New Charmed Quark web site

[Dean Roddey]

Hey guys, here's our new web site which is going to go live in a few days when 3.4 is released. Anyone want to give it a look and provide feedback? It is based on MS' Silverlight technology, so you may be prompted to install the Silverlight runtime. It's nothing intrusive, just a few DLLs that provide the supporting code for the local smarts of Silverlight apps.

http://www.charmedquark.com/Web2/Web2011/

This is just in an offline location now and will be moved to the real location when we go live with it. If you do look at it, and see anything wrong, let me know and I'll fix it. It's been a fair binge to get all this done, and learn a lot of new technology along the way. So I'm sure there are still some spelling goobers and whatnot still.

Also, if you do have to download Silverlight, what do you see in the browser when you first try to load it? I can't see that since I now have it installed and I really don't want to screw with my development environment just to test that. There will be a download Silverlight button, but do you see some mangled version of our content as well?

Anyway, I think it's a massive improvement in our web site. Silverlight definitely allows someone like me, who is comfortable with coding, to create some pretty nice looking stuff. I guess you can probably buy pre-fab Silverlight gadgets to do some of this stuff but I just rolled me own since it was not terribly difficult. A little tedious as all web site design is, but not that hard once I got my head wrapped around Silverlight and Expression Blend.

If you are a Mac guy, there is a Moonlight runtime out there that will run Silverlight apps on the Mac.

 

[ano]

If you are a Mac guy, there is a Moonlight runtime out there that will run Silverlight apps on the Mac.

Actually Silverlight does exist for the Mac, and has for at least a year now. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26623/silverlight
I don't think it supports older PPC Macs, but does support Intel Macs.

I like the web site. A big improvement over the old one, but it seems to work a bit weird at least on FireFox on an Intel Mac with Silverlight. For example, when you select Gallery, you get the Gallery, but when you select Learn, Buy/Try, Files or Links, the secondary links change, but the Gallery is still there. When you click News, it does display, but then it stays up there until you select Gallery again. Maybe its supposed to work like that, but if so it seems strange.

 

[pete_c]

Nice website. This is my first view of anything running Silverlight. (first time I've installed it).

 

[Dean Roddey]

Actually Silverlight does exist for the Mac, and has for at least a year now. http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/26623/silverlight
I don't think it supports older PPC Macs, but does support Intel Macs.

Oh, OK, I'll add that to the opening HTML page, to let people know.

I like the web site. A big improvement over the old one, but it seems to work a bit weird at least on FireFox on an Intel Mac with Silverlight. For example, when you select Gallery, you get the Gallery, but when you select Learn, Buy/Try, Files or Links, the secondary links change, but the Gallery is still there. When you click News, it does display, but then it stays up there until you select Gallery again. Maybe its supposed to work like that, but if so it seems strange.

That's based on feedback on our forum. Some of them have no sub-menus, so they just do what they do. The last once selected will remain highlighted unless you click it again which will deselect it (and close any open submenu.) Selecting one that has a sub-menu won't get rid of the current page because you haven't made a selection yet, and might not.

It used to work a bit differently, but that's what most folks seemed to like the most, so that you don't have to re-invoke the sub-menu multiple times to go to all of the sub-pages since it stays selected until you select another one (or click it back off.)

 

[nov0798]

Hmm, decided to download the trial program, but it wont install. Says its missing some type of .dll.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Hmm, decided to download the trial program, but it wont install. Says its missing some type of .dll.

You are probably running the executable instead of the CQCSetup file, which is what you are supposed to run per the instructions on the page you downloaded it from.

 

[nov0798]

Yep tried that to, and still wont install.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Yep tried that to, and still wont install.

So, how you are invoking the installer? And can you give me the actual error you are getting? Occasionally someone gets a whacked download and this can happen, it just gets corrupted somehow in the process of downloading it. But probably it's just an invocation issue.

Did you by any chance unzip it such that you didn't maintain the directory structure and ended up with everything in one big directory?

 

[nov0798]

I just unzipped it to a folder on my desktop. When I get home tonight, Ill give you the actual error. I tried re downloading several times, but same error.

 

[nov0798]

ok this is what the error says.

This application has failed to start because CQLogicSh_3_3.dll was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

This is the error I get after double clicking the installer, which runs a command line black window for a quick second, but then does nothing else. I then try to run the .exe file, and then get this error.

Also the web page that has the trial software, cannot be scrolled. It appears to have other info at the bottom of the page, but you cant get to it!

 

[beelzerob]

clicking the CML Docs link on the main page takes you to the Device Drivers page. You can then navigate to the CML doc....but the initial page it brings up is the Device Drivers.

 

[felixrosbergen]

On my machine here the mouse scroll wheel doesn't seem to do anything on the CQC website. Using Latest firefox.

 

[beelzerob]

Ya, that was true for me too with IE7. No scroll wheel workie....which I usually count as a major knock against any website I visit. I HATE dragging a scroll bar. How 2000's.....

 

[Dean Roddey]

ok this is what the error says.

This application has failed to start because CQLogicSh_3_3.dll was not found. Reinstalling the application may fix this problem.

This is the error I get after double clicking the installer, which runs a command line black window for a quick second, but then does nothing else. I then try to run the .exe file, and then get this error.

When you look at the directory where you unzipped the installer, you should see something like this:

12/03/2008  06:52 PM			 1,135 CQCSetup.Cmd
11/14/2010  03:19 PM	<DIR>		  Image
11/06/2007  07:24 PM			   524 Microsoft.VC90.CRT.manifest
11/06/2007  07:23 PM		   224,768 msvcm90.dll
11/07/2007  12:19 AM		   568,832 msvcp90.dll
11/07/2007  12:19 AM		   655,872 msvcr90.dll
11/14/2010  03:18 PM			13,649 ReleaseNotes.htm
			   6 File(s)	  1,464,780 bytes

Is that what you are seeing? You should run the CQCSetup.Cmd file. In the Image directory should be a set of subdirectories. You may not have unzipped sub-directories or something like. Something odd is going on but I'm not sure what it is. It could be something obvious, or something wierd like an anti-virus program that knows this is a downloaded zip file contents and prevents it from doing something.

One thing to do is to just open a command prompt and go to that directory and run CQCSetup and see what happens.

 

[Dean Roddey]

Ya, that was true for me too with IE7. No scroll wheel workie....which I usually count as a major knock against any website I visit. I HATE dragging a scroll bar. How 2000's.....

I may just bail out on the new web site. As much as I hate to do it, there's been enough negativity towards it that it may just not be worth it. It was a lot of work, but ultimately we need to make it as easy as possible for people to get to the web site.