Website - Technical Information:

This page tries to give some information as to how it was created and how it should work, but I'm not guaranteeing anything!!

In November 2005 the website was placed on better servers, so we have access to more features and a lot more space. This has resulted in improved member login section and vastly improved members area (with huge online/digitised library), plus various other minor improvements.
In October 2010 the webspace we had was full and thus an even greater amount of space was acquired. A decision was taken in October 2012 to move hosting, going for a package with similar features but costing less. We also decided to implement our own forum rather than relying on one hosted elsewhere.

This present incarnation of the website has not been tested on a full range of browsers, the main browsers (IE/FF/Chrome) have been tested to some degree.

Browser Compatibility and known issues

• Unfortunately we do not have the time or resources to check and test every browser (and version) available.. We do try to make sure it is compatible on the common browsers. If anyone uses this site and finds an issue with their browser please get in touch and provide details of your browser, the page you were trying to view etc.
• Internet Explorer (9) - the main browser for testing the website. Since the website was created Internet Explorer has been by far the most popular used browsers to view this website according to our stats. MetOffice Widget appears to be displayed incorrectly under IE9 (as of 2012 this issue appears to be resolved).
  Known issue with IE8 and the FAQ page; page width results in scrollbar appearing along bottom (unresolved at present).
  Known issue with IE7 and the menu, sub-menu items fail to show, unresolved and unlikely to be as 7 has been superceded twice.
• Mozilla Firefox (3.6) - everything was ok.
• Google Chrome (22.0.1229) - everything appears to work correctly.
• Opera (unknown version number) - reports suggest the website works better since the 2010 update.
• Mobile Browsers - we believe it works ok on IPhones and Android devices (obviously we can't test a full range of mobile devices) - there is no specific mobile site or mobile CSS but we try to maintain the website to standards and keep file sizes (HTML/CSS and graphics) small, which all help compatibilty / accessibility and speed.

HTML Compliance and Cascading Style Sheet information

• As of Nov 2010 we have tried to maintain pages to "X-HTML 1.0 Transitional" standard, most pages conform to this as checked using the W3C validator, the exception being a small bit of external supplied code for the gallery page slideshow and the Trip Reports section (being worked upon as of Dec 2010)
• CSS is used on this website on all pages and almost validates to CSS2.1 using the W3C validator - the only notable issues are Opacity, Overflow-y, Box-Shadow and Border-Radius (and the browser specific implementations) which are to be implemented in CSS3 (newer versions of the popular browsers interpret these as expected, older versions may not)

JavaScript information

• JavaScript is used on this website for a couple of purposes..
• The few email addresses that are displayed are done so using JavaScript along with some ASCII encoding to avoid some spambots, basic but helpful protection against the email harvesters.
• The FAQ page uses JS to open and close the questions.

Websites utilised

• Flickr and Photobucket for caving photo-archive and other photo archive.
• Facebook - in ~2009 we gained a page on this popular social networking site.
• Twitter - in November 2010 we started using Twitter for occasional short announcements.

Software and resources used over the years

• HTML Kit at present for the creation of webpages and style sheets (previously MS FrontPage and ACE-Expert)
• W3C website validator for maintaining basic standards (previously used CSE HTML Validator Pro)
• Interent Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome all in various incarnations for checking the site on different browsers to ensure as much compatibility as possible
• Photo Filtre for graphics related work (previously used Adobe photoshop, Micrografix picture publisher)
• Xara3D 3 for creation of the trip reports header image
• CSS Play - very useful for CSS, menu utilises code from here
• Many other website resources - too many to list, CSS based sites have been commonly visited!

Thanks go out to :-

• All the BRCC members past and present for comments and suggestions on all aspects of the website and for putting up with pictures being taken in the caves, also thanks for submitting pictures and for writing reports which help make this site what it is now.
• Numerous people that have admitted to looking at the website, some even finding it useful, makes the job of maintaining the site more worthwhile.
• All the other people and websites that have given me ideas on how to maintain the site to an acceptable level!