http://www.nibbleguru.com/

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2003 2:40 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

Hey buddies.
I made a new design for http://www.nibbleguru.com/ and is live. The template I made is XHTML 1.1 Strict , no tables. I am not very happy with the design though, comparing to what I made with tables Smile

I know its not easy to have XHTML 1.1 Strict/table-less and a nice design go hand in hand, but something definately can be made better.
I will be happy to listen to all sorts of criticisms. Go ahead ...

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 12:59 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

first thing that hit me was the header...I think the "Home" and "Contact Me" boxes should be a couple of pixels lower, so they're in contact with the divider. I also think the background of everything above the header should be a different colour to the rest of the page...maybe white, not sure, but definately something lighter. You should also change the a:HOVER properties for the site name, the dark red / underline just doesn't fit in.

I'm also not sure about the large first letters of paragraphs, it's cool and all but it makes it hard to read sometimes (like where you've written "I installed" it looks like "Iinstalled"). You should change the MT posted line so that it's smaller than what's in blogbody, so you can tell it's not part of the post. The grey text in the footer is also hard to read, maybe make it a tad darker (#999999 might look good, if that's the shade I think it is).

The search page is something you should look into changing. You can't edit that directly though the MT interface, you need to upload a template file and edit one of the config files - it's not hard, I can give more details if you like. Also, now that I look, you should update the individual entry / category layouts as well.

I think that just about covers it all Very Happy

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:03 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

also, validate your XHTML, there are three errors. perhaps xhtml 1.1 transitional is a better idea, as that is what MT uses by default so you won't have any problems.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:17 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

The think abt the gap in the header and tabs. Thats problem in IE5. IE6 and Firebird (now my default browser) have it pretty good. you will notice a couple more changes with them specially in the tabs and the links in the right.
well i will change other templates (search,comments,trackbacks,archives,...) from defaults when i am into a good template.

saw the 3 errors right now. the template was validating xhtml 1.1 strict.

one is: <a name="000007"></a> the name attribute should not be there. but if its not there. but for <a name="more"></a> it doesn't give an error Confused

any suggestions?

other is <pre> tag twice for which it says pre not allowed by document type. lemme change to div.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 1:51 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

is not taking div tag there either.
<div>
<p>
some text
<pre>code</pre>
some more text
</p>
</div>

tried div instead of pre, no luck. any suggestions?
MT uses xhtml 1.0 trans not xhtml 1.1 trans

EDIT:
made other changes. still no luck at removing the three errors. one for <a name...
and two for pre(or div) inside a p tag. help.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 2:00 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

have you tried:

Code:

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 2:06 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

not yet.
the <p> is being inseted by by MT itself. maybe i should do </p><pre> .... </pre><p> myself
lemme try

EDIT:
using it as you suggested. i forced the p tags to close and open again.
worked.

now the <a name="000007"> is giving error.
what does one use for internal linking if not anchor names ?

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 2:13 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

if that's in a post, just turn off "Convert Line Breaks" for that one entry and you can have better control.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 4:18 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

I said to myself STFW . and it worked. the name attribute has given way to ID. used it and all worked fine.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2003 5:44 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

ooh I see

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 4:56 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

I feel the professional touch is missing form the site.
Do I need to go back to tables-based layout, or can something be done?

Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2003 5:27 pm (20 years, 5 months ago)

Personally, I think its lacking a bit of substance. Its all very black and white and is essentially just a page of text floating around.

I feel the header could be a bit more intersting, maybe a different colour?? It might also be nice to introduce a graphic for your logo/site name. Even if its just so you can have it in a slightly more unusual font.

I also agree with Adam about the large 1st characters, apart from the fact they seem a bit low (thats possibly my browser)and they don't work particularly well with short paragraphs, but it also makes things seem a little old fashioned.

What about some kind of dividing rule between the entries? just to help break the text up. You could make it functional by including a link back to the top, useful on a long page.

You might also consider having a small border of a different colour around the whole page, say about 10px, possibly the green you have used elsewhere? Kind of like this forum has it.

Hope that helps...

Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2003 6:45 am (20 years, 5 months ago)

How about this old one that uses tables and is XHTML 1.0 trans.

edit:
will look better in IE.
not difficult to get same look in firebird. its almost same right now. with right column a bit uncool look Smile

edit2:
made the above suggested changes as well in the original page. except for colored tabs. if i have many tabs like in the old design, will lot of colors look good?
8 tabs will mean 8 colors.