community of dyers

Great point, Pia. I had not devoted any though at all to the order of the fibers etc. in the list. So here's my first attempt at doing so:

I'm concerned about what is the maximum length for a menu. I think this one's okay, since the bottom of the menu is less than 600 pixels from the top of the page. (I don't know whether anyone is still limited to a browser window size of 600 high by 800 wide.)

I plan to make each of the headers on that list lead to pages of their own, by the way. No dead menu items. To keep from making the menu ridiculously long, I can briefly cover the minor fibers such as ramie and hemp on the cellulose page.

Do you think it's clear enough for a neophyte, or that there's a way in which it might be made more clear? I think it's essential to design for maximum benefit to the neophyte.

Oh, and note that I have not consciously selected the sub-order within each group. Should I go with alphabetic order, or the relative number of questions I get on each one? I think I should start with alphabetical, so it would be like this:

• cellulose fibers:
• cotton
• rayon
• protein fibers:
• silk
• wool
• synthetic fibers:
• acetate
• acrylic
• nylon
• polyester
• polypropylene
• spandex
• other materials:
• leather
• plastic
• satin
• wood

The old "About Dyes" menu has the dye types listed not in alphabetical order, but in my own opinion of the order of their importance to the average user, which is obscure enough, I suppose.

Thank you so much! When I worked in a lab, I could run questions like this by anyone nearby who looked as if they were at loose ends. Everyone can do much better work with a bit of criticism. It's hard to get that when working at home, though. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your suggestions and your encouragement.

Paula

As I think about it, I'm leaning more toward having "Other materials" stand alone, leaving plastic, leather, etc., of the menu, but listing them and other on the page that "Other materials" links to. It could also include novel but infrequently used materials such as Ingeo and Soy Silk.

Paula

I think that's a great idea, because if some truly oddball thing comes up, you can throw it on the page but not have to update your menu.

my blog: A Good Day to Dye

Thanks, Judy! I believe they do a backup every single night, around midnight Eastern time, but whatever it was that went wrong was, they said, fallout from the crash last weekend, so the backups were bad, too. At least they did fix it within an hour of my request for help, which is not bad for a Saturday morning. I was just asking them how to repair a data table that's marked "in use", since it was clear that that one needed to be repaired, but nothing happened when I repaired it. I was surprised when the whole thing disappeared and then shortly came back, all fixed except for the lost posts! Disappointingly, the most recent Google cache saved from it was from October 23, so no help at all. (The Hand Dyeing Q&A blog was cached on the 28th.)

Paula