March 16, 2006
Attendance
Chris Audano, Chairman, City of Overland Park
Randy Ellis, City of Overland Park
Barbara Hensley, Mid-America Regional Council
Julie Wittman, Mid-America Regional Council
Kelli Behr, City of Gladstone
Anthony Oropeza, Johnson County Parks & Recreation
Bradley Hook, Kansas School of the Blind
Sonya Fendorf, City of Shawnee
Roman Madrigal, City of Shawnee
Daniel Davis, Jackson County
Mel Crawford (guest), Shawnee Mission Medical Center
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes were approved as submitted.
Presentations
Rich Lovett ’s presentation
is postponed due to his absence.
Susan demonstrated how to import and embed a Flash video clip into a Web page design using the new features in Dreamweaver 8. She explained how she began with a Windows Media File (.wmf) and opened it in Flash Video Encoder, the plug-in that comes with Macromedia Studio 8. She used the program to convert the file to a Flash Video (.flv) first. She then stepped through the process to import it into the HTML code and explained how the controls can be customized. This type of importing can also be done within a div.
Barbara described how she converted a 400 MB VOB file she had been given on a DVD to a 6 MB AVI file using a freeware program called Auto GK. Made by Gordian Knot, it can be found on the web at http://www.free-codecs.com/download/AutoGK.htm. Files of this type can then be converted to .mv by using Flash.
The group discussed how Flash is a good cross-user program for videos and can be set to prompt users to download the latest Flash Player easily.
Barbara showed the group some ways to customize forms using CSS styles. She displayed a MARC form that was greatly enhanced with this technique. Among the form styles were Fieldsets, which group several form questions into a block, or group. Attributes can be assigned to each group by opening and closing the fieldset tag. Another interesting tag Barbara learned is Legend, which applies a name or description to the fieldset by displaying the text on top of the border. The border automatically flows around the text and provides a nice, customized look. Barbara also showed how you can apply attributes to the fill-in boxes and buttons.
The group reviewed the results of the MAGWeb meeting survey. In summary, if the membership were going to change the meeting day or time, the most favorable results were Wednesdays at 10 a.m. Because of difficulties securing meeting rooms now, the group decided to wait until next year. In the meantime, Barbara will look at the names of those not attending and see if they can be accommodated in other ways.
NAGW Conference Update
Chris reported that the National Association of Government Webmasters
is working to get Microsoft to speak about their new browser. Adobe/Macromedia
has declined to participate in any way this year, apparently due to lack of resources.
About nine vendors have signed up so far, but they have all chosen the lowest
level of sponsorship since the fees are quite high.
Hotel room rates are as follows: $59 during the week; $99 on Friday and Sunday; $129 on Saturday. The conference registration fee was set at $125, though the website says $150. Chris will research this. Online registration will not be available until the accounting details are completed. She encouraged the group to fill out the online survey about session topics. The committee is actually using those results to select the topics. Barbara suggested that the survey wording be altered to convey the need for participation. Chris will talk to the planning committee about this as well.
Chris informed the group that the website awards will be on Wednesday at an outdoor, barbecue-style reception with a band, dinner and cocktails. The award criteria are still be ing established. Also on Wednesday are four workshops covering ColdFusion, ASP.net, PHP and CSS, all at the beginner level. The workshops are not included in the registration fee. There will be a cyber-café during the conference.
Cathilea Robinett, executive director, Center for Digital Government, will be the keynote speaker. Chris heard her speak at another conference and she was quite interesting talking about the future of government websites. Randy mentioned how she was supposed to be the keynote at MAGWeb’s first conference and bailed out at the last minute; he was concerned she may repeat this at NAGW’s event. Chris responded that Robinett lives in the area of the conference so it shouldn’t be a big concern.
The details of NAGW membership are still being worked out, though all of last year’s attendees are automatically members this year. Several present expressed their concerns about the high cost of membership for cities/counties with multiple staff participants. Chris stated that the committee is working to develop a list of membership benefits to make joining worthwhile.
Chris also mentioned that it is time for NAGW to get its own listserv. The Irving, TX, listserv was working fine in the beginning, but it’s time to move away from it.
All in all, the conference should be a very good bargain with low hotel rates, all meals included and a low registration fee. Next year’s event will be more expensive because it will be hosted on the East Coast. She encouraged everyone to attend this year.
Use of MAGWeb Funds for Training Members
Barbara mentioned
that a contact of hers could speak to MAGWeb at one of the upcoming meetings,
but he will likely require a fee. She asked if the group is okay with using MAGWeb
funds to pay for him and other speakers. The group agreed that this is acceptable.
Upcoming Topics
April’s meeting will be at MARC where
Bill Stevens from Topeka will discuss using Google maps in webpages. In May
at Overland Park, Brad Hook will talk about accessibility issues. Dan Davis
will speak at the June meeting about Macromedia Breeze.
Open Forum
Barbara showed the group how she used a bit of
code, known as the “Holly-Hack,” to
fix the three-column stretching problem discussed at length at the prior meeting.
She showed the code and how it uses ‘clear-fix’ as a class to make
the columns display correctly across the browsers. The code is below:
For the Style Sheet:
.clearfix:after { content: "."; display: block; height: 0; clear:
both; visibility: hidden; }
.clearfix {display: inline-table;}
/* Hide from IE-mac */
* html .clearfix {height: 1%;}
.clearfix {display: block;}
/* End hide from IE-mac */
In the HTML page, add the class “clearfix” to the wrapper like this:
<div class="clearfix contentwrapper">
Note that clearfix has to come first in the code. The original div styles are in the class "contentwrapper."
Chris asked members for input on how they convey citizen inquiries and comments to their City Council. Kelli described how Gladstone purchased a complicated software system to record, track and report on citizen inquiries, but printed memos and phone calls are still the most used method of communication in both directions. Sonya talked about how Shawnee’s new system "Shawnee Connect" was planned for this type of citizen input; however it’s still under development.
Sonya also asked the group for assistance in endeavoring to keep Shawnee’s web pages from drifting further from each other in style and navigation. She showed the group several of the department’s pages and how they all look different. She is having trouble getting those involved to agree that consistency is important. The group encouraged her to develop a simple template that would incorporate the banner style shown in Shawnee’s Parks & Rec Department with the city logo and consistent navigation on every page. The contents of the other departments’ pages could then be inserted into the body of the template.
Chris asked if anyone in the group was planning to attend the PTI conference. Susan said webmasters were never much of a focus of PTI in the past. There was not much other comment.
Kelli said she heard from GoDaddy that there would be some major changes coming regarding the cost of domain names. Brad said it involves ICAN and Verisign. There will soon be a monopoly for the sale of .coms, which will increase what they sell for in the auction process. The bottom line is that everyone should renew their domains as soon as possible for the longest term possible to avoid expensive increases.
Barbara asked about using PHP and if there are any installations necessary. Roman answered that PHP is a common choice since it is free. Brad said there is an installation necessary, and Barbara can get the information she needs from www.PHP.net .
Next meeting
Thursday, April 20, 2006, 10 a.m. at the Mid-America Regional Council
office, 600 Broadway, Kansas City, MO.
Minutes submitted by Kelli L. Behr, City of Gladstone,
MO