Test & critique my site(s)

[d000hg]

I've rebuilt this site using CSS-P, comments and problems found please? It should work on IE/netscape/IE(mac) properly I believe...

[Nightfire]

Your logo isn't round. Reminds me of spectrum +2 graphics.

You got the html4 validation logo, but it doesn't validate http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=ht...tionNumber%3D0

http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//www26.brinkster.com/johndexter/bteam/project/noasp/

[d000hg]

The files validate on my HD, but the banner ads are not compliant. I think I may just pay to lose them - is $2 per month for no ads reasonable? If anyone knows a very cheap host supporting PHP and ASP...
The logo - I have no idea why that should be. I'm just setting the width to x%, thinking the height will scale automatically (it does on IE6), can I explicitly tell it to keep the correct ratio?

[Kiwi]

I have to scroll both the menu and the content (viewing in 800x640). There isn't much content on the pages, so this should be easily viewable in one page on this resolution. Dropping the font size, killing the banners, cleaning up the logos and getting rid of the validation logos would be a good start (if you're not targeting technical people, your audience won't care if the site validates or not). I would also suggest getting rid of the frames; they seem unnecessary and will cause you problems with search engines (which I expect you will want to get the site into).

If you want to run a commerical site, even vaguely commercial, it would definately be worth getting a real host -- to kill off the banners if nothing else. Supanames might be worth a look. Someone else might be able to suggest something better.

On a different note, I'm not entirely sure what the purpose of the site is. It seems to be a resource centre for graduates looking to work in small businesses. The only function of the site seems to be to offer a link to another site (secure your success). Most of the links I noticed on the other page are to GAP and general graduate support programmes, until you scroll down and get to a bunch of institutions that support SMEs. If nothing else, these might be more nicely categorised. I can't help but feel that there's the potential for a lot more to be done with this site.

[d000hg]

Thanks for your input. I'm not sure what to do about fitting everything into the page - on 1024x768 the font is quite small already, although I guess it could go down a notch.
The main frame shouldn't have a horizontal scroll bar but for some reason it oes just a little even when the banner is totally in view. Seems to only happen on pages with <div>s containing quotes/images but I don't know why. The logo should scale to fit the navbar frame and the validation buttons are only 80ish pixels wide unless you meant the navbar scrolls vertically?

I' not too hot on frames but I really want the effect I have where the navbar doesn't scroll downwards with the main section - the main page scrolling downwards isn't an issue because it demonstrates this.

This site is not a 'real one' per se, but a presentation (hence the validation logos to the make the point I bothered to follow the standards). I've been given the content to build the site around so its usefulness in that sense isn't an issue. Losing the banners would be a good idea I agree though.

Many thanks again.

[mindlessLemming]

Originally posted by d000hg
I' not too hot on frames but I really want the effect I have where the navbar doesn't scroll downwards with the main section - the main page scrolling downwards isn't an issue because it demonstrates this.

Well if that's all you're after, how about using a fixed height <div> for you content with overflow:auto; in its CSS?
This will unfortunately disable the users mouse scroll wheel (unless they click within div), but that may be a better alternative to the &uuml;ber-framerama your currently have. That will also sort your horiz. scrolling nav issue.

Andrew.

"&uuml;ber-framerama" - I like that one, I'm gonna use it more often.

[d000hg]

You mean have two divs for navbar and content pages, or the normal page with a div for the navbar? I tried I think but the navbar div always scrolled with the content one. How can I 'lock' a div in place relative to the top of the window not the document? Could you put maybe a very simple skeleton of how I'd have the divs set up and the styles they'd need? CSS rather than frames would be ideal if I could just get it to work!

[mindlessLemming]

ok, here's a very rough skeleton diagram.
How about you delete the other thread you started about this exact topic, and we sort it out in this one. (Double posting is not considered real cosher round these parts )
Andrew.

[d000hg]

Thanks that looks good. It was meant to be taking the question somewhere more suitable rather than cross-posting, will sort that out...

I see why the horizontal scroll bars appear - when a vertical bar is needed it takes up some of the page width and therefore IE says 'hmm, need a horizontal bar too'. How can I get around this as it's really annoying?

[mindlessLemming]

You get past this by leaving 10-12px of "white-space" to the right of your nav. Obvious, but effective

Now once you have a basic (x)html/css shell for your new layout just watch how quick we all jump aboard to help

[d000hg]

The thing is the right-hand frame does this too. How can I make them both work right (& how can I get 12px of whitespace - margin/padding values?)

[mindlessLemming]

How about a link or posting your code?

[me']

By the way, position: absolute isn't all you need to make a <div> stay in a fixed position. You should use position: fixed; but that won't work in IE, so use this as a hack to make it cross-browser.

[d000hg]

That seems to be exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! The only problem now - I want the main div to hold the contents of some page depending on which link you click on. I don't want to have every page containing all those divs and the navbar as that's most inefficient. With frames the navbar and page content are separate - how could I get the same effect here please? Or should I start this as a new thread for ASP/PHP forum maybe?