The site's features are primarily accessed in three ways: firstly, most site content is featured in the 'Menus' which populate the top of the screen on most pages. Moving the mouse pointer over these menus causes their sub-items to become visible, and clicking on a menu item displays the appropriate content. Some menu items result in navigation away from the current page, whereas others display the relevant information in the current "view". For instance, selecting the Journal items while viewing the Home page displays the relevant Table of Contents in a popup window. Some site content is accessed via hyperlinks from the current page.
The Journal contents can also be accessed via the icons (reduced-size images representing issues of the Journal) located on the right-hand side of the main page. Clicking on one of these icons causes the corresponding Table of Contents to be displayed in a popup window. The icon itself undergoes a visual change to indicate that its contents is "expanded" and clicking it again closes the corresponding Table of Contents popup. More than one Table of Contents popup may be posted at a time, in which case offscreen contents may be viewed by scrolling the browser window; this is provided to facilitate browsing back-issues of the Journal for specific articles.
Selecting a menu item from the "Journal" menu has the same effect as clicking on a Journal icon. Selecting a "Journal" menu item from another page navigates to the Home page and opens the corresponding Table of Contents popup.
Technical Note: The site consists of two main sections; one section contains "static content" which is based on standard HTML and Javascript. This is the section you access from the "home page" at http://seanreidsociety.org/ and includes the Journal. The second section of the site, which hosts the Seán Reid Society Forum and the Archives (currently under construction), contains dynamic content and uses PHP technology.
The website has been tested with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera, on MS-Windows, Mac OSX, and Ubuntu Linux. While basic functions have been verified on these platforms, slight differences in appearance are unavoidable. Unfortunately the various browser and operating-system combinations mentioned above differ substantially in their compliance with and interpretation of relevant Web standards; this prevents the creation of a perfectly consistent "look and feel" for the site. In particular the layout of the site depends on the sizes of text which your system uses, and on the size of the browser window. If you find the site looks awkward or is difficult to read, we recommend resizing the window slightly or adjusting the text size, which on most browsers may be changed via the browser's "View" menu. Efforts have been made to use standards-based, accessible technology where possible on the site.
Technical note: the site uses CSS "Stylesheet" technology for its appearance. The site may be viewed without a stylesheet, if desired, by turning off page styles in your browser's "View" menu.
The titles of articles appear in the Table of Contents as live links; clicking on these links will access a PDF file of the article. The action which takes place at this point may depend on your browser, operating system, and system configuration. On some systems, notably Mac OSX and most Windows XP systems, the PDF may appear in the same browser window. Once you have finished viewing the article, the browser's "back" button may be used to return to the Table of Contents.
On other systems, you may be prompted as to whether you wish to 'Open' or 'Save' the relevant file. If you choose 'Open', the file should appear in the appropriate PDF viewer (for instance, the Adobe Acrobat Reader or a similar document viewing program). In the latter cases the TOC will remain open in your browser window, and the relevant article will appear in a new window.
Some PDFs may contain links to online content. The result of clicking on a link inside PDF unfortunately depends a bit on your system. In most cases the content either opens in the current browser window, or causes the appropriate viewing application to open (for instance, a media player, for MP3 links). Some PDF browser plugins have a bug which causes the screen to go blank at this point; if your PDF document appears to go blank when you click on a link, click the "Reload" button in your browser to restore your view of the document. Some PDF viewers have a "right click" menu for links, which allows you to open the content in a separate browser tab or window; some do not. On Macintosh, pressing "Alt" when following a link allows you to open the link in a separate browser tab.
While we have tried to keep the article file sizes manageable, some articles are in excess of 2 MB and may take several seconds to download, particular on dialup internet connections. This is necessary in order to preserve a reasonable photo quality in the articles. Most articles should be suitable for draft printing (for personal use), but in a few cases we may include additional print-quality versions of articles in the "Associated Files" folder.
Some articles have accompanying materials which may be of interest to readers who with to explore further. When these articles are primarily associated with a single article, a link in the Table of Contents, called "Associated Files", appears to the right of the Author's name. This link leads to a page which serves as an index to the additional material; clicking on a thumbnail or link in this page accesses the relevant photo, audio clip, or file.
We have taken pains to use standard technologies for multimedia where feasible, and when possible we aim to use formats which are in common use and for which free viewers are available. Audio files are generally provided as MP3, and video files as MP4, AVI, or QuickTime video. Where multimedia (i.e. audio and/or video) is provided, the content is accessed via links within a page. In most cases, clicking on such a link will automatically launch a viewer for the content; however depending on your particular computer's settings, you may be prompted to download and save the file, or prompted to select a suitable viewing program on your computer. If a multimedia file does not open automatically on your system, please consult the documentation for your web browser and/or operating system.
In one or two places on the site you will see links to what are called "ISO images". These are not graphics files, but complete copies of CD-ROMs that can be "burned" onto recordable CDs (CD-R or CD-RW) on computers equipped with CD burners. Two ISO images are currently supplied; one which can be used to burn a copy of the original Seán Reid Society Volume I CD-ROM edition, and the other which can be used to burn a copy of the Volume II CD-ROM edition. They are provided for the convenience of users who would prefer to read the SRS Journal offline - for instance those without broadband internet access. These "ISO images" are provided as free downloads, but they are still copyrighted material, so please do not republish them on file-sharing sites, etc. If you want to share the Journal with friends, send them to this web site!
Volume III of the Journal does not yet exist in CD-ROM or ISO form. In order to fit all of Volume III onto a 700 MB CD-ROM, some of the multimedia content may be abridged, and links to the online versions substituted; if you would like to see Volume III available in this format, please let us know (at the 'postmaster' address).
coming soon...
coming soon...
coming soon...