NAVIGATION

One of the most important parts of a website is being able to navigate it easily! This is always one of the hardest challenges a webmaster faces. Each person will approach their site with a different idea and thus you will encounter many different kinds of website navigation.

I have attempted to make navigating this site as easy as possible. Though it may seem confusing at first, if you give me an opportunity you will see that this could be one of the easiest sites to navigate around.

COLOR-CODING

First, let me say that colors are a very important part of my website. The background color of the header and menu has a purpose as well as the background color of each page. Once you learn this color-coded system knowing where you are on my site will be a breeze!

When attempting to come up with an idea for my site navigation I wanted to limit my colors as much as possible. In choosing the background colors, I wanted to make it where the background of the page told you where you were at. I used the idea of a traffic light to color-code my pages.
A yellow background, such as the one on this page, will be the predominant color. It tells you that you are on an unsecure page and that you should surf with caution. It also tells you that these pages will have no private data on them!
A green page means you are on a secure section of the site and that you can surf with the confidence that anything on that page is only viewable by those who have the password.
A red page means that you need to stop. Something is wrong. This usually means that you have reached a page that doesn't exist or failed to type in a correct password.

The color of the header and menu are also very important. There are 6 different color schemes for the header and menu. They are as follows:

YELLOW - Anything outside of genealogy, such as this page, contact pages, links, etc...

BLUE - Any surname that has to do with my maternal grandfather, George Charles Forbes.

RED - Any surname that has to do with my maternal grandmother, Winnie Ida Stevenson.

GOLD - Any surname that has to do with my paternal grandfather, David Franklin Spangler

GREEN - Any surname that has to do with my paternal grandmother, Ora Elizabeth Gamble.

PURPLE - Any page that is in the "My Family" section will be this color.

THE HEADER

The header is the part at the top of each page that says "KENSPANGLER.COM -- KEN SPANGLER'S FAMILY HISTORY SITE!. If you click on that you will be taken to the root directory. In other words:

"http://www.kenspangler.com/index.html"

The header will always take you back to the root index, no matter what color it is.

LEFT-SIDE MENU

The links in the menu on the left-hand side will vary depending upon which section you are in. The most important thing to remember is that the "Home" link will always take you to the main page for that section.

If you are in the "Beal" section then you will be looking at a blue menu and the home link will take you to the main index page for the "Beal" surname. In other words:

"http://www.kenspangler.com/maternal/beal/index.html"

Some other common links on the side menu will be "Blog", "Forum", "Wiki", and "Contact Me". Some sections will have different links, such as the genealogy sections having a "Lounge" link, which is the doorway into the secured section of the site.

OUTSIDE LINKS

All links to outside sources will open within the same window. In the past I have opted to open external links in a new window but I will leave it up to you to decide if you want it to open in a new window or not. Most browsers will open a link in a new window (or tab) if you hold down the CTRL button on your keyboard as you press the link.

There are some other sections of the site that are not hand coded by me. Those sections are the blog, forum, and wiki. They will open in the same window but will have a different navigational scheme. This can't be helped as they are run by diffent software and I really don't want to redesign the software! :-) I will devise a way to put a link to the main page of my site when time allows!

WRAPPING IT UP!

So, there you have it. Although I gave much thought to the navigation menus on the site, I am always willing to listen to what others have to say. If you think you may have a better way or perhaps would be willing to explain my navigation in a better way, feel free to contact me!