web page generation for DNA projects

The Clan Donald is going to be puutting our DNA project on
the Web, and a goodly hunk of the job falls to me.

We are currently the largest project, and getting larger.
We are so large that we are going to go to a much larger
number of markers. We have not decided yet how many, but
it certainly will be 60 or more.

So the question arises "how to show all this data so that
it is convenient, user friendly, easy to see, does not take
forever to load, and works on ALL browsers without ugly
browser-specific code."

Joe Makowiec...

Good web design involves creating browser-agnostic code. In any case,
what you're talking about is far better done server-side, so the
browser will never see it.

One thing we would like to do is have the data ... the table
or markers ... scroll horizontally while leaving the name of
the member (and perhaps haplogroup, family line association,
etc.) stay put at the left of the page. Ideally there would
be columns at the top of the data giving the marker name
which would not scroll when one vertically scrolled through
the list of names.

Joe Makowiec...

In general, horizontal scrolling is frowned on. It's not that it's
necessarily bad; it's just that people have become adjusted to vertical
scrolling, and it's so much easier to do. (Check the scroll wheel on
your mouse...)

Doug McDonald...

Well, you may frown on horizontal scrolling, but its either
that or split the data into multiple tables that cannot be
viewed simultaneously on one screen. They could if the data
set was teensy, but it isn't ... currently it is a matrix of
some 300 high and 37 wide. Soon it will be 60 or more wide
and 400 or 500 or, hopefully, 1000 high. The 1000 will be
split up, however. The 60 or 88 or whatever really should
not be. I'm afraid that scrolling is the correct answer.

And oh yes ... we'd like all this to be automatically
generated from the data in Excel or some database.

Joe Makowiec...

You really don't want to use Excel for this. It can be used for web
databases, but it ain't fun.

Could you post a sample of the data, and maybe some idea of what you'd
like the page to look like?

Doug McDonald...

examples:

Which does not do vertical scrolling and thus is harder to
look at in toto

which does not do horizontal scrolling and is worse

and

which is provided by the testing company. Imagine what it
would be like with 60 or 80 vertical columns.

and finally a well-done one, fairly but not hugely large,
similar perhaps to what I want,

though I thinking of splitting it into pieces that
scroll vertically separately.

Also:
- What web resources do you have available?

Doug McDonald...

adequate, presumably

- Is this going to go onto an existing website?

Doug McDonald...

presumably, either the Clan Donald USA site of the
Clan Donald Edinburgh

However, Isn't it possible to have the whole project
split across web sites, that is, have all but the DNA
project on those sites and the DNA project on my site?
We've got resources galore.

- If so, what kind of scripting is available?

Doug McDonald...

I don't know, that is an interesting question for the
two Clan Donald sites. We've got everything or it can be
added ... we're huge.

Doug McDonald

singhals...

With a table of that size, you probably need to do some color-coding --
5 lines of color x as the background, 5 of white background type thing

Now in fact Excel itself does this scrolling beautifully, as
it has the ability to split the screen both horizontally and
vertically, and it "just works" just as I would want it!

I've been looking at Web page design, HTML, CSS, etc. and am
bemused and horrified.

Advice is requested!

Doug McDonald