Hey 1997, Or I Just Designed A Splash Page

It’s 2010.  I just designed a splash page.  A permanent splash page.  For those too young to recall the splash page phenomena, permit me to elaborate. Think a big ‘Enter’ button and phrases like ‘This page is best viewed in Internet Explorer 4.0 at 800x600 resolution’.

That just happened.  Let this be a lesson.

My client asked for a splash page.  I’m pretty sure he reads this blog.  Thankfully, I’m not in the clients-are-stupid camp, rather the clients-help-me-make-a-living-so-thank-you-very-much camp, so I have nothing to worry about in posting this.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, my client asked for a splash page. Hello 1997.

I’m sure that most of us would cringe at the mere thought of designing a splash page let alone actually agreeing to do it.  Nevermind the usability issues, and poor SEO, the splash page is beneath us, isn’t it.  I’m willing to bet if any one has done one in the past few years, that site link somehow didn’t make it to your portfolio.  It’s almost embarrassing.

If I’m going to be honest however, this post really isn’t about splash pages.  This post is about serving the client.  I had presented a revision of a design for this client and most of their team was happy, except for a few key players.  They couldn’t pinpoint it exactly, but to them something was missing.  Upon further digging it was discovered what the these folks were really looking for was a splash page.  To them, a splash page would really finish the site and give them exactly what they were looking for.

At this point most of you would have probably spewed forth righteous scripture cursing the splash page and those in support of it to eternal damnation.  I simply nodded my head.  ”Yeah, we can do anything you want.”

You ever seen one of those old Honda Civics on the road?  The ones with an aftermarket spoiler rests about 6 feet off the trunk?  Both function and form are surely worthy jest and jeer.  You think the auto body shop who installed that told the kid he was a jackass for even considering such an epic fail move?  Clearly, they didn’t.  My guess is, when that kid got his new (used) Integra, he brought it straight in to get it dropped and get that spoiler on it.  Imagine that, return business from a satisfied customer.

Who are we to tell our clients what they should and should not have?  Better yet, what they should and should not like? They hired us for our talent and our knowledge, and if we’re good enough we can use those skills to give them exactly what they want.

#youbetterbelieveitsgonnabeadamnhotsplashpage

Contest: Will I Pass Out?

Dear God, I hope not.  What say you?

Two By Two Business Cards - Letterpressed & Screenprinted

Here are some shots of the lovely Alana Twelmeyer who not only designed, but is hand making my new business cards.  They are both letterpressed and screenprinted in her shop in Ohio.

Needless to say, I’m quite excited to get these in my hands!

Using ExpressionEngine To Toggle Content Dynamically

I just wrapped an ExpressionEngine project that was a blast to work on.  We made extensive use of Playa, FF Matrix and structured the site with, well Structure.  The site just launched and as I was browsing through it today, I was reminded of a little trick I used to toggle content without using any javascript, just straight up ExpressionEngine.

Here is the scenario:  the client has a multi-language site with some pages having multiple translations.  Using FF Matrix we built the back end so the client could easily add copy for as many languages as they wanted.  We would then take that data and build the toggle buttons and populate the text on the page.  Initially I assumed we would just use a little javascript to toggle between the languages, but then the valid point was brought up about a user not being able to bookmark a specific translation of that page since we were doing all the showing/hiding with javascript.

Point taken.  So this is what I came up with.

{if office_lang}
   <p><a href="/office/{segment_2}">English</a></p>
   {office_lang}   
    <p><a href="/office/{segment_2}/{alt_lang}">{alt_lang}</a></p>    
   {/office_lang}  
{/if}
{if segment_3 == ''} 
   {office_intro} 
{if:else}
    {office_lang}  
      {if segment_3 == alt_lang}  
         {alt_content}  
      {/if}  
  {/office_lang} 
{/if}

Now I could easily toggle between the content as well as have a permanent URL structure so that users could bookmark a specific language on the page.  Here is the syntax broken down:

{if office_lang}
   <p><a href="/office/{segment_2}">English</a></p>
   {office_lang}   
    <p><a href="/office/{segment_2}/{alt_lang}">{alt_lang}</a></p>    
   {/office_lang}  
{/if}

Here we check to see if the page has multiple languages, then we loop through, first showing English as the default then each alternate language.

{if segment_3 == ''} 
   {office_intro} 
{if:else}
    {office_lang}  
      {if segment_3 == alt_lang}  
         {alt_content}  
      {/if}  
  {/office_lang} 
{/if}

Here is where the logic takes place. If segment 3 is blank, we are on the default language and therefore we show the default copy. However, if segment 3 is not blank, then we jump into the else statement. We match the value from segment 3 with the alternate language and display it’s copy.

That’s all there is to it. Ultimately we were able to generate a multi-language page with one template and permalinks for each language. If you’re not using ExpressionEngine, you should start.