Talk:The County Families of the Zetland Islands

Nice, ;-)!!,
Just a suggestion, if you type a capital 'T' in 'thumb', you will get rid of the frame around the pages (pis),....I think that might look better in this case, where there is no need for captions under the pic.
Cheers, --Oddrun 15:26, 16 September 2008 (MDT)

Thanks for the tip Oddrun ! I'll change that. It's a pity there are odd page numbers, it would look neater if they were all in threes across the page.;-(
Heimdal 15:48, 16 September 2008 (MDT)

Firefox/Flock is weird,,,, for some strange reason the vertical bar missing on image 17 made no odds to IE, but totally screwed the page on Flock.
Great page Heimdal. :-) :-)
Robbie 22:11, 16 September 2008 (MDT)

Additional Pages..

Noticed you mention this.
This is maybe easier than the Sixareen, as split points could be for a surname, eg. Bruces' could maybe all fit on one page, etc. ?? Ghostrider may have a better idea than me, as he knows more about the old families, and may see an easier way to do it.
Either way, just create a new page with the same name, but with a page 2 or part 2 after it, such as:
The County Families of the Zetland Islands - Part 2
Then links can be added from the first page. There might even be a new way of doing those links, better than the Sixareen layout at the moment. I had been planning a possible change for the way those links work, so I'll give it a bit more thought.
Robbie 13:34, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

Heimdal,
I've just had a potentially brilliant brainwave,, I know that is rare ;-)
But there is an obvious way to format this subject.
If the first page were to contain the preface, possible written out as a header, with the picture of the book cover. Then below that, instead of the pictures of the contents pages, write out the contents list just as it appears on the pages, but each item in the contents list would be a link to an individual page containing the pictures of the pages for that family from the book.
Hope that makes sense :-)
The benefits of doing it this way is that the pages will all be relatively small, so no problem with loading even on dial-up. And also it makes it easier to add links to other pages concerning each individual family.
Only downside I can see is that the page names, eg. Bruce of Muness, might conflict with any page Ghostrider has already made about an old family, so perhaps the page would have to be named something like Bruce of Muness - From Grant's Book,, if you see what I mean.
What do you think?
Braincell switched off again now,, brainwaves like that hurt. ;-) :-))))
Robbie 13:47, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

Yes, makes sense to have the pages indexed like that. Links to shorter pages rather than having long pages with several families on the one page would be a bit neater. I don't think any family has more than 8 pages, some are just one or two.
Heimdal 14:22, 18 September 2008 (MDT)
^ ^ ^ For 'pages' read jpgs ;-))
Heimdal 14:32, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

Oddrun just commented that creating a home grown index like that could also gives the potential to link to many more pages.
If you want I can have a play with an example/test page at the weekend. At least that would give us an idea of what it could look like, then we can take it from there.
Hopefully it will give me some ideas how to sort out the Sixareen page. ;-)
Robbie 14:42, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

Yes, writing out the preface just now and noticed Rev Thomas Mathewson mentioned ;need to check but I think he was minister at St Coleman's and also had a bookshop in LK and published postcards. I think I will change the intro a bit, deleting the preface jpg and substitute the written one, also maybe delete the 'contents'jpgs and write them out line by line for linking to as they appear as I get them scanned.
Heimdal 15:13, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

Moved things around a bit and think 4-across looks better,but I think I will have to re-scan the pages before Bruce of Urie as they look a bit of a mess, being different heights/widths. For Urie and on I used a paper mask on the scanner so all the scans appear the same size and I think that looks a bit neater.
Heimdal 15:59, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

I think I've seen the name Mathewson on some old postcards, now you mention it :-)
I'll bet there are quite a few of those names mentioned in the preface which can be linked, they all look to be very familiar names.
The 4 across doesn't work with Firefox or IE. Well not on a standard screen size. But that doesn't matter really because making each family section into a page of its own means that you could even make the pictures 2 abreast, perhaps at 350px.
I would suggest that the pages should be created with names just as they appear in the sections, but with - Grant's County Families added to the name. eg:
[[The Subscribers to the first 200 copies - Grant's County Families]]
[[The Earldom of Orkney and Lordship of Shetland - Grant's County Families]]
etc...
It means making each link to a page a double barreled link with a vertical bar, eg.:
[[The Subscribers to the first 200 copies - Grant's County Families|The Subscribers to the first 200 copies]]
etc..
Do you think that a new category, Grant's County Families should be added for these pages? It might help viewers if they happen to hit an individual page from a search engine, and then want to see more.
I'm suggesting Grant's County Families rather than the full book title, purely because it looks better and I think that, as the common name, is most likely to get search hits. Although using either way of naming would look good, and the other name can be added as a hidden Keyword to the pages.
That's enough thinking out loud for this time of morning. ;-)
Maybe give you a few ideas. :-)

It's a big job you've taken on but it's looking good and I think will become a big success with online searches. :-)
Robbie 22:04, 18 September 2008 (MDT)

Heimdal,
I think that works now.
The categories for books still need a bit of a sort out. I think when Gary set up the category system for books, he must have been smoking his running socks ;-) :-)))
The sub-category Grant's County Families should help if somebody finds one page, then wants to find the rest of them.

Keywords.

Heimdal,
This is a great set of pages to use the keywords feature on, so I'll run through the text of the pages as I read them, which is a must, and add hidden keywords which may help anybody doing a search.
These pages are fantastic reading. I'm just a bit jealous that I don't have the book. ;-)
Robbie 13:58, 21 September 2008 (MDT)

Linking

In the Haa of Houss article the family name is directly linked to the appropriate Grant's page. I think it would be better in the long run if such links were to an appropriate page (in this case within the Category:Lairds of Shetland), which then provided the Grant's page as a reference link. So, the Haa of Houss article would link to the Sinclair of Houss, Aith and Scalloway page (in the category Category:Lairds of Shetland) which would provide the Sinclair of Houss, Aith, and Scalloway - Grant's County Families link.

Obviously at the moment there are many more families in the Grant's category than in the Lairds category but this can be gradually dealt with as necessary.

I haven't made the change yet in case you disagree with this reference structuring approach.
EM 06:17, 30 October 2008 (MDT)