Attractive, Functional Image Galleries with Lightbox
In an effort to give the web developers at Columbia College Chicago tools that make their jobs easier while providing the end users with a useful site, we've launched a script that allows you to include elegant, easy-to-browse image galleries on your pages with just two lines of code.
Check out the tutorial and see a sample of what your image galleries could look like.
Mad props to the open source technologies behind this tool: The lightweight CSS/Javascript image viewer Lightbox and Gallery, the photo management software.
ShortUr is in place
The new short URL service "shortUr is in place, and has supplanted "shorty" as the best way to create share-able web addresses for print or email campaigns.
The venerable "shorty" service will be disabled by March 21, 2008. If you currently use shorty (http://www2.colum.edu/go), please contact the webmaster to have a new ShortUr account created.
Existing shorty URLs will be transferred to ShortUr immediately.
Shorty -> Shortur
Bryan Zera has nearly finished testing the new "short URL" tool that will replace shorty, and will be contacting folks around campus for feedback on the new system. If you're a heavy Shorty user, please contact us so we can incorporate your thoughts on the subject.
New Staff
We're pleased to announce two new staff to the Web Development group: Josh Lefley and Bryan Zera.
Josh has accepted the mantle of "CMS Administrator" and will be building and maintaining the Columbia's Collage content management system (that's what lets us all work on web pages!). Josh joined us from the Art & Design department where he worked in the Graphics computer lab.
Bryan has stepped into the newly created "PHP Programmer" position, where he will create web-based applications for the public web site, maintain various behind-the-scenes scripts, and generally keep stuff that isn't stored in the CMS running well.
Welcome to the team, guys!
CSS link styles
We're experimenting with a few new icons for links in the CMS:
allegro.colum.edu - links to the intranet.
google.com links that open in a new window.
These styles will automatically be applied to all pages that use the college templates.