Navigation
One of the things I wanted to achieve as part of the redesign was intuitive, consistent and easy navigation around the site. Hopefully as you've found this page this has been achieved, which kind of makes this page pointless! So, just for the fun of it and an excuse for some fancy floated screenshots, below are some notes on the various conventions used.

Main Navigation

The main Navigation buttons are located at the top left of each page and provide navigation to the whole of the site. They will provide a link to a specific page and may also provide a sub-menu of further selections available in that section, as shown in the image on the right.

The text darkens as you hover over a button and a 'push affect' is achieved by changing the button image as an item is selected. For the Sub-Menu the 'bullet' changes colour as you hover over a selection.

Breadcrumbs

At the top of each page, just below the Page title 'you are here' text is provided that allows you to see exactly where you are within the site and to retrace your steps if required. Links that you can navigate to are orange and will underline as you hover.

Text Links

Links within text are indicated with bold, italic text and will darken and underline as you hover, just like this one here: Home.

External Links, (i.e. links to pages that don't have navigation back to GarnerWeb) are indicated as above but also with a symbol in the top right like this one here: Firefox.

As targeting new windows for links is not the done thing¹, if you would like to keep GarnerWeb open whilst opening these links then assuming you are using a modern browser (IE7+, Firefox2+, or current versions of Safari or Opera) they are best viewed in a new Tab.

Did you know you can open new tabs by Centre Clicking ....that is, clicking on a link with your middle mouse button or Scroll wheel? Go ahead try it out on this link to the Wikipedia entry on the Mouse.

If you only have a two button mouse then you can Right-Click on a link and select 'Open Link in New Tab' from the context menu as seen here.

¹If you're really interested to know why opening new windows is not the done thing see this article The target attribute and opening new windows

Footer

As shown on the right, within the footer of each page there is some limited navigation to some key areas of the site. In addition links are provided to the W3C tools to validate both the XHTML and CSS of each page. These are best opened using the Centre Click method described above. As with the Breadcrumbs, the Links are orange and will underline as you hover.

Blog

When launched the Blog navigation looked something like the image on the right. I'm pleased to say that in August 2008 it was updated to match the rest of the site.