The chapter’s main site has been redesigned to work in the new STC logo. With the new logo, we have a new color scheme – red, white, and blue with some analogous colors for highlights, emphasis, and tables.

The banner will display a different view of a Washington, DC scene on every page and on every reload. The 94 images rotate randomly. Many of the photos used come from photos donated by friends, relatives, and chapter members (some are listed under Photo Credits disclaimers page—if I missed anyone, please let me know).

New navigation has been added to the top for those who like dropdown menus and the sidebar has been split into a left and right sidebar for those who find the dropdown menus difficult to use. Breadcrumbs have been added to the top of each page so the need to have a link highlighted in the navigation to show where you are was eliminated along with many files that created that effect, which makes maintenance easier. There is a tab jump index that comes up when you go to a new page and click on Tab or when the cursor is in the header of the page. The jump links take you to the different sections of the page so you don’t have to scroll around. Keep tabbing until you get to the link you want, then press Enter. To get back to the tab index, put your cursor in the header text. (I’ve added a similar index to this blog. Put your cursor in the very top line of the page (the society’s name), then Tab. Or, click Top to go to the tab index, then Tab.)

The pages are coded XHTML 1.0 Strict (Transitional for some pages using third party code that doesn’t work in Strict). The site continues to use both server side includes (ssi) and php includes to bring in text shared on many pages and to have secure forms. Font size can be changed to two larger sizes using the three A’s on the right side of the top nav bar. I am still adding finishing touches to the code so the style sheet switchers for higher contrast and text only have not been modified yet to fit the new layout. A few tweeks will get them back in line. The CSS is cleaner with the elimination of many workarounds for the old IE6 browser now that IE7 supports more of the W3C standards. However, there are still some IE exceptions needed. Hopefully, these can also be eliminated in the future when a stable IE8 is issued.

The site passes accessibility requirements for Section 508 and W3C Web initiatives 1, 2, 3.

More translation language capabilities have been added to help the many people around the world who come to our site. (Click on the site visitors location cluster map in the right sidebar to get the details.)

You can keep up to date about job announcement postings, talent pool changes, and new events by subscribing to the RSS feed for the site.

There are other changes I have probably forgotten to mention. Check it out. Add a comment to this post about what you think of the new design.