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BBC TV Portal v1.1

Written by Martin Belam
Published 27 October, 2005
Categories: BBC

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4 comments so far
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I wrote a little while ago about how we had launched a new TV portal page at bbc.co.uk/tv. At the time I pointed out how advanced for the BBC the client-side code was in terms of ditching tables, and moving as close as possible to a pure CSS approach within our current framework. That wasn't without problems, and there were also some issues with the design when people visited the page with javascript switched off. It also broke in quite an ugly fashion if people enlarged their font sizes - as they are perfectly entitled to do.

This week we put live a revised version of the client-side code. There should be no appreciable visual difference on first glance. It is however, as far as I am aware (see comments for inevitable pointing out of something I didn't know about) the first time my department has produced a page on the live site where the entire design is rendered in relative dimensions^*, meaning that increasing or decreasing the font size adjusts the size of the entire page, including the flash billboard.

Illustrating the resizing of the BBC's Tv portal client-side code

^*This makes it sound like it is similar to a TARDIS.

Posted by Martin Belam, October 27, 2005
Read the latest posts about: BBC
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4 comments so far

Phil Wilson commented on October 27, 2005:

And it's a great job! Many thanks to you and your team!

martin commented on October 28, 2005:

>> Many thanks to you and your team!

Well, let's not get over-excited - it is only a web page ;-)

I just happen to think we should be making more of them in this style. Or at least not still in rigid table structure HTML 4.x anyway

Steve Pugh commented on October 28, 2005:

Oh how we all long for SVG images so we can do this sort of thing and avoid the nasty effects of zoomed in GIFs and JPEGs ...

Phil Wilson commented on October 28, 2005:

No, honestly, it's so much better, and the resizing flash is brilliant. At home, I run at a font-size of about 140% and you'd be amazed how little scales really well, especially in the commercial sector. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen Flash scale dynamically like this, and web dev is my job.

As it is I have a GM script which increases the font size and column width of BBC News articles.

On the other hand, I can complain if you like: artefacty images when zoomed and the flash channel selector at the bottom doesn't remember where you were if you follow a link :)

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