm, 32.958 would be more exact than 33mm though). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold martin_wynne Posted February 5, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted February 5, 2019 10 minutes ago, sharris said: Is that your measurement of a gauge, or did he put that somewhere on the site? https://www.clfinescale.co.uk/online-store/TRACK-ROLLER-GAUGES-7MM-32-95-MM-PACK-OF-4-p128257152 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Freeman Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 Well once I had zoomed in on the page so that I could actually read it. I just measured my C&L gauges of some 18 years age and as far as I can tell they are spot on 33.00 mm. Lets not forget that 0.05 mm is not a lot and most gauges do have a tolerance plus or minus. Perhaps he measured a gauge and his vernier wasn't quite spot on or that's the manufacturing tolerance? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 I have quite a few gauges in several scales and gauges, I have found even from the same supplier bought quite a time apart they can vary very slightly and still be within the stated tolerance of the gauge, sadly even some traders are a bit lacking in certain areas of knowledge I have just opened a set of C&L Scale Seven 33 mm gauge roller gauges (the earlier type which have springs) and with my cheap electronic caliper it measures 32.95 mm. I will have a word with Phil and put him right Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
meil Posted February 5, 2019 Share Posted February 5, 2019 1 hour ago, Stephen Freeman said: Well once I had zoomed in on the page so that I could actually read it. I just measured my C&L gauges of some 18 years age and as far as I can tell they are spot on 33.00 mm. Lets not forget that 0.05 mm is not a lot and most gauges do have a tolerance plus or minus. Perhaps he measured a gauge and his vernier wasn't quite spot on or that's the manufacturing tolerance? That's not the issue - why does he advertise a dimension of 32.95mm? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold RedgateModels Posted April 4, 2019 RMweb Gold Share Posted April 4, 2019 (edited) Is everything OK with C&L? placed an order earlier this week and cannot get through by phone to pay for it, tried many times at the appropriate times but all I get is "Sorry this mailbox is full" Don't suppose anyone knows of a stockist of C&L code 125 steel rail do you? Edited April 4, 2019 by RedgateModels Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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