How To Navigate Our Site

Introduction

The MOST's web site is composed of over 100 pages, and it's still growing rapidly. Hypertext links are used throughout the pages to provide immediate access to related information, and all pages on the site contain an appropriate implementation of "The MOST Site NavAid" bars to allow quick access to any other part of the site.

The MOST Site NavAid bars can be found near the top of each page of the site - under The MOST logo and above the first horizontal divider line. The NavAid bars consist of from 2 to ? numbered lines of 'buttons', with horizontal bars separating each 'button' within the lines. Each page will have its own unique implementation of the NavAid based on its location in the site's directory. The number of lines in the NavAid for each page *generally* corresponds to how deeply that page is nested in the subdirectories of the site. This page has two lines of external page links (lines 1 & 2) in its NavAid, indicating that it is fairly high in the directory structure. On this page ONLY, we repeat the NavAid at the bottom of each section (instead of just having it at the top of the page) so that the reader can look at this page's example implementation while reading the paragraphs that explain how each line is used.

Buttons

All 'buttons' in the NavAid bars are links to other pages on the site except for ONE 'button' per page. That 'button' will be displayed as bold but will NOT be a link, indicating that the page associated with that 'button' is currently selected. On this page, the last button in line 2, 'Site Navigation', is NOT a link and is displayed as "strong" by the browser. This indicates that we are currently on the "Site Navigation" page of the site.

'Buttons' contained in lines above that which contains the currently selected 'button' will select pages higher up in the organizational structure of the site. 'Buttons' contained in lines below that which contains the currently selected 'button' (when available) will provide access to pages that are lower in the organizational structure of the site and contain additional detail about the current selection.

Line 1 of the Nav Aid

Line 1 of the NavAid is the same on every page of the site. The files that compose the MOST web site are stored on disk in the following high level directory structure:

FAQ: instructions for how to use/help The MOST and this site
res: resources that we have available or recommend
courses: technical, self-study materials
proj: contains information about group study projects.
members: lists our members
misc: administrative and other misc info

Line 1 of the MOST NavAid provides immediate access to the main menus for these high level directories and to a few key pages. Selecting any 'button' in Line 1 from any page on the site will take you to the associated main menu page for that high level directory. If that page has sub pages, links to them will be displayed in line 2 when that specific page is displayed.

Line 2 of the Nav Aid... and beyond

'Buttons' in Line 2 will correspond to either content pages or submenu pages for the high level directory selected in Line 1. When a 'button' is selected in Line 2, the browser will display the content page or submenu that was selected and one 'button' in Line 2 will indicate that it is the selected page in the usual way (as the "Site Navigation" option in Line 2 indicates that we are now on that page).

On the selected page, the 'button' in Line 1 that corresponds to the high level directory that contains the current page will be displayed in bold type to indicate that it is the 'parent' of the selected item on Line 2 (as the "FAQ" button in Line 1 is currently displayed). If the page displayed is a content page then no line 3 will be displayed (unless the page requires intra-page navigation, as in THIS case). If the page displayed is a sub-menu then it will contain a line 3 that contains links to its content pages and/or its sub-menus. This pattern may be nested as deeply as necessary to reflect the actual directory structure of the files that make up the site. Our current structure results in some NavAids having as many as 7 lines, but as the site continues to grow this limit will probably be exceeded.

Intrapage Navigation

Some pages on the site are large enough to warrant intrapage navigation buttons. Where these are provided for a page they will be the last line of the NavAid and the 'buttons' on that line will be enclosed in parentheses - '(' and ')' - rather than bracketed by vertical bars - '|'s. Pressing a button on that type of line will take you to another location on the SAME page rather than to another page. Line 4 of THIS page is an example of an intra-page navigation aid.

When intra-page buttons are provided, they will be duplicated at the start of each section of the page to aid in moving around on the page. Each section-specific display of the intra-page navigation 'buttons' will display an additional first 'button' labelled "Top". Pressing it will return you to the top of the current page. The 'button' for the section that is currently displayed will be displayed in bold instead of as a link to indicate that it is the current section, similar to the way we indicate which page we are on in the primary Nav Aid at the top of the page.

Credit / Blame for the NavAid

Jens Malmgren provided the initial implementation and choice of appearance for the NavAid. Some modifications to Jens original design were suggested by Bill Michael, radar pangaean, Dave Smith, and probably some other MOST-Webbers that i've forgotten to mention :-(.

We try to implement the NavAid as described on this page on every page on the site, but SOMETIMES a page's version isn't QUITE correct. Sometimes this comes from that page being obsolete after being missed on a global update, sometimes it is done by design for reasons specific to that page. No system is exact :-), but we try to make the NavAid work as consistently as possible.

Navigating throughout a large site is sometimes inconvenient. We hope you find the NavAid useful for navigating within The MOST's site. Comments (good OR bad) may be sent to radar@SMT-Inc.com.

Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998. Last Update to This Page: 1998/04/24
This Page Maintained by: radar pangaean * * * Original Author: radar pangaean
The MOST web site is built and maintained by the voluntary efforts/donations of our members.