This site grew from an idea suggested by Bee as we all discussed additional options to provide help to more Crosswinds members.  All of us in the Cadre have had our own sites on Crosswinds for a long time, and individually, we often included tutorials and links to Crosswinds help pages.  This is the first time we've pooled our resources to make one big support site for Crosswinds.

This is a collective site; we all contribute articles, tutorials, images, design ideas, coding, and advice.  Our work is based on years of accumulated experience designing websites and offering support to other web designers like you.

Browsers supported:  This site will display correctly in any browser which is at least CSS1 compliant.  We've done our best to test it in as many browsers as possible.  We try to practise what we preach; most pages validate as XHTML Transitional, and our stylesheets validate as CSS2.  Our pages are designed so that older browsers will still be able to view and use the information provided, although without CSS support, the layout will be quite plain.  If you find that something does not work for you, please contact us and let us know so we can correct it.

Technologies used:  The pages of this site are constructed "on the fly" using PHP templates and includes.  The navigation is also PHP-based, and PHP scripts process the mail forms.  (PHP is a server-side scripting method which, unlike Javascript and many DHTML effects, requires no extra browser resources.)  With rare exceptions, this site uses very little Javascript or other client-side scripting.  Most of the general site formatting -- including fonts, colors, layout, margins, etc. -- are managed through CSS files.  We've made every effort to make sure the stylesheets degrade nicely in older browsers.  The contents of this site, including all the tutorials, were typed by hand without the use of any "page builder" software.  Everything you see (including typos or funky coding) was put here lovingly by someone's hands in a text editor.  &:-)

Eye candy:  There isn't much.  In order to let our pages load quickly even for dialup viewers, we kept the images and fancy effects to a minimum.  We do have 4 logos (designed by Bee, Dearheart, llizard, and makwakwe) which are all so good we decided to use all of them. A PHP script randomly loads a different logo each time you reload any of our pages.  We also let you view our pages without the surfboard images (one large background image and a smaller one for the copyright at the bottom).  Just click the indicated link in the top righthand corner to remove them; if your browser accepts cookies, your choice will be remembered the next time you visit our site.

The site is an ongoing effort.  We hope you will make good use of it -- if it answers any questions you had, or solve a problem you ran into, then it has all been worth the effort.  New pages will be added as we are able to complete them, and new ideas are brewing all the time, so check back often.  If you have questions about anything on this site, or if you can't find something you need, drop us a note and send us your 2-cents worth.  (Only 2-cents though-- we're volunteers!   ;-)  )