HELP
Home Page
Main Menu
Archive
HOME PAGE
This is the main page for any website, and is the first page that loads when the visitor types in the website address for the site. The home page for the Kurrajong-Comleroy Historical Society (as shown on 15 March 2009) is shown below.
The main components of the Society's home page are shown in this illustration circled in orange and are as follows:
- Housekeeping menu;
- Main menu;
- Site search;
- Visitor meter; and
- Last update notification.
These components are discussed individually a little further on.
The topical content on the home page, such as the 'Kurrajong Remembers' and 'Wanted' entries on the example page to the left, will change from time to time as circumstances and priorities in the Society dictate. You will always know how recent the information in this content is by referring to the 'last update notofication', discussed below.
To print the home page as it appears on your computer refer to the section titled 'A Note On Browsers' toward the end of this Help page.
Housekeeping Menu
These are the menu items at the top right-hand corner of every page in the website. Clicking Home will take you directly back to the home page. Clicking Contact Us will show the ways in which you can contact the Society, either by post or by email. Clicking Privacy will take you to the page which outlines the Society's privacy policy. Clicking Site Map takes you to a page which depicts a map of the entire website, in case you get a little lost and are unsure how you navigated to a particular location in the website, or otherwise if you just want to jump quickly to an area and you are quite familiar with the structure of the website. Finally, clicking Help (not included on the home page but included on every other page) will take you to this page you are reading now, to give a little help and guidance for using this website. Clicking on any of the items at the top of the Help page will take you direct to that particular item on the page without having to scroll down to find it.
Main Menu
The main menu is the usual starting point for navigating to any specific area of the website. As you mouse over each of the menu options the button changes from light blue to dark blue, to indicate where your mouse pointer currently is. Click and you'll proceed to that part of the website. Note the Archive menu item has a drop-down menu showing further items.
Site Search
Type a word or phrase in this box to search for any subject matter across the whole website. This clever tool is driven by a search engine which checks your search criteria against a constantly-updating index of the website. As an example, if you'd like to search for any information that the website might have on Grose Vale, just enter 'Grose Vale' in the box and click the Find button. A page of 'hits' will be displayed (together with links to some advertising as the tool is commercially-based) as shown in Fig. 2, and clicking on any of these will take you to the page, document or photograph the website which contains the information you were looking for. This page will open in a separate window to the one in which the website first opened in, so that you can return to the Society's website easily whenever you wish.
Fig 2. Site Search results example.
Clicking on any of the 'hits' (ie. the underlined text numbered 1, 2, 3 etc) in the site search results page will take you to the page, document or photograph in the website which contains the information you were looking for. However once you have arrived there you'll still need to search that document to find the particular location that contains the relevant information. For example, if you are taken to a pdf of an issue of The Millstone you will need to do an Adobe Reader search of the text you are after in order to be directed to the right location in the document. This process is straightforward: Simply press Ctrl+F (ie. on your keyboard hold down the 'Ctrl' key and press the 'F' key) to bring up Adobe's search facility and, as you did previously with this website's site search tool, enter the text you wish to find and press Enter. You should then be directed to the first instance in the document where the word or phrase occurs. Pressing Enter again will each time take you to the next successive time that the same word or phrase occurs in the document.
You can return to the site search page at any time to refine your original search criteria or conduct a new search. To expand your search criteria to include or restrict more specific information, click on the advanced search link in the site search results page and follow the format displayed. Click on the search tips link on this same page to see how to better structure a site search query to better obtain the exact results you are after.
If you are unsure of the exact word or phrase that you're looking for then as an additional option you can peruse through the index of the website by clicking the index link on the site search page, located about mid-page just below the Search Results line. This index is updated frequently and contains a link to most main words or subjects (eg. places, events, people's names etc) which occur across the Society's website.
Visitor Meter
This shows the number of visitors, or hits, that the website has received since the feature was included on the home page, in early 2008.
Last Update Notification
This date is automatically updated on any page in the website each time that page is modified. The date will therefore indicate how current the information is on the particular page.
MAIN MENU
About Us
This page is broken into five sections: Who and Where We Are; Formation; Aims and Objectives; Activities; and Management Structure. Each section is contained within a 'tab' on the page, and is accessed by clicking on the tabs below the main heading. The active tab, ie. that which is selected and whose content is displayed in the page, is coloured white. As you mouse over the other tabs at the top of page, there light blue colour changes to a darker blue. Clicking one changes its colour to white as it is selected. Each section is now discussed in turn.
- Who and Where We Are: The district whose heritage is represented by the Society;
- Formation: When and why the Society formed;
- Aims and Objectives of the Society;
- Activities of the Society; and
- Management Structure: The Executive, committee and co-opted positions of the Society's management, together with the appointed people who fill these positions. This section also identifies what regular meetings are scheduled by the Society and their frequency.
Archive: The Millstone
This page is organised under four tabs: Index and Archive; Copyright; How To Order Back-Issues; and Contribution of Material for Future Editions.
Index and Archive
An electronic copy of every issue (up to the most recent two issues) of the Society's bi-monthly newsletter The Millstone is archived here, alongside an index which summarises content highlights. Each issue is archived in Adobe's portable document format (".pdf"), and to be able to open and view them your computer will need Adobe Reader (ver 6 or later) or Adobe Acrobat. If required you can download the latest version of Adobe Reader, which is free, by clicking here. Follow the instructions on Adobe's website to install the software.
To respect the copyright owned by the Society and by individual contributors the issues viewed in this archive are copy-protected. Text cannot be selected or copied, and the ability to print is disabled.
Copyright
In addition to a discussion on copyright this page includes links to the Society's Permission Request Form, Copyright Release Form and Copyright Non-Exclusive Licence Form. When the link is clicked each of these forms will open in a separate browser window. Please note that to view the Copyright Release Form and the Copyright Non-Exclusive Licence Form your computer will need to have Adobe Reader or Acrobat installed.
How to Order Back-Issues
This page outlines cost and provides a link to an order form to download for obtaining back issues of The Millstone.
Contribution of Material for Future Editions
This page outlines the rules and procedure for contributing material for inclusion in The Millstone. Links to the accompanying copyright permission forms are also provided.
Archive: Image Library
This section of the website contains a library of nearly 5,000 digital photographs of people, places and events from the Kurrajong district. Similarly to The Millstone's archive, the page is also organised under tabs, discussed below. To search for any image, enter the word or phrase into the keyword search box and click the Search button. Click the drop down box on the right to select search options (Search the phrase as entered, Search for all words entered, Search for any word entered). By default the search will go by 'Search the phrase as entered' unless changed by the user. For example, if you enter 'Smith and Brown' in the keyword search and then click Search, all images with the phrase 'Smith and Brown' in the caption or the accompanying text will be retrieved. As this is a fairly specific phrase, chances are there will be no photos that exactly match this criteria. So by re-entering another search, this time by entering only the term 'Smith' in the keyword search and clicking Search, all images with the word 'Smith' somewhere in the image's caption or text will be retrieved. Click on the 'New Search' button at the top left of the menu bar to refresh the page ready for another search. Now enter 'Smith and Brown' in the keyword search box and select the 'All the words' option in the Search Options drop down box. Clicking the Search button will now retrieve all images with both the words 'Smith' and 'Brown' at least somewhere in the caption or text, but not specifically as the phrase 'Smith and Brown'. Lastly, selecting 'Any of the words' in the search options drop down box will retrieve all images with either 'Smith' and/or 'Brown' somewhere in the caption or text. Other search option boxes are also available for use in searches to narrow down specific areas to search, and include a specific decade in time, localities to search, subject areas, and even field names from the image library database. Normally these additional search options will not be needed for most searches, and are included for advanced users.
New Search
Click here to clear the search results screen in readiness for a new image search.
Collection
Some brief notes about the Society's image library.
Copyright
Essential discussion about copyright as it applies to the image library, including permissions and licences to use or include material to the library.
Order Prints
How to submit an order to the Society to purchase prints of any image from the library.
Contribute
How to add your images to the library.
Archive: Members' Library
This page is essentially an unindexed catalogue of every item in the Society's members' library. The stocktake version of the catalogue is shown at the bottom left of the page.
Projects and Activities
This page is organised under six tabs, each representing a functional group of the Society's projects and activities: Research; Development; Excursions; Publications; Presentations and Displays; and Birthday Breakfasts.
Click on each tab to open the page and scroll through a listing of the projects and activities organised in chronological sequence.
Publications
This page shows the various publications that the Society has available for sale, including details of how to purchase copies.
Membership
This details the benefits of becoming a member of the Society, how to join the Society, and what the rates are. It is hoped in the future to include a members-only section here, where members can log into a secure area of the website to update their details (postal and email address, preference for receiving The Millstone via emailed electronic copy or posted hard copy), make bookings for members-only events, download past issues of The Millstone, arrange loans of items from the Society's library, and lodge nominations for positions at the Society's annual general meeting.
Sponsorship
This section discusses the value of sponsorship to the Society, methods of sponsorship, and lists the main sponsors and supporters of the Society (excluding those who have requested anonymity).
Links
This section includes links to other websites which may be of interest to members or visitors.
A Note On Browsers
A 'Browser' is the name used in computing to refer to the software program that is used on a computer to browse the internet. Most people use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, followed by Mozilla's Firefox as the next most popular. Other browsers used include The Open SSLproject's Opera, Google's Chrome, and Apple's Safari. All these different browsers make life very hard for website developers, because what you see in one browser may not necessarily look the same in another. In developing a website developers test their site across a number of browsers to check that it renders essentially the same on all or at best most. The biggest offending browser unfortunately happens to be the one which currently is the most widely used, Microsoft's IE, which to a large extend ignores the internationally-agreed upon website standards to prefer a standard of its own. It is for this reason that people are preferring to install and use Firefox as their preferred browser. To download and install Firefox click here.
In this website the forms that are downloaded will look slightly different depending on which browser is used to render and print them. Also, in order to print any page and have it appear on paper as it does on the screen, ensure that you have enabled background printing in your browser's options prior to printing.
The Curly Green Arrow
Lastly, clicking the curly green arrow at the bottom of every page (except on forms) will take you back to the page that you were originally on before navigating to your current page.
Page last updated: 19 February, 2012
