Site review...

[Nightfire]

Just got the basics of my site up and just wondering if anyone can tell me what's missing. No matter how hard I look at it, I just can't find it. Something just doesn't look right.

http://nightfire.org.uk

[newmand2]

As you already say on the site, It needs content. Perhaps a bit more colour? I've personally liked greys alot, but with perhaps a few dashes of colour

[ronaldb66]

Crayons?

Color, that's what it's lacking! and perhaps a little heading styling (border, background color, background image?).

[Ember~Daze]

Yes, color would do it well. Maybe some more "images" would be nice. Your loading time is great (and I'm on 28.8 dial-up) so I don't think a small picture here or there would hurt. They'd just have to be implemented in the correct spots to achieve that "nothing's missing" look. For example, maybe an image aligned to the right side of the top section/banner/header (whatever you please to call it that fades to white as it draws closer to the 'NightFire' text on the left.

Also, Yes. You could change the color of the news headings to something that stands out from the news content. That would be nice. Some darker tones in the main body section would be good for contrast too.

Hmmm... that's all I can think right now. Good job though.

[MysteryMan]

Night - I think that your choice of white, grey, and black is excellent.

It has a very ethereal look.

I think what you need to do is not have the site span the entire width. You ought to focus it in on 75% of the page, in the center.

And make the background grey, the center white, and white entry backgrounds with black text.

Then what you should do is make ONLY the main banner some outrageously shiny colors. This will give it attraction, but keep the relaxing ethereal look on the rest.

That will put you at an awesome looking site. Otherwise you have the same taste as me, I like it!

[Nightfire]

Is this any better?

I can't seem to get the maindiv to center align in IE though Anyone know why?

http://nightfire.org.uk/style.css

[MysteryMan]

No that looks worse.

If you want it center just put center tags!

It's easy

The red looks bad - it looks nicer with grey, black, and white....

[Nightfire]

If I use center tags then I won't be using xhtml anymore, I'd be using tag soup

I'll change the red

[oracleguy]

Originally posted by MysteryMan
No that looks worse.

If you want it center just put center tags!

It's easy

Except that the <center></center> tag was deprecated long before the XHTML 1.1 doctype he is using was made.

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by MysteryMan
If you want it center just put center tags!

Which has been deprecated, I believe.

Try adding text-align: center; to your body styles. You may have to add some text-align: left;'s to some other stuff, but that should do it.

And I agree the red looks kinda... well... yeah.

[Nightfire]

Ta Paul, that did the trick. *Shaking head and fist at IE* I remember when NS was the pain in the rear to code for and everything worked in IE, seems everything's done a back flip

[Paul Jr]

Originally posted by Nightfire
Ta Paul, that did the trick. *Shaking head and fist at IE* I remember when NS was the pain in the rear to code for and everything worked in IE, seems everything's done a back flip

Nice.
Yeah... too bad we couldn't get rid of IE... once and for all. *Evil genius look*

Dig the design, I love the white and gray and black!

[MysteryMan]

Oh sorry.

I stopped design many years ago

So now, help me out - xhtml is used now, not html?

Doesn't things like php etc.. get translated down into html for the computer?

[Nightfire]

xhtml is now the modern language to use, it helps you code for cross-browser compatability, wap phones, pda's etc. It saves on bandwidth, as your page size will be about 70% smaller than using just html. It makes site changes very easy, as your content and styles are separated. It's not really that much different from html, but is worth learning http://www.w3schools.com/ have some good tutorials on xhtml

php doesn't know what html is php runs on the server and only knows the 'server code'. You can have php print out whatever you want to and it won't complain

[mindlessLemming]

How about a simple bg image around the content?
Here's a quick try and a sample of what it looks like in your site.
I like it