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News and Alerts

17th December 2011
Eurovision Song Contest 2012 Bulldozes Homes and Human Rights
OK, strange subject line, but true; people are being forcibly removed from their homes for the continental festival of schalger music, Eurovision. In order to beautify the city of Baku and construct facilities for the Eurovision Song Contest 2012, people are being evicted to clear sites for construction of contest facilities.

21st November 2011
Jam Tomorrow: Unconventional Gas and Britain's Energy Future
A new presentation/discussion on shale gas/coalbed methane, gas "fracking", and the future of Britain's energy economy, developed by Paul Mobbs and the Free Range Network

11th October 2011
Energy Beyond Oil Project:
New Sheet E11. Fracking and Coalbed Methane
When gas fracking and other "unconventional" energy resources are discussed in the media the focus is usually on the technology used to produced the energy, or the impact this might have on the environment. In fact, the significant feature of the exploitation of unconventional energy resources is that our present energy situation has become so precarious that companies and government consider these valid energy sources!

5th October 2011
North Oxfordshire/Buckinghamshire Fracking Campaign
The Government is carrying out another round of onshore oil and gas licensing, and many of these sites will be using gas fracking techniques. In advance of this, Ideas for a Change are launching a campaign of possible fracking in North Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire.

10th June 2011
FRAW Site Design Statement
After a bit of delay whilst we found time to carry out the necessary research to compare different site design strategies, we've finally completed the 'FRAW Design Statement' page. For the full analysis see Ecolonomics No.12: Promulgating the Web's calorie controlled diet.

19th April 2011
The political acceptance of peak oil, and what it means for 'economic normality', has begun
Paul Mobbs has released an update last months 'ecolonomics' newsletter on the energy situation and nuclear power. He broadens his view to look at the areas where Monbiot's pro-nuclear stance falls down when we factor-in the implications of peak oil.







Location: FRAW Main index » Help Page

FRAW logo 'R'

This page describes the various means available for quickly and easily navigating around the FRAW site, and some of the design features that allow you to access the resources on the site a little more easily.

Today the assumption in most mainstream web design is that everyone has access to flash, high bandwidth and the latest versions of the leading browsers; in reality this is not the case. Whilst this may be true in the most developed states, in many developing nations users are still using low bandwidth connections, often using older equipment and operating systems (such as Windoze 98/XP), and often with browsers that are not capable of displaying the latest high-powered layouts that typify the standard of web access in more developed nations. In designing this site we've opted to make a wholly accessible layout for all, irrespective of bandwidth or level of processing power.


The Navigation Frame

At the top of every index page is the "navigation frame":

FRAW navigation barimage The navigation frame has been designed to float at the top right of the page at all times on any index page – from here you can navigate to any point on the site. There are two types of controls in the frame: the green buttons and the text boxes. The buttons are simple – just click on them; the boxes are a little more complex to use, but more powerful than the links.

The buttons allow you to quickly move to the following locations:

The 'home' button takes you to the main index for the FRAW web site;

The 'site' button takes you to the site's 'tree' index that lists every index page on the site as a tree of folders/files;

The 'events' button takes you to the Free Range event page;

The 'search' button takes you to the site search page;

The 'contact' button takes you to the FRAW/Free Range Network contacts page;

The 'help' button takes you to the help page – this page.


History buttons imageNext, to the right, are the 'history' buttons. When you click on these you go backwards (Back) or forward (Fwd)in your browser's navigation history list – the same as clicking the 'backward' and 'forward' on your browser's menu bar. Sitting in between these two buttons is another (Top) that will take you back to the top of the page when you click on it.

Key index box imageNext, on the line below, is the 'key index' box – this is a little more complex to explain. On the site every page has a name, a keyword, that uniquely identifies it. If you type this name into the key index box and then click on the 'Go' button or press enter on your keyboard you will be forwarded to that page. For example, if you wanted the Contacts page index you just type the name contact into the box and click 'Go' or press enter. Of course, for this to work you need to know the names of all the pages – to help you you'll find full instructions in the Key Index Help page. Keys help button image If you click on the Keys button at the end of the line above you'll go straight to this page.

Page selection box imageFinally there's the 'page selection box' – this is fairly simple to get the hang of: Click on the box and you'll get a drop-down list of the main (not all) index pages on the site – click on the name and when the list flies back up again you should be forwarded to the selected page (if Javascript is enabled – this control will not work if JavaScript is not enabled on your browser).

Please note, this system has been developed as an experiment in how to design complex control using simple JavaScript functions – we'd welcome any (constructive!) comments that you have on it (please email us – info☮fraw.org.uk)


Text-only navigation

Lynx screenshot image FRAW has been designed so that it is accessible using text-only web browsers. As part of our emphasis on simplicity in design the site we have constructed is not only very lightweight; you can even view it using a text-only browser. There are various text-only browsers around – for example the Lynx browser (the image on the left shows a screenshot of the main index of the FAW site in the Lynx browser).

"What", you may ask, "is the point of browsing the web in text-only mode?". Well, firstly, what if your graphical interface wasn't working? – it's still possible to access the web and get help to solve the problem without a graphical browser. Secondly, for those who have very limited computing resources, it's possible that a fully-functional graphical browser would run very slowly, in which case if you just wanted to download a file it could be a whole lot quicker to access the site using a text-only browser. However, perhaps the greatest benefit we see of designing for text-only access is that, for the visually impaired who are using screen reading programs to present the content of the site, designing for clear interpretation in a text-only frame ensures that the design is not too complex for screen reading software to interpret.

Finally please note, if you are using a text-only interface, you should be able to use the simple 'button' controls of the navigation frame, but you're unlikely to be able to use the JavaScript-enabled selection and key indes boxes. However, if you click the 'Site' button and go to the FRAW site index you'll have a simple, text-only link to every major resource on the whole web site to choose from.



Ripping and mirroring

As the site is created with static pages and indexes, anyone wishing to take a copy of large sections of the site will find this very easy to do. The five main sections are also organised as simple branching sets of index pages, meaning that the content should download and convert easily for off-line browsing. We don't limit access to the site for "robots", and so any site ripping program, for example Wget could easily access and store the site's content.

For those wishing to rip/download parts of the site to mirror, we have no objection provided that you observe the terms of the open licenses that apply to the content of the FRAW site. Also, if mirroring, please pay us the courtesy of linking back to our site, and also regularly checking back for updates to the material that you are mirroring.




Creative Commons 'cc-by-nc-sa' Logo Firefox 48x48 icon Logo The Free Range Activism Website (FRAW) – http://www.fraw.org.uk/
© 1996-2012, Paul Mobbs/The Free Range Network. The content of this site is released under open copyright licences. For further information about this site contact the Free Range Network. This site has been designed and optimised for use with the Firefox and other open source/standards compliant web browsers running under Gnu/Linux.