So, I woke up yesterday morning to a wonderful surprise. I've been dug. And with it, my hits have gone through the roof. In just 48 hours, I've had 30,000+ visitors! That's more than I've gotten since I set up the site 5 years ago.
I appreciate all the positive comments and suggestions. I haven't had time to read through them all yet, but I will! I must say, however, that I never claimed to be a programmer or that my time sensitive style switcher was groundbreaking new technology.
The point of my original post was to share something with you all that I had been unable to find after days and days of searching online. If I had trouble finding a solution, I'm sure others have had similar difficulties, so I wanted to share my success.
There may be other ways to do it (and I notice that a few of my commenters have indeed implemented similar features on their own websites). I look forward to testing out some of their other techniques, and if I find one that works better than my current code, I'm not too proud to make some changes. I'll keep you all updated.
One interesting comment came from a guy who tweaked my code to eliminate the document.write (which has been the subject of quite a few derogatory comments by diggers) and made a demo where you can see my site progress through all the stylesheets. (Thanks Joseph!)
Also, I'm so embarrassed that my site is still a bit of a mess. I hadn't quite finished with the redesign, so many interior pages still use the old layout. If I had known I'd be having so many visitors this weekend, I would have been sure to get it all cleaned up! But I hope it hasn't distracted from your enjoyment of my site.
Labels: Digg, Javascript, Just Want to Brag, Web Design
Sunrise
Morning
Noon
Afternoon
Sunset
TwilightWhen I set out to redesign this site, I had an idea: Could I make the stylesheet change based on the hour of the day? Sounds easy enough, right? So, I started searching the Internet for some code I could use. I'm a novice when it comes to javascript and php, so I was hoping to find some "plug and play" code, so to speak.
I found code to switch styles based on day of the week, and month of the year, but not time of the day. The month/day code all used php, which used the SERVER time. So, it would switch styles based on the time stamp of the server where my website was hosted. But, since my styles were of the morning/noon/night variety, that wouldn't work. I was told I would have to use javascript, a client-side code, so it would work based on visitors' local time.
So, I began posting in various forums, hoping to find someone to help me. Still, no luck. I was beginning to think I would have to abandon the idea.
But I just couldn't let it go. I was like a dog with a bone. I kept searching...hoping that somehow I would find a buried treasure somewhere online. I was about to give up when I decided to ask one of my coworkers, a web programmer. I felt guilty asking for his help on a personal project, but I got over it!
Sure enough, in just a few minutes, he whipped out some code and told me to give it a try. And it worked! I was giddy. I awaited the turn of the hour, so I could see the magic in action. At 3 pm, I hit refresh, and voila. The stylesheet changed from my blue "noon" theme, to the blue/orange "afternoon" theme.
I have six different stylesheets. See the thumbnails at right.
- From 5 am to 8 am, it displays the "sunrise" theme.
- From 8 am to 12 pm, it displays the "morning" theme.
- From 12 pm to 3 pm, it displays the "noon" theme.
- From 3 pm to 6 pm, it displays the "afternoon" theme.
- From 6 pm to 9 pm, it displays the "sunset" theme.
- And finally, from 9 pm to 5 am, it displays the "twilight" theme.
Here's the code I used to make it happen:
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!-- Begin
function getCSS()
{
datetoday = new Date();
timenow=datetoday.getTime();
datetoday.setTime(timenow);
thehour = datetoday.getHours();
if (thehour > 20)
display = "tree_twilight.css";
else if (thehour > 17)
display = "tree_sunset.css";
else if (thehour > 14)
display = "tree_afternoon.css";
else if (thehour > 11)
display = "tree_noon.css";
else if (thehour > 7)
display = "tree_morning.css";
else if (thehour > 4)
display = "tree_sunrise.css";
else if (thehour > 1)
display = "tree_twilight.css";
else
display = "tree_sunset.css";
var css = '<'; css+='link rel="stylesheet" href=' + display + ' \/'; css+='>';
document.write(css);
// End -->
}
</script>
<script language="javascript">getCSS();</script>
You can select a default stylesheet, to account for folks with javascript disabled, by adding the following:
<noscript>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="tree_sunset.css" type="text/css">
</noscript>
Before I go, I must give credit to that coworker I was talking about. His name's Fidel. Check out his website at
http://www.eriwebdesigns.comLabels: Javascript, Just Want to Brag, Web Design
