Review My test site please

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Just wondering if anyone could comment on the design of my own web services site, nowhere near finished, just wanted to have some comments on it, only two pages are up at the moment

the main page :

http://www.hostrocket.info/jsn/index.php

And the style for other pages :

http://www.hostrocket.info/jsn/template.php

Comments?

PS: Slow Server, I know, but I can't moan, Hostrocket are giving me space free for a few weeks

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

I really like your logo, and the color scheme.

The site didn't actually load slowly!

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Been slow all day here, probbably my connection then , Graphics Created with Xara Webstyle 2, is quite good, only have it on 15 day trial though Sad

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

I have the full version of Webstyle, but it's version 1.2. I also have a trial of Webstyle 2.

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Yeah I have the full version of WebStyle 1.2 *cough* with all the templates, (there are some cover cd versions going around with only 50% of the templates on)

My trial of 2.0 only comes with a few graphics per graphic type, I may shell out £49 for the full version when I can afford it, as it's a good program, simple and easy to create graphics with.

If only I had a trial version with all the graphics, I certainly wouldn't shell out £49 to get the full version...........

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2002 4:58 pm (22 years, 1 month ago)

i really didn't like the white on blue for your main message.

however, like Daniel, I'd say your logo was tastefully done.

and yes, it was a bit slow for me (but like u, it might just be my ISP)

and with NN4.7, it looks good too but that little image just above the Support Forums? it's right up there with your logo! Shocked

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Points taken - Fix In Progress

WebHelper Joined: 08 Jan 2002 Posts: 69 Location: Ireland

I like the design, professional yet compact.

Just a few things to say though.
1) A bit more white-space. Your page fills up the entire browser window (at the res I'm using), and there is text or images everywhere. I suggest a bit more breating room.

2) The main table design is nice, but could I suggest a some cellpadding. Looking at your siite in Netscape, Konqueror & Opera 5, the text begins at the very margin of the page. Perhaps indent the text in the main bluey section.

3) With your design, I'm sure you could have a table of 100% width, and let the browser dynamically resize it to fit the surfer's resolution. Even just to centre the main bit, so that those on larger resolutions feel comfortable reading it.

4) In your style sheet, for the font family, specify another font or 2 along with Tahoma. For some reason, Netscape 4.7 on Linux used Courier instead. Always have Sans-Sterif last for safety.

5) Considering you bothered with a style sheet in the first place, your HTML contains a lot of FONT tags. And you've changed font to Verdana! Should the tags all be in lower-case, to comply with XHTML specs?

6) You've used few images, I like that, along with every other dial-up connector. But your code is full of tables? Are they all necessary? Sharpen up the code if possible. Take another look at the terms page code, the blue sidebar stretches half way across the screen in Netscape 4.7.

Your design is good, I lke the logo especially. If you just tidy up your code, it will be very professional. Employers will look at the source for your webpage to see if it's tidy, nicely indented etc..

First impresssions last.

Also I noticed somewhere you said your Netscape surfers should change to IE. Sure only 4% use it anyway. But cross browser compatibility is important, even though it's a drag. Microsoft has advanced cross-browser functionality implimented in it's .NET scheme. And we all know how much M$ loves Netscape etc...

Good luck with the job

Garth Farley

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Garth Farley wrote:

I like the design, professional yet compact.

Just a few things to say though.
1) A bit more white-space. Your page fills up the entire browser window (at the res I'm using), and there is text or images everywhere. I suggest a bit more breating room.

I am going to try and fiddle about with the Front Page a bit in the next few days, and I'll see what I can come up with.

Quote:

2) The main table design is nice, but could I suggest a some cellpadding. Looking at your site in Netscape, Konqueror & Opera 5, the text begins at the very margin of the page. Perhaps indent the text in the main bluey section.

Text now indented on left and right side of the main table, Cell padding was an option, but this would interfere with borders and un-neaten the design a little

Quote:

3) With your design, I'm sure you could have a table of 100% width, and let the browser dynamically resize it to fit the surfer's resolution. Even just to centre the main bit, so that those on larger resolutions feel comfortable reading it.

Have Tried playing about with the code, but Dreamweaver which it originally started on put all these spacers on, I can seem to get everything apart from the main body bit to strech 100% of the screen.

However, pages will now appear in the centre of the screen rather than on the left at resolutions of 1,024x768 and above.

Quote:

4) In your style sheet, for the font family, specify another font or 2 along with Tahoma. For some reason, Netscape 4.7 on Linux used Courier instead. Always have Sans-Sterif last for safety.

Strange, as it is listed as Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, can't see why you got courier, have now added Sans Serif to the list.

Quote:

5) Considering you bothered with a style sheet in the first place, your HTML contains a lot of FONT tags. And you've changed font to Verdana! Should the tags all be in lower-case, to comply with XHTML specs?

Thats FrontPage for you, keeps putting all the tags in caps, and everytime I change them, next time I save it changes them back Sad

as for the changing to Verdana, you should see a bit of an improvement on the Front Page now Smile

Quote:

6) You've used few images, I like that, along with every other dial-up connector. But your code is full of tables? Are they all necessary? Sharpen up the code if possible.

I am looking at the code all of the time, It's nowhere near finished yet, and it's being optimised all the time, there are a few more tables, and too many references for my liking of spacer.gif!

Quote:

Take another look at the terms page code, the blue sidebar stretches half way across the screen in Netscape 4.7.

Looks fine in later versions, any place that I can get Netscape 4.77, as I don't think NS will offer it for download anymore.

Quote:

Also I noticed somewhere you said your Netscape surfers should change to IE. Sure only 4% use it anyway. But cross browser compatibility is important, even though it's a drag. Microsoft has advanced cross-browser functionality implimented in it's .NET scheme. And we all know how much M$ loves Netscape etc...

Yes, I am testing this with as many browsers as I can over the next few weeks, and want it to work in Netscape 4, Netscape 6, IE 4.01 & above as well as Opera before I release it.

It's only been up a few days, but thanks for the comments, Gives me valuable feedback so I can improve the site Smile

Team Member Joined: 06 Jan 2002 Posts: 2564

Justin wrote:

Strange, as it is listed as Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, can't see why you got courier, have now added Sans Serif to the list.

Maybe because Verdana, Tahoma & Arial aren't available on Linux? Smile

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

Just for all your information, the Front Page is being recoded from scratch!, BY HAND!

4WebHelp Addict Joined: 07 Jan 2002 Posts: 1060

New version now uploaded, I think most of the bugs are now out of the front page, also, may notice a increase in speed loading, was 22kb, now 12kb, without losing any content and it looks better too Smile

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2002 8:07 pm (22 years, 1 month ago)

looks nice

WebHelper Joined: 08 Jan 2002 Posts: 69 Location: Ireland

Quote:

Maybe because Verdana, Tahoma & Arial aren't available on Linux?

AFAIK, latest versions of Linux have the standard TrueType fonts

And they are displayed properly in the other browsers.

Yes Justin, it's looking much cleaner now.

Just one other thing, I read somewhere that web-sirfers today have a peculiarity with links. Aparantly, people don't really notice that links are links unless they do something. It was suggested in a magazine and on Webmasterbase.com (very good design tips) that the underline should appear or the text should change colour. Could you do something about the nav bar?

Also you should define the UL tag's text font, the bulletted text still appearss in Courier. And the welcome to JSN webservices logo appears in the middle of the text in Netscape 4.7.

Otherwise good improvements.

Garth Farley

Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2002 1:52 pm (22 years, 1 month ago)

Justin wrote:

Thats FrontPage for you, keeps putting all the tags in caps, and everytime I change them, next time I save it changes them back Sad

as for the changing to Verdana, you should see a bit of an improvement on the Front Page now Smile

i haven't used MS fontpage in the longest time BUT i remember that you can specify whether tags/attributes are formatted lowercase - try Options or Page Options from the Tools menu...

<added>pity that this thread is in the ChitChat forum, it has some relevant tips and useful feedback

<Mod Edit>Moved to HTML & CSS</Mod Edit>